Encoding quality in DSP 4

Hello. I'm having trouble with the encoding quality in DSP. I exported a short film from FCP in DVC Pro HD format in quicktime. It looks great in the computer. However, when I import it into DSP and it encodes it, the final product looks very poor. For one, the titles look terrible and whenever there's movement the compression appears obvious to anyone. I've tried to get the best encoding and it looks the same. Is it a regular problem? Does this happen to all compressed footage? or am I doing something wrong? I even suspect that it looks better on iDVD.
thanx

Length is 28 minutes.
Bit rate 8.0 - Max Bit rate 8.6
Audio was mixed in FCP. Sample rate 48K 16 bit
Media is TDK DVD-R
the titles are generated from FCP
In both my computer screen (cinema display) and tv Sony Wega, the dvd version doesn't look professional-especially titles.
how do you do it to look great?
thanx

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Encoding Quality concerns

Hi all..
Am running iDVD `09 and have noticed allot of posts regarding which encoding quality "better" than another.
Apple's help, goes by what this forum claims, Best Quality: up to 60 minutes, High Quality: 60 to 120 minutes (1 to 2 hours), or Professional Quality: anything over.
However, Apple also goes by (and again probably this forum does too), those encoding settings are specified for single layer... No one mentions what quality for dual layer.
And all these settings are only applicable if you play the resulting DVD on your Mac. They don't mention of sharing or viewing on a standard HD TV.
Having said that, this poses a few questions:
1. If I select a certain quality, why would it be different viewing on a TV screen (CRT or LCD) vs viewing on your Mac ? I would think the quality would be the same as you've burned it that way.
2. I always use High Quality whenever possible (regardless of length), this is because I don't want to wait 4 hours just for something you can get about the same for 2. Plus, the quality is acceptable.. for me
I guess thats just me, but the first one is more important.
For example, my source movies are from VHS tape, Their recorded into mpeg2 format with EyeTV software from Elgato.
I then use iDVD to encode them in High Quality... Why would this quality be any different if I were viewing either on my mac, or viewing on my 32" Samsung LCD TV.?
Just find it interesting to see quality matters depends what your going to be viewing the final product on. For some reason, I just can't see why it would.

Encoding quality has nothing to do with what you are viewing your movie on. I'm not sure where you got that idea. To compress video, software analyzes images and motion. Mpeg2 is highly compressed, so it takes a long time to do this. If you do it quickly, it may result in visual artifacts. If you take a long time to do it, the software may be able to compress more efficiently, avoiding artifacts. You said that you feel that you get the same results in two hours as opposed to four. If you are using a short video, then the bitrate is high enough that the differences may be minimal. Or you may not be able to see them yourself, but someone else could. So if you are comfortable trading off quality for time, then you can use the encoding setting you like. But it has nothing to do with how you play it back.
Dual layer discs double the capacity, so you can double times you listed.
You talked about viewing on an HD tv; you understand that DVDs are only SD by definition, right?
Now, it is possible that DVDs will appear worse depending on how you watch them. There are a few reasons why this might be:
1. People get used to high definition broadcasts and Blu-ray discs, and forget how DVDs look by comparison. Or they may not have stared hard at a DVD the way they do while making their own DVDs. Then they want to know why their homemade DVDs look worse than any other Hollywood discs (with its professional lighting, colorists, directing, cameras etc.) This is sort of like wondering why the wall you just painted doesn't look even after two days of painting; you just might not examine someone else's wall as carefully.
2. Flat screen TVs are progressive, but DVDs are interlaced, as is our broadcast system. So HDTVs have deinterlacing circuitry which may do a good or poor job. Amateur footage (lots of shaky movement and rapid pans) can make interlacing artifacts look worse.
3. Some people try to preview their DVD on their computer, a high-resolution progressive display. A DVD looks awful in comparison with all those nice menus, pictures, and fonts. Also, they are sitting about twenty inches away.
So it is possible for the perception of quality to be different depending on your viewing device. But the encoding settings are about how the video is compressed to mpeg2.

Encoding Quality seems to have dropped off....

For about the past month, I've noticed that any videos that I encode from FCE, or from any program that uses Quicktime for that matter, have a significant amount of compression artifacts compared to videos encoded before that time using the exact same settings.
Has anyone else noticed a dropoff in encoding quality since the release of Quicktime 7.5?

Does this also happen with a hardwired / non WiFi device ?
Start with the modem's signal stats. Perhaps they already are, or they are close to being out of spec and intermittently they go completely of spec. Try getting them here http://192.168.100.1 or here http://10.0.0.1
Please post the *Downstream Power Level*, the *Upstream Power Level*, and the *SNR* (Signal to Noise Ratio) numbers.
What is the exact make and model number of the modem ?

Encoding quality

Hello, I would like to ask if some body know if its possible to make encoding of my HD footage in compressor and than burn it throw idvd without encoding in idvd. I think that encoding quality of idvd is not as good as compresors, even if I set professional quality. Thanks a lot.

I'm still working with FCP 4.5 and DVDSP 3 on this particular mac. Pro Quality in iDvd'08 approaches the same quality I get working with an older version/s of apple's pro apps. I have no way to compare the results to apple's latest version which is FCS 2.

Encoding Quality Resets!

I'm having a problem with iDVD '08 that the Encoding Quality Resets every time I open the project back up! I can't tell if it's effecting the current project or a project once it's been created, but whenever I open it I have to change the settings then start a new project to get the Encoding Quality I want. In past versions the Encoding Quality stuck from project to project.
Anyone else facing this issue?

Understood. The setting will effect subsequent projects only after you relaunch the app. So even if it defaults to a prior setting, this will not effect the existing iDVD project unless a dialog box pops up asking if you wish to re encode your existing project (and you hit yes/return) in which case it would first need to delete all previous encoded assets prior to burning to disc. Does this dialog box show up on your screen asking to re encode the entire project (yes/ no)? If not, then it has touched any of the existing assets.

Encore - CS6 vs Older Version (2006 Copy) Encoding Quality Difference?

Encore - CS6 vs Older Version (2006 Copy) Encoding Quality Difference?
I have an 2006 Copy of Encore for SD DVD's, will a new version have better quality encoding? Thank You

They both use the MainConcept encoder, so it's likely you won't be able to see much difference.
For a real improvement, go the freeware route.
HC Encoder for MPEG2
http://www.bitburners.com/hc-encoder/
Xvid4PSP for H.264 (version 5, not 6)
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/XviD4PSP

IDVD changes encoding quality in the middle of burning a DVD. This causes the DVD to run out of room for longer projects. This worked fine for the past two years, and in the past few weeks it started having this problem.

Here are details on the problem: I'm running iDVD 7.1.2 on an iMac that uses OS 10.6.8. After about two years of using iDVD to burn both single- and dual-layer disks, I find I can no longer burn dual-layer disks. When I put in a dual-layer disk and try to burn a project, the project size keeps increasing. For instance, I recently tried to burn a project that was just over 4GB and, when I stopped the project part-way through, the project size read as 6.89GB. If I don't stop the project in time, the blue bar that indicates burning status reaches the end (so that all of it is blue) before the time listed has elapsed and the disk ejects but cannot be recognized by the computer or our dvd player. If I then go to the project menu and switch the encoding from Professional Quality to Best Performance and back again, the program "remembers" the actual file size - but, if I try to burn the project again, I have the increasing same problem. If I let the project go until the disk ejects, the project menu will then read some total in the red (i.e., above the size that a dl disk will burn, even though the actual file size is below the limit). I believe (perhaps 90% sure) this began after I tried to encode a movie with subtitles; instead of burning properly, this movie created a data disk with at least one folder that said something about VIDEO_TS, if I recall correctly.

To be a true video DVD the disk must be in the UDF format (Universal Disk Format) and must have a AUDIO_TS folder (empty) and VIDEO_TS folder (where all the elements of the DVD are located).
The content on a DVD is MPG-2 encoded and it is quite possible for the encoded size of your content to exceed the estimated project size - especially if you use lots of transitions and content encoded with CODECS more recent than mpg-2 (which is quite old at this point).
The safest thing to do is to make your 'burn' to a disk image file - then you know everything went fine before you commit to burning a disk, I know the instructions warn about creating a disk image file for dual-layer projects, but I've never had any problems and don't recall hearing anyone here who had problems.

Adobe Media Encoder Quality Issues for 4:3 FLV Files

I am working in a 480x360 window for a FLV file. Whether I export a 60 minute presentation or a 10 second pre-roll FLV file, the rendered file quality is distorted and poor. I have done the same work in CS3, but as I changed computers, the CS4 was installed.
With the video presentation, orginally capturing the video is set as .9 Pixel Aspect Ration, but interpreting the footage to 1.0 is also an issue.
The quality of video that is being produced is much worse then CS3 and unuseable in most cases.
Frame Dimensions: 480x360
Frame Rate: Same as source. (29.97)
Endoding: CBR
Passes: 2
Bitrate: 500
Audio: Mono / 48

A couple things:
1) VP6 and H.264 are codecs that operate in "mod16". What that means is that they begin by dividing a video image into 16x16 blocks, followed by 8x8, 8x4, and 4x4 blocks. This makes for a more efficient encode. Your 240 dimension is fine (240 / 16 = 15), but the 515 dimension could be slightly problematic (515 / 16 = 32.1875). The codec will stretch or compress the image to fit into that dimension, and so can result in a lower quality encode. If you can, try encoding at 512x240, by cropping a couple pixels in the horizontal dimension. May not make a big difference, but it's good practice with these codecs.
2) To me, your original encode looks like the product of Adobe's less-that-capable deinterlacing scheme. You're dealing with progressive assets and a progressive target. I'd submit that the reason your 1280x720 encode looks better is that you're using a progressive preset, with no deinterlacing necessary when exporting. One thing you could check is the field order of your original sequence setup--if it's interlaced, I'd say you have your answer. If it's progressive--well, then I'm wrong :) However, you didn't explicitly say this in your original post, but it's worth a look.
If it is interlaced, I don't think you can change that after the sequence is started, so just create a new sequence with the proper progressive settings, and copy and paste the original sequence contents into that one. Now, when you export, there will be no need for deinterlacing.
Anyway, that's my guess...

Encoder quality

What am I doing wrong?
I am trying to move to AME and forget about Compressor, but I just can't quit Compressor!
I did an encode, matched my Compressor settings in AME, and AME gave me terrible results.
Whether I checked Maximum Depth or Maximum Render Quality made no difference.
I just need someone to confirm for me that AME is just not able to produce the same level, same quality of compressions as Compressor.
Speed doesn't matter to me if the quality suffers the way it seems to suffer. Speed doesn't matter to me if it uses every core and every kb of RAM I have, if the quality suffers as it does.
I've attached examples, still frames of my screen (27” Mac monitor with 2560 × 1440 resolution).
Screen grabs are .png format to minimize additional compression.
Here are the specs for the source files:
The source video in the spot is SD 720x486, Lower Field First, 29.97, scaled up in FCP.
The graphics are HD 1920x1080, No Fields, 24fps (western), ProRes 4444.
Spot was edited and exported from FCP 7.0.3 with these settings: 1920x1080, Upper Field First, 29.97, ProRes 422.
Specs for encode using Compressor (top left box in attached screen grabs):
h.264 (.mov)
restrict data rate to 5000kbps
compressor quality: high
encoding: Best Quality (multi-pass)
Frame controls: on
Resize filter: best
Output Fields: Progressive
Deinterlace: Better
Dimensions (output) 1280x720
Specs for encode using AME (top right and bottom right boxes in attached screen grabs):
h.264 (.mov)
limit data rate to 5000kbps
quality: 80
Depth: 24 bit
Field Order: Progressive
Frame Rate: 29.97
(output) 1280x720
UNCHECKED render at Maximum Depth (top right)
CHECKED Render at Maximum Depth (bottom right)
UNCHECKED Use Maximum Render Quality (top right)
CHECKED Use Maximum Render Quality (bottom right)
UNCHECKED Use Previews, Use Frame Blending (top right and bottom right)
Compressor (top left)     AME w/o Maximum Qualities (top right)     AME with Maximum Qualities (bottom right)

I'm posting another example of AME's failure to produce a comparable quality compression to what Compressor can produce.
AME just can't handle small detail or can't compress in small enough blocks to produce files on-par with Compressor.
Yes, AME is faster, but faster just means it puts out garbage fast.
I don't need work arounds, I have one, Compressor. I'd like to disconnect completely from Apple but I can't until AME delivers equal compressions.
I'm open for suggestions on adjusting my settings (listed in the opening post).
I'm still waiting for someone from Adobe to chime in.
** disclaimer **
The frames below are larger than the normal size so that quality is easier to *****.
The footage in example 2 was low res, web cam type footage. I chose to use it as an example because of how AME handles bad footage compared to Compressor.
                                                                         (AME example 1)                                                                                                                                             (Compressor example 1)
                                                                         (AME example 2)                                                                                                                                             (Compressor example 2)
                                                                         (AME example 3)                                                                                                                                             (Compressor example 3)

JPEG encoder quality problem

my static method is as follow: (copy from here, and i and a setQuality Method)
public class JPEGHandler
     public static void saveJPG(BufferedImage bi,float q,String pathname){
          String s = null;
          //BufferedImage bi = createBufferedImage(img);
          FileOutputStream out = null;
          try     {
               File file = new File(pathname);
               s = file.getName();
               out = new FileOutputStream(file);
          catch (java.io.FileNotFoundException io){
               System.out.println("File Not Found");
          catch (java.io.IOException e){
               System.err.println(e);
               JPEGImageEncoder encoder = JPEGCodec.createJPEGEncoder(out);
               JPEGEncodeParam param = encoder.getDefaultJPEGEncodeParam(bi);
               param.setQuality(q, true); //Set the quality
          try {
               encoder.encode(bi);
          catch (java.io.IOException io)
               System.out.println("IOException");
          try{
               out.close();
          catch (java.io.IOException io){
               System.out.println("IOException");
          System.out.println("JPEG Saved: " + s);
no matter i assign 0.5 or 1 to the setQuality method, the quailty and the file size of the jpg remain unchange.
also, i have tried to set the second param of setQuailty to true and false, it dosn't help at all !!
Anyone know how to solve it ?

try{
     ByteArrayInputStream in=new ByteArrayInputStream(image_data);
     JPEGImageDecoder decoder =JPEGCodec.createJPEGDecoder(in,params);
     image = decoder.decodeAsBufferedImage();
     in.close();
     }catch (Exception e) {
     System.err.println("Exception "+e + " decoding "+image_name+" as JPEG");
I've just been playing with Java 1.4 (which includes updates Graphics2D) and it fixes a number or errors I had with 1.3
MArk

Encoding quality good enough only at 50+ mbs

I try rendering a mp4 of 75 mbps to a reasonable bitrate, with minimal loss of quality no matter what the encoding time is.
After doing some research on the web, I decided that if 30 mbps is enough for 99% of the people, it will be enough for me. Turns out it's not.
Settings: H.264, 1080p, 29.97, render at maximum depth, VBR 2 pass (also tried CBR, and in some cases it's better), use maximum render quality.
Surely I miss something right? That much quality loss for 30 mbps and 40 mbps can't be normal. It's like there is no grass, it's just... blur. Oh, and it doesn't matter if I set the target at 30 mbps and the maximum at 100 mbps, AME CS6 is too stupid to realise it needs 60 mbps in that frame, it still uses 30 mbps.
What are my options? Thanks in advance!
edit: the jeans screenshots are in the wrong order, on top is the 100 mbps and bot the 30.
edit2: here are the original screenshots. it's more apparent there if you open both and alt tab between them.
http://i48.tinypic.com/2q36jcy.png
http://i50.tinypic.com/w0j59d.png

Hi Quertiy,
Rendering at max render quality won't help much, if at all. AVC is 8bit so there is no point rendering the raw frame at 32bit since it's then downgraded back to 8bit 4:2:0 for the encode. You'll just make it 4x slower to render.
As for the grass and jeans being blocky, that is a consequence of the bit choices that the bundled (Main Concept based) "H.264" encoder makes. The higher the bitrate the more those decisions are masked but down at 30Mbps and lower you will notice them.
Have a look here http://www.x264pro.com/?page_id=6 for an example of how things like grass, jeans and shirts get blocky.
eg:
What your tests show is that you need to put more bits into the static parts of the picture. In x264 that's what the "Adaptive Quality" is for. In AME you can only do that with higher bitrates.
Here is a comparison of Adobe Media Encoder vs x264. Notice the water and the ground cover at the back of the image.
Original:
Adobe Media Encoder:
x264 with Adaptive Quality = 1.5
These images come from : http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/308482-high-quality-mpeg-2-encoding?p=1907070&viewfull= 1#post1907070
hope that helps,
Edward

IDVD 6 - Dual Layer Encoding Quality - not available

Hi, this is my weird problem:
- The movie I want to burn in iDVD 6 (latest version) is of a rather poor quality (Super 8 filmed from screen) and exported from Final Cut Pro with approx 10 GB total size(self-contained movie) and 1 hour 10 minutes length.
- In iDVD 6, I created a new project with the preferences "Double Layer DVD" and "Best Quality", in order to get for highest quality.
- iDVD 6 nevertheless compresses down to 3.8 GB, i.e. ignoring the fact that it could use the Double Layer size.
- The encoding result is really poor, as you might imagine.
- I tried it with a new project, without avail. I have a Dual Layer DVD drive (external Lacie Firewire and internal iMac drive).
What is wrong? Should I try Constant Bit Rate, i.e. "Best Performance" instead? Any help is highly appreciated!
Stefan
iMac 20' G5 2GHz rev B - Powerbook G4 1 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Stefan,
Going to double layer in 'Best Quality' mode won't help you one bit because 'Best Quality' will easily fit your 70 minute movie in less than 4 GB.
You might get a little better quality using the 'Best Performance' mode with a double layer disc.
The names 'Best Quality' and 'Best Performance' are very misleading and I wish Apple would change them. For example: with less than 60 minutes of content and a single layer disc, 'Best Performance' will give you better quality than 'Best Quality'.
F Shippey

Poor encoding quality for HD

I recently bought a Panasonic Camcorder 3CMOS to get the best HD quality (MEPG2 1080x1920 50i/s progressive)
But I was frustrated by the Pr Encoder. I set the highest quality parameter with MPEG2 (bitrate up to 35 Mps, 2 passes) and H.264 (like wise) and did not get even the quality provided by the very simple editing application delivered by Panasonic with the camcorder (Coding H264).
Is there any way to replace the Pr encoder for the exportation of sequences.
Thank you for your help.
Phalch

I also have a Panasonic, the SD-707, and I noticed the same as you. Downscaling to DVD is good, not as best as it can be but I can live with that quality. But exporting HD is bad (MPEG2 and H264).
So, I've decided to export from Premiere to HUFFYUV and after that, I use ffmpeg to convert to x264. And that quality is soooo much better.
I've also tried Komisar VFW x264 build but the exported movie stutters so it's unusable. I would know if Premiere could export directly to x264 because it's a high quality codec and better than the build-in mainconcept H264.
I've converted some movies of my son for the web with ffmpeg and everyone who have seen those like the quality. I've tried to get the same quality with Premiere but the filesize is much bigger and the quality worse. With ffmpeg I scaling down to 1280x720 and use a bitrate of 1500k. A movie of 5 minutes is 59 MB.
So, maybe you can try ffmpeg and compare it with Premiere export.
You can download HUFFYUV here: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/HuffYUV
FFMPEG can you download from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mplayer-win32/files/
You can download both for free.

ITunes 5 MP3 encoding quality

I publish a podcast, and I just switched to iTunes 5 last week. I'm having a bit of a problem ripping our podcast to mp3. I used to encode from AIFF to MP3 at 64kbps CBR 22.050khz, and it sounded okay for our show (mostly talk with some music breaks). But after upgrading to iTunes 5 using the same settings there are noticeable compression artifacts and it sound very "tinny." I've resorted to encoding at 96kbps to correct the issue, but the file sizes are larger than in the past.
Has anyone else noticed this? And, does anyone know if Apple has possibly switched to a different compression algorithm?
Thanks in advance,
Neil
Borderline podcast
www.bdline.net

The sound quality depends on the preferences you have set in your iTunes program. With the import preferences you determine wheter the songs are imported as mp3, wav, aac, aiff. So if your prefs are set to mp3 128 k for example you will of course import poor sound quality.
Message was edited by: Sampleconstruct

Encoding Quality Issues

I have Premiere Pro CS6 project that have multiple sequences I want sent to Encore for producing a DVD.
All footage and sequences are 1920 by 1080p 29fps
I have sent these sequences to Media Encoder's render que using the preset MPEG2 DVD (Highest Quality) and I checked the Use Maximum Render Quality box.
These sequences took several hours to encode overnight.
When I load them into Encore to start building the DVD, the playback quality in the monitor is poor. However, when it is on a single frame, it looks sharp. So, will my DVD burn be wasted, or is the playback quality in ncore not indicative of the MPEG2 quality that will appear on the burned disc?
Thanks

When you burn an RW DVD, as a test, how does it look?
The Preview in Encore is but an emulation, and not the best possible.
Now, with a workflow, starting with HD, and going to SD, i.e. down-rezzing, Jeff Bellune's TUTORIAL might be helpful for ultimate quality. Do not think that he's updated it for CS 6, so we might wait for him to weigh in.
Good luck,
Hunt

Encoding quality in DSP 4

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