8 Replies Latest reply: Jan 22, 2013 11:51 AM by Soshman RSS

    Mpeg-2 vs. .mp4 for a DVD, .mp4 is much clearer

    Soshman Community Member

      When exporting a .mp4 to a mpeg-2 for encore to make a DVD i notice the file

      becomes 4 times as big and about 1/5 as clear....it really degrades.

       

      I do remmember reading that Encore can take .mp4 right into the timeline. Is this true?

       

      Can i just drag the high quality .mp4 right into encores timeline for the making of the DVD?

       

      It has audio attached in the file as well. Will i have to bring them in separate ?

       

      Thank You!

       

      Soshman

        • 1. Re: Mpeg-2 vs. .mp4 for a DVD, .mp4 is much clearer
          Stan Jones CommunityMVP

          Yes, you can put an mp4 on the Encore timeline, but it will have to transcode it to DVD resolution.

           

          The datarate has a lot to do with the filesize. And it will not look as good because the resolution is less, right?

           

          How long is the video?

           

          What were your settings for exporting the mp4 to mpeg? Use the Premiere/AME MPEG2-DVD preset. You will get an m2v and a wav. You bring both onto an Encore timeline.

          • 2. Re: Mpeg-2 vs. .mp4 for a DVD, .mp4 is much clearer
            JSS1138 CommunityMVP

            The final DVD will have to be MPEG2.  It's the only format allowed on DVD, so you might as well create that out of PP instead.

            • 3. Re: Mpeg-2 vs. .mp4 for a DVD, .mp4 is much clearer
              Soshman Community Member

              OK so it will happen either way.

              My best bet is to get the highest data rate.

               

              The video is 2 hours and 8 minutes. It is a Camtasia video. I recorded and rendered it at the highest level i could and it came out great (1920x1080)

              as an .mp4 and was 1.2 gb. On PP time line is looks great and very easy to edit.

               

              I am trying a sample of 30 seconds video where i am drawing over an image. this is where it degraded.

              I will make the settings below to VBR 2 pass and maximum bitrate topped out at 9.

              Main concept quality max at 5

               

              When rendered the 30 second clip was 18mb and the quality was much much lass than the .mp4

              Iwant to think that the .m2v would be as good as.....but am i hoping wrong?

               

              Thanks for the help!

               

              Mark

               

              export settings.jpgvideo vbr 1 pass.jpg

              • 4. Re: Mpeg-2 vs. .mp4 for a DVD, .mp4 is much clearer
                Soshman Community Member

                Thanks Jim!  Now it is getting the quality up!

                • 5. Re: Mpeg-2 vs. .mp4 for a DVD, .mp4 is much clearer
                  JSS1138 CommunityMVP

                  You cannot make a DVD as good as the original.  You'll need to make a Blu-ray for that.

                  • 6. Re: Mpeg-2 vs. .mp4 for a DVD, .mp4 is much clearer
                    SAFEHARBOR11 Community Member

                    If you are making some type of training video, you may wish to avoid DVD video altogether. NTSC video does not lend itself to recreating the detail of a computer screen. I made a training video on the PC using Camtasia a few years back, and the DVD looked like mud! Very hard to read any of the fine computer screen text. I later re-did the training, but instead of DVD I used the tools in Camtasia (Menumaker) to create a self-contained program. The media is saved as .wmv files and the quality is the SAME as what I saw on the computer when doing the training. Best of all, a 3.5-hour project is only 650mb and customers can download the project - I don't even need to bother with making discs and it just looks fantastic.

                     

                    Note that .wmv is  not Mac-friendly, but since my training was PC specific, that is what my viewers were using for playback.

                     

                    Probably too late since you already created your content, but I found that by creating the content at the same frame size as delivery, that quality was maintained because it was not scaled down. I set the Camtasia record size to 1024x768 and delivered the same. Any time you take full HD and scale to NTSC there will be a huge quality hit. If in the future you want to try what I did and deliver a "multimedia" program rather than DVD video, keep in mind that most people do not have a full 1920x1080 computer monitor at their desk, so this delivery size is overkill.

                     

                    But it is all dependent on the subject matter - I don't know if you are capturing game play or doing training or what

                     

                    Thanks

                     

                    Jeff Pulera

                    Safe Harbor Computers

                    • 7. Re: Mpeg-2 vs. .mp4 for a DVD, .mp4 is much clearer
                      Soshman Community Member

                      Thanks Jeff!

                       

                      Yes we are working towards going fully into online.

                      We have made hundreds of online videos for myself and others for the last 4 years or so

                      with great success.

                       

                      There is something about a DVD that sells though. When we go all online we lose a lot of folks...even overseas with shipping and taxes...they still like DVD...but i think the tide is turning.

                       

                      I have fils that are .mp4 that are beautiful on my 24inch computer screen at full screen and the same files maxing out for DVD are 600mb and dont look half as good...frustrating. Maybe Blue-Ray will fix this for me.

                       

                      For camtasia i recommend .mp4...to me you just cant beat it with h264.

                       

                      Thanks for the info on camtasia. I tried different recording formats but seem to get the same results no matter what i did.

                       

                      Just have to make that part online :-)

                       

                      Cheers,

                       

                      Soshman

                      • 8. Re: Mpeg-2 vs. .mp4 for a DVD, .mp4 is much clearer
                        Soshman Community Member

                        Thanks Stan!!!

                         

                        Shoshman