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Author Topic: creating your own dvd for home theatre Dave Ganoe Expert Film Handler Posts: 119 From: Point Marion, PA Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-28-2006 01:20 AM                     Any tips on what software to use or process to do this? I've tried several times and each time the quality of the image is crap. For an example I've tried downloading trailers from apple.com to make a trailer disk for preshow but no matter what I do it comes out with such poor picture quality. I've used mydvd, quicktime pro, nero, windows movie maker, always the same, bad pic quality. Thanks for any advice.  |  IP: Logged Phil Blake Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 558 From: esperance western australia Registered: Nov 2003 posted 09-28-2006 08:40 AM                        there are some good programs and bad programs out there , some simple to use others very difficult. I settled with Pinnacle studio 9 it is about middle of the road and gives good dvd results with simple to use features , just takes a while to render , but i think most do unless you have one that renders on the fly.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 09-28-2006 09:16 AM                        DVD Studio Pro is the only option that should be considered. Your existence on this planet is not validated until you have used DVD Studio Pro at least 16 times.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 09-28-2006 10:42 AM                     One possible issue is with using Quicktime movies in the first place. The trailers on Apple's website are heavily lossy data compressed using the H.264 codec. Basically you're going to have problems with image quality regardless of what DVD authoring program is used. The source video is already lossy compressed. You're taking that and applying heavy amounts of lossy data compression to it again. Any "consumer" style DVD authoring program typically applies a flat compression ratio to anything you're converting to MPEG-2. One usually must spend quite a lot of money on professional level compression applications to be able to interactively tweak bitrates for different parts of a video.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 09-28-2006 10:49 AM                        Yeah, like DVD Studio Pro which comes with Final Cut Studio. You'll be surprised how good those HD Apple trailers look when scaled way down to pathetic low-res DVD.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 09-28-2006 10:56 AM                     I doubt if Dave is using HD-quality trailers as a source. I suspect he may be using 640 X 480 or lower streams, which would naturally look like ass when converted over to non-square pixel 720 X 480.  |  IP: Logged Dave Ganoe Expert Film Handler Posts: 119 From: Point Marion, PA Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-28-2006 12:35 PM                     I tried using all the different resolutions that was offered up to 1080 and it didn't seem to make a difference. I will check out the software you mentioned Joe.  |  IP: Logged Frank Dubrois Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 896 From: Cleveland, OH Registered: Mar 2005 posted 10-15-2006 01:33 AM                    Is that program available for the vastly superior PC? or is that apple-ware only?  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 10-15-2006 04:09 AM                        If the PC is superior, then that program will obviously be available for it or maybe something 10 times better! You don't become superior by having crappier software to do what you want/need to do.  |  IP: Logged Dave Macaulay Film God Posts: 2321 From: Toronto, Canada Registered: Apr 2001 posted 01-08-2007 03:54 PM                     As usual the macnazis reply with a non-answer. DVD Studio Pro is Macintosh only. It's also $1300.00. It IS excellent and there may be nothing better available. There are PC applications that will do what you want. Pinnacle and Roxio have them I think. Quicktime is an abortion on a PC, the program qualifies as a virus for how screwed up your system is after installation but there is a hacked mini version that shows MOV videos - but skips the almost irreversible takeover of all video formats from WMP that is seemingly unavoidable with the full QT install. That of course leaves you with QT's puny (except for high res QT videos of course) and unresizable picture size for any video clip playback - lame. There are ways to add a QT codec to WMP, I've generally failed when I've tried though.  |  IP: Logged

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