HD video output

[Carol Steele]

By default if you just use the HD (1920 x1080) setting, the frame rate is set to 29.97 for the resultant MPEG4 file. However, as I am UK based, should I be going into the custom settings dialog box (see below):-

and set the frame rate to either 25fps - or even 24fps for an intended target of a Blu-ray disk??

Thanks

Carol

[potwnc]

By default if you just use the HD (1920 x1080) setting, the frame rate is set to 29.97 for the resultant MPEG4 file. However, as I am UK based, should I be going into the custom settings dialog box (see below):-

and set the frame rate to either 25fps - or even 24fps for an intended target of a Blu-ray disk??

Carol,

The real question is "where is your audience?" If they're in North America or Japan you should choose the 30p or 60p setting otherwise 25p or 50p - for now. 24p is becoming a global standard for transfer of movies shot originally on actual film (celluloid) to digital media such as Blu-ray because that is the framerate at which such films are shot (everywhere in the world), and so it best preserves the original. But very few people today have TVs or monitors that also work at 24p so until 24p TVs and monitors become more common, and because you're not transfering a film originally shot at 24p I'd recommend not using that setting.

Ray

[Carol Steele]

Carol,

The real question is "where is your audience?" If they're in North America or Japan you should choose the 30p or 60p setting otherwise 25p or 50p - for now. 24p is becoming a global standard for transfer of movies shot originally on actual film (celluloid) to digital media such as Blu-ray because that is the framerate at which such films are shot (everywhere in the world), and so it best preserves the original. But very few people today have TVs or monitors that also work at 24p so until 24p TVs and monitors become more common, and because you're not transfering a film originally shot at 24p I'd recommend not using that setting.

Ray

Thanks Ray, as these shows are Wedding Samplers which I send out to potential clients, the recipients are exclusively UK based, so I guess it will be either 25fps or 50fps. I guess converting at 50fps would double the size of the mpg4 file, but would opting for either interlaced or progressive for the final disk have any bearing on whether you render at 25 or 50fps??

Thanks,

Carol

[potwnc]

Thanks Ray, as these shows are Wedding Samplers which I send out to potential clients, the recipients are exclusively UK based, so I guess it will be either 25fps or 50fps. I guess converting at 50fps would double the size of the mpg4 file, but would opting for either interlaced or progressive for the final disk have any bearing on whether you render at 25 or 50fps??

Carol,

Usually you would render at 50 fps for interlaced content and 25 fps for progressive. But in PTE 50p means 50 fps progressive and 25p means 25 fps progressive so you actually can't choose whether the encode will be interlaced or progressive - it will be progressive.

Your mp4 file won't be double the size but it will be larger at 50p versus 25p. But BD-R disks (even single layer) will hold enough footage for a wedding sampler that this won't be an issue for you. So again it depends on your audience. If they'll be viewing the Blu-ray disc on a standard, set-top Blu-ray player attached to a standard HD TV they won't notice any difference because the TV will refresh at 25 fps but if they have a Blu-ray player in a computer (Home Theatre PC system) they will notice a difference because their PC monitor is almost certainly refreshing at 50 fps. Even then you'd need 20/20 vision to really notice that difference.

Bottom line, burn at 50p because you have nothing to lose by doing that. Also, choose 48000 for the audio sample rate - even if your audio is ripped from a CD.

Ray

[Carol Steele]

Hi Ray,

Thank you so much for this valuable information.

As I am using Pinnacle Studio 12 to render the shows to disk (an ordinary DVD disk) in either HD DVD or AVCHD format (the latter is accepted by Blu-ray players as a Blu-ray disk) I am at the over limit for an HD DVD (around 23 mins of video on the DVD if burned at 100% quality) and just on the limit for a Blu-ray AVCHD disk at 100% quality.

However, I have burned the shows (with menus etc) onto HD DVD at around 67% quality and there is not a huge drop in visual quality. Unfortunately this is not a quantitative comparison - I must first run half the show which was burned at 100% quality, then change to the full show burned at 67% quality and see If I can remember what the first one looked like. Unfortunately I cannot run a side by side comparison.

Thanks again,

Carol

[potwnc]

As I am using Pinnacle Studio 12 to render the shows to disk (an ordinary DVD disk) in either HD DVD or AVCHD format (the latter is accepted by Blu-ray players as a Blu-ray disk) I am at the over limit for an HD DVD (around 23 mins of video on the DVD if burned at 100% quality) and just on the limit for a Blu-ray AVCHD disk at 100% quality.

However, I have burned the shows (with menus etc) onto HD DVD at around 67% quality and there is not a huge drop in visual quality. Unfortunately this is not a quantitative comparison - I must first run half the show which was burned at 100% quality, then change to the full show burned at 67% quality and see If I can remember what the first one looked like. Unfortunately I cannot run a side by side comparison.

Carol,

Well this changes things... I thought you were burning to real Blu-ray discs. So now the questions are can your audience play ordinary DVD discs burned in HD-DVD format? And can they play ordinary DVD discs burned in AVCHD format? The answers will be different depending on what equipment they have.

But whatever the answer is you should be aware that ordinary DVD discs are designed to deliver a maximum bit rate of 8Mbps. So instead of choosing the "One pass - quality" mode I recommend you choose one of the "bitrate" modes (Two passes if your PC is powerful enough) and set the Bitrate to no more than 8000. Any higher than this and your audience's equipment may not play it at all. You should be able to get 23 minutes on an ordinary (single-layer) DVD in both HD-DVD format and AVCHD format.

I'm not sure about this but I don't think Pinnacle Studio 12 supports 24p.

Ray

[Carol Steele]

Hi Ray,

I have a Blu-ray burner coming on Monday/Tuesday, so I will be able to burn genuine BR disks after that - but at around £4.00 a pop vs around £0.15 a pop for ordinary DVD's, it makes more sense to burn to DVD if I can

[Ronniebootwest]

Of course it makes more sense to burn to ordinary DVD's, especially since you are only creating a sample disc for your customers. Just point out to them that the final finished DVD will be much better and you could also offer them the chance of having thier wedding burned to Blue Ray if they so wish. I always work on the KISS principle and keep it simple.

Ron

[Carol Steele]

The difference in quality (even playing an SD version of the wedding sampler on an upscaling DVD player) is quite astounding Ron, it seems even more marked than an ordinary SD film disk being played on an upscaling player. When you are sending out samplers to prospective clients you want to hit them with the best quality possible - it's all very well saying that the finished product will be better, but in an overcrowded market and when I don't have direct access to the prospective client, I want my samplers to stand out head and shoulders above the opposition.

I should point out that I am a photographer, not a videographer and my finished product are prints and not a video of their wedding - although they can buy a DVD slideshow of all the images and now I will be able to add the option of purchasing an HD version of the slideshow either in HD DVD or Blu-ray varieties.