Save Movie Settings - Quality

[Guest]

When I saved a movie to My Computer using the recommended setting recently,
it seemed as if the colors were a bit washed out once I made my DVD using
MyDVD as I have done in the past. So I tried saving again, but this time I
saved using the high quality video NTSC setting when saving because I thought
that might help to make the colors as vivid as they appear in WMM. I was
surprised that the file size ended up being smaller when saving this way.
When saved in the "Recommended" way in WMM, the file size was 51.6 MB.
However, when saving the same file in High quality NTSC, the file size was
only 39.8. Apparently I am misunderstanding something about saving and what
setting to choose for best quality when saving to a DVD. Why is the file size
smaller when saving as high quality?

Also, in the past, I have used TMPGEnc and then made the DVD, but I thought
I would save a step and do the encoding through MyDVD. Does that make a
difference in color? The movie I am making now with the 2-step process (WMM
and MyDVD) is actually a revised version of one that I had previously made
with TMPGEnc. I am wondering if that extra step using TMPGEnc makes a
difference in the quality. Thank you.

 

[Dean Rowe [MS]]

The "High Quality" setting uses a variable bit rate profile, so the file
size will vary depending upon how well the codec can compress your content
so it doesn't necessarily produce a bigger file than the "Recommended"
choice. In your case if you really care about quality you may be better off
using TMPGEnc as it offers a lot of control on the birate and how the
content is encoded.
Regards
Dean Rowe
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Guest]

The best way to save as far as preserving quality is uncompressed.
Instead of saving as a WMV file, try saving as a DV-AVI file (I don't
believe this is uncompressed, but I think this is the least compressed
format) Obviously you'll
need sufficient disk space , and possible a NTFS file system if the size
would be over
4GB.
As far as WMV format goes, I don't think 'high quality NTSC' is the top
setting.
I'm trying to find this out myself, but it may be that the setting that
reads something like 'video for LAN or broadband 2.1 mbps' may be the least
compressed format for WMV. That would explain your quality loss.

You're not really saving a step by using TmpgEnc; you always have to encode.
You may be saving yourself some extra mouse clicks. I use Tmpg myself
(don't have MyDVD) and I don't have any problem with it.
Of course you have to determine the right bitrate and filters, if any.
Try saving it as DV-AVI if you have the space and see if your quality
improves.
Try a smaller sample if you don't have the disk space for the entire video.

 

[Guest]

Where can I find explanations of the differences between 'High quality' and
'Video for broadband 1.5', 'video for broadband 2.1' etc and which ones
compress more or less? Which one should be used for highest quailty?

Am I correct in stating that the least amount of compression (i.e loss)
would occur if you save the file as DV-AVI instead of WMV format?

thanks

 

[Dean Rowe [MS]]

I believe the Windows Media Encoder
(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx),
has good information on the different settings available in the
specification on the Windows Media Profiles.

As far as MovieMaker is concerned, the 1.5, 2.1 denote the bitrate used for
these profiles (these use a constant bitrate). The "High Quality" profile
uses a variable bit rate which is controlled by a "quality" settings.
(You'll see this mentioned in the help for the Windows Media Encoder). The
high quality profile used in MovieMaker uses a quality of 75 I believe which
I would argue is rather on the low side. However you can create custom
profiles with a higher quality, see this article for further details
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/expert/customprofile.mspx.
The higher the quality you specify the better the quality of the file and
the larger it will become.

If you're original video is DV, then saving as DV-AVI will still give you
the best quality at the expense of having a much bigger file.

Regards
Dean Rowe
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.