Best Quality or Best Performance. Which?

I am using iMovie to import a series of old videotapes and my question relates to producing the best possible output of these captured tapes from iDVD. So far it seems to me that the original tapes look better than their digital offspring written to DVD. Under Project info there are two encoding options, Best Performance and Best Quality. The help pages state or imply that Best Quality means just that. However that setting also produces smaller files, say 2.6Gb for an 83 minute recording as opposed to 4.6Gb when set to Best Performance. This doesn't seem to make sense as smaller files are presumably more compressed and therefore of lower quality. Can someone explain? What settings should I use?
Thanks.
Mac Pro   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

So if Best Quality uses a lower bitrate perhaps it should be called Less Quality
Bitrate isn't everything. A good encoder may well produce better quality with a lower bitrate than another encoder with a higher bitrate. And often good quality takes more time to encode, too.
I have done some tests and at least with that particular test material I got slightly better quality in a very few high-action scenes with Best Performance.
But since most of my DVDs are >60 minutes, I always use the Best Quality setting.
should a DVD from videotape have the same quality (good, bad or indifferent) as the original?
MPEG encoding compresses data so the quality will always suffer. But usually you don't notice it. It also depends on the input material: difficult to encode scenes include high action, noisy low-light scenes, water, smoke etc.
With Best Performance or with <75(-90) minutes' Best Quality the iDVD output quality has been OK for me.
But I'd wish iDVD used compressed audio because uncompressed PCM audio steals way too much bandwidth from video in long (90-120 min) DVDs!

Similar Messages

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    This earlier thread was marked "answered" but there still seems to be some confusion over these project settings. Here's what Ken Stone says at his idvd6 authoring site:
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    . . . . so Best Performance is for speed but "quality takes a bit of a hit" according to Stone. Not necessarily what I've been reading here on forum.

    What Mr Stone leaves out is that 'Best Quality' is for projects of between 61 and 120 minutes.
    If you project is longer than 60 minutes you don't have a choice but to use 'best quality'.
    IMO it takes an extremely eagle eye to notice the theoretical quality loss.

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    This is a serious question - why does iDVD bother to offer you a choice between "Best Quality" (BQ) and "Best Performance" (BP)?
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    Third, if your project is shorter than 60 mins, the consensus of other threads on this topic is that no-one can tell the difference between between BQ and BP, since the VBR of BQ is never higher than the CBR of BP. So again, the choice seems pointless, apart from enabling background encoding.
    So my proposal is: iDVD should bin this essentially meaningless and confusingly worded preference, and instead have a single check box "Enable background encoding, if possible" (ie, your project is shorter than 60 mins).
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    Ah, well yes I know how to feedback suggestions to Apple. My question here was - am I missing anything in suggesting they get rid of it? No point making a suggestion if I am inadequately informed, or no-one agrees it is a good idea.
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    I am curious as to which is the better setting?
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    A little background info: I am video taping a bands concerts and making DVDs for them. I want to give them best product that I can.
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    Keith and everyone who has chimed in:
    How do you format your external HD so that a PC will recognize the Mac OS extended format. I know my flash drives are recognized by both, but is it the same with the larger external drives. Just curious.
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    As far as raw footage to DVD being expensive...If I'm understanding you...12 GB=3 DVD's/concert x 10 concerts=30 total DVD's. With decent DVD's being less than $1 a piece, really doesn't seem that bad.
    Whatever method you use, get an external to back up your files!!
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    excellent post with profound knowledge, Len...
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  • Best performance vs. Best quality in iDVD Prefs!?

    What is the difference? i have selected "best quality" and see no difference in picture, but one can fit more onto a dvd with best quality vs. performance. what is the difference!? thanks!

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    [00:16:15.2725] [00:17:13.0799] [00:18:26.2418] [00:20:02.1206] [00:22:48.1704]
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    It took me a couple of weeks of futile attempts at Best Quality to figure this out. I am exhausted and don't have the energy to start deleting chapter markers one at a time to see if and when it will burn at Best Quality.
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    Hello Robert,
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    • OS X 10.4.x/QT 7.1.x/iLife 6
    I would also try to create a new iDVD project for your movie after deleting iDVD prefs and repairing permissions. Then try to create a disk image (if you didn't try that already)
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    mish

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