What authoring program accepts high-bitrate MPEG-2 videos?

[unclescoob]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

If you want to hack around with the input (and again on output), you can crate 16:9 menus if you just really need widescreen that bad.

WHOAH, WHOAH, WHOAH! To start off, I appreciate the help guys, seriosuly! But no, I'm not trying to convert anything to anything else! My input video is a simple 4:3 and I plan to keep it as-is, thank you very much . My goal is to gain the highest quality output to fit into DVD (and yes, even the possibility of sneaking more than the illegal amount of bitrates allowed, with the probablility of other new, standard, dvd and/or blu-ray players being able to play it). It is not to conduct a triple-bypass heart surgery here!

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

SD specs are supported within Blu-ray.

So what you're telling me here is that, if I encode at high quality Mpeg-2 with Mainconcept, I can author and burn this on blue-ray instead of DVD, and a standard blu-ray players will more than gladly play it? (i.e. - 20,000kbps high-quality MPEG-2????)

[lordsmurf]

I was just giving examples of what's possible via MPEG hacking.

The resolution is valid for Blu-ray, but the bitrate legality may not be. I think it depends on the specific authoring app.
I have Blu-ray software/hardware, but haven't had the time to investigate everything just yet.

[msgohan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by unclescoob

LordSmurf (and/or someone just as knowledgeable who could offer a word, please)

I am currently encoding some of my 24-minute episodes at 30,000kbps (highest), 2-pass vbr with HcEnc.

The bitrate is obviously very high, but the dvd-compliant 9800kbps option was showing a noticeable amount of pixelation and artifacts on the encoded video (not too bad, but noticeable). After alot of testing with various bitrates, 20 to 30 thousand seems to be the level that actually makes my cleaned-up video look good.

Now, I don't mind the limitation of only being able to fit 2 or 3 episodes per dvd, as I am planning on using a DVD-R with more space than the 4.7gb. Each episode turns out to be approx 1.6g if encoded this way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by unclescoob

But when I encoded the same video with High Quality Mpeg at 100,000kbps (which results in a 6 or so gig MPEG-2 file), the results were GORGEOUS. Identical to my source. The price I pay? The file is completely useless for DVD authoring.

Same thing with HcEnc. I tried DVD compliant encoding with ok results. I then burned at 30,000kbps (around a 1.6gig file, MUCH smaller than MainConcept's at the same high-quality) and results were superb.

Sorry for bumping, but I came across this thread and was surprised no one commented on the math. 2-3 eps at 1.6GB each isn't exactly abnormal for DVD (72 mins on DVD5).

You may have requested 30Mbps, but that isn't what the encoder gave you. At least, not for the average bitrate; there may be some crazy spikes in there that would indeed cause a DVD player to choke.

1600MB * 8 / (24 * 60) = 8.89Mbps

Well within DVD's limits. If you really encoded a 24-minute video at those average rates it would be

30Mbps * 1440 / 8 = 5400MB
100Mbps * 1440 / 8 = 18000MB

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by msgohan

2-3 eps at 1.6GB each isn't exactly abnormal for DVD (72 mins on DVD5).

True, but the disc could be better used. When you're talking about "episodes", you're referring to one of two sources: analog 4x3 SDTV, or digital 16x9 HDTV. With the older sources, you may as well use 352x480, and put more on the disc at equal image quality (because the source is NOT 720x480 anyway, especially not if from VHS sources). For HD sources, they're generally clean enough to compress at least 2 hours (if not 3) on a single DVD5-sized disc. Near-superbit bitrates (i.e., 72 minutes on a disc) is best left for really noisy and crappy sources that need as much bitrate as the format will allow.

Some of this topic, including math, is discussed here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...mode-best.html

But you do make some good points, and I appreciate your addition ... even if a bit late to the conversation.