Hi, I'm new to the world of multimedia and this is my first post on this forum, so forgive me if it seems pretty basic. My question relates to making dvds on dvd + rw media from files stored on my hard drive in mpeg format. At present, I am importing them into Nero 6 vision express, and buring them using Nero. Sometimes I edit them, and export them into mpeg format and then burn them. The thing I'd like to know is whether this process of importing and burning files involves any loss of video quality? In short, is there a way to get better quality. I realise that mpeg is not great quality in the first place, but am I making it worse burning dvds in this way, especially if I occasionally edit them before burning? thanks, phil
Welcome to Afterdawn (aka AD) The folks around here are easy going and very helpful as long as you abide by the forum rules. Stick around and there is a wealth of knowledge and to be honest some of the addicts and moderators seem as if they wrote some of the software themselves. Now down to business. When burning your mpeg to dvd they actually are converted to dvd compliant files known as vob. This process is simply known as encoding. If the original file once converted is less than the size of the dvd+rw then you will not lose any quality. That being said the original file format would have to be of high quality and you end up with a 1:1 copy. Using nero you should be able to verify the newly bured dvd by choosing the option verify disk. What this does is check the files against the files on the dvd+rw (even though they are converted) to see if there are any differences. Quality loss is when you have a large file to burn..lets say 5g worth and a dvd for the most part only has 4.3gb of space. Therefore nero will automatically compress the files to fit on the dvd resulting in some loss of quality. The more compression the more quality loss. As a note software like dvdrb w/ cce is a top 5 program in most of the AD users eyes as the best compressor-to- quality encoder. Editing your mpegs should not hurt the quality unless you are stripping and trying to remake scenes of the original mpeg file. Also I would suggest keeping your burn speed around 4x as less chance of there being errors on the finished product. Media is also a factor in quality (referenced in thread in my signature). Verbatims blank dvd media is a very close second to Taiyo Yuden blank dvd media for alot of folks here but either way your in good hands. Hope this explains some of what you are inquiring about. Tried to keep it simple as possible.
Hey Matt, Thanks for the advice. I've been a away a few days otherwise I would have acknoweledged your excellent contribution sooner. If you're still reading this, would you, or anyone else, know whether it is possible to improve the value of mpeg1 files burned to DVD, or is the quality of the original video the limit factor for quality? regards phil
Basically you cannot get 'better' quality than the source file. Nevertheless, there are programs around (e.g. VideoMach) that can help you 'brush up' things (e.g. sharpness, contrast) just like there are programs to help brush up digital pictures: http://gromada.com/videomach.html Happy mpeg editing!
yes philebus I browse the forums and no problem as its only right to help as I was helped by others. Really as scf_au stated you cannot improve the overall quality of a file obtained from an outside source (i.e. downloaded from a website/ p2p or bittorrent site). There are a few programs out there that sharpen but major editing is not suggested since you don't have the original file from which the mpeg you got was made. I would suggest experimenting w/ dvdrb using cce as the results are nice. Happy burning.
Thanks again guys. (My expertise is all things related to coffee, so if you need advice or tips on that front, I'll gladly help). I hope to get a couple of coffee mpegs up on web in the near future.
