WRITING A SHOW TO DVD

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BRASH

WRITING A SHOW TO DVD

Postby BRASH » Sun Jul 22, 2007 3:15 am

I have read various correspondance on image quality in PSG but am still a bit confused. Could someone please tell me the best way to save a show to DVD without loss of quality. I would want to show the PSG presentation on a PC and probably television. In other words which button do I select in the tool bar.
Thanks
Ian

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Postby bettyhills » Sun Jul 22, 2007 4:51 am

Choose DVD Disc

After many experiments, I get the highest clarity of output using the following settings:

Output
DVD - High Quality
NTSC
MP2
Leave anti-flicker UNchecked
Desaturation - 70%
Encoding - High

Burning
Disc - ISO (Allows many copies without re-rendering. Requires an ISO burning program.)
Speed - Max
Type - DVD Media
ISO - grayed out
Include Files - Checked

Cautions
Do not include PC Autorun. It caused malfunctions on the Menu option screen and on the DVD itself during play.
Keep your captions at least 20% from the top and bottom edges for 4x3 ratio. Even so, on some 16x9 TVs, they will be cut off. Keep them 10% from the sides. Keep them 16 point or larger. Use a non-serif type. Read up and follow rules on NTSC black (10, 10, 10) and NTSC white (220, 220, 220).

It is wise to use re-writable DVDs until the show is ready for prime-time.
Test the show on several different kinds of TVs and DVD players.
ProShow Gold, V3-1907

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Postby gpsmikey » Sun Jul 22, 2007 6:26 am

While in general, I agree with those settings, there is one problem one
listed -- saving the audio as "MP2". While this will "usually" work fine,
be aware the NTSC DVD specification (and it took me a while to find
it too ! ) says that at least 1 track of the audio MUST be either LPCM
or Dolby AC3. Now, that said, it usually works fine, but every now
and then, I run into a player (usually older) that does not play the
Mpeg Layer 2 audio (the usual symptom is "nice show, but no sound" ).

That is the spec, however, since most players these days are imported,
they do seem to handle the Mpeg Layer 2 audio fine (Mpeg Layer 2
audio IS legal on a PAL DVD). Something to be aware of when someone
comes back and says your show has no sound. The down side of using
LPCM is it takes up more space since it is not compressed, leaving
less space for the video (shorter show). Only a problem though if
you are using the full DVD.

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

BRASH

Postby BRASH » Sun Jul 22, 2007 11:27 am

Thanks for all the technical info. I'll now have a go and see how I get on.
Ian

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Postby gpsmikey » Sun Jul 22, 2007 12:39 pm

heh heh -- it's one of those little things. File it away. Every
now and then it will bite you (that's how I found out about it :lol: )

Of course *now* I notice you are over in the UK which is PAL correct?
In which case, mpeg layer 2 audio is just fine.

The nice things about standards is there are so many to choose from :lol:

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

djmagic

Postby djmagic » Sat Jul 28, 2007 12:02 am

thanks for the tips...
i subscribe to a photo mag that recently gave away a trial version of psg
and they recomend PAL for uk
and pcm
for the audio
can anybody please explain

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Postby gpsmikey » Sat Jul 28, 2007 6:08 am

Well, as far as the "PAL", there are a number of standards for TV -- most
of what we see here are either NTSC (North America etc) and PAL (Europe).
There are others, but that is mostly what we see here. If you look at the
DVD specs (which take some searching), you will find that for NTSC DVD,
the spec says that at least one audio channel must pe either LPCM or AC3
(you can have additional audio "tracks", but at least one is *supposed* to
be LPCM or AC3 for the NTSC. PAL says that Mpeg Layer 2 audio is fine
for one of the tracks.

1) I'm not sure why they would specify you should use LPCM (audio) for
PAL when Mpeg Layer 2 is acceptable (it compresses the audio and you
can have longer shows since the audio takes up less space on the DVD)

2) Understand that a very large percentage of the newer DVD players will
handle Mpeg Layer 2 audio as the primary audio track for NTSC since they are
all made in China etc these days. Every now and then, you will run into
one where the people come back and say "hey, nice show, but no sound"
usually means their player does not understand your audio format ( I have
had it happen several times which is why I dug into this to figure out what
was going on !! ).

Hope that helps.

The nice thing about standards is there are so many to chose from ... :lol:

mikey
You can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !!
mikey (PSP6, Photoshop CS6, Vegas Pro 14, Acid 7, BluffTitler, Nikon D300s, D810)
Lots of PIC and Arduino microprocessor stuff too !!

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