| brians wig 22.02.2009 05:45 |
Having downloaded a number of DVDs from here and other websites, I'm curious to know what other people think about them - in particular their priorities between picture quality & sound quality. I've noticed a number of DVDs favour a lossless PCM sound signal. However, this is obviously to the detriment of the picture quality. A full concert on one DVD (never mind the extras that appear on these discs) means the PCM track takes up over 1gb of the 4.7 available - that can be a third or more of the space taken up with sound (frequently from a mono source!) I know a lot of folks prefer lossless audio (I certainly do when it comes to a CD), but to insist on lossless audio on a DVD which results in the bitrate of the video being reduced quite significantly, is just madness. Personally, I'm quite happy with AC3 at 256kb (although I tend to use 320kb myself on music DVDs) because that means I can have a bitrate averaging 7mb/s for a 100 minute show. That means less artefacting on smoke and movement. When you make a DVD and it looks worse than the original VHS tape, you're doing something wrong! So. The big question is this: Do you prefer lossless audio on your DVDs or a picture that doesn't break up into big squares whenever someone moves and doesn't look shit on a 42" TV? I know not everyone has a 42" or bigger (mine is actually a 32" CRT and I can see artefacting on THAT!), but I've seen many DVDs on my friends 42" and they look awful. Let's face it, sooner or later, the only TV's you'll be able to buy will be big digital ones that show up the faults in pictures (which is why they've developed HD), so shouldn't we be future-proofing our DVDs? Discuss!!!! |
| YourValentine 22.02.2009 05:59 |
Personally, I care more about the picture than the sound but if possible I keep PCM stereo. I rather use two DVDs for a concert and keep the lossless sound. Friends of mine use double layer discs which are cool, too (but expensive). Friends who already have HD camcorders use double layer with AC3 sound..... When I record an old concert from VHS I think it's not necessary to keep the (bad) sound in PCM stereo but on the other side I enjoy re-synched DVDs with better sound. It largely depends on the material and the sources that are available. |
| brians wig 22.02.2009 07:19 |
YourValentine wrote: Personally, I care more about the picture than the sound but if possible I keep PCM stereo. I rather use two DVDs for a concert and keep the lossless sound. Friends of mine use double layer discs which are cool, too (but expensive). Friends who already have HD camcorders use double layer with AC3 sound..... When I record an old concert from VHS I think it's not necessary to keep the (bad) sound in PCM stereo but on the other side I enjoy re-synched DVDs with better sound. It largely depends on the material and the sources that are available. I also use 2 DVDs for concerts over 90 minutes. I've very rarely had good experience with dual layer discs (although they are cheap enough these days). I've found that it depends on what make of writer you have and what make of disc you use as to whether you get a successful burn or not, and even on successful burns I've never managed to then rip that disc and create duplicates. Having started out with the very first Pioneer writer (the A01 which was £900 - and discs were £10 each), I've always stuck with Pioneer as I've read far too many people complaining about burning "coasters" on other, cheaper, drives. |
| onevsion 22.02.2009 09:48 |
Nowadays, I always convert concerts shot in standard def. on mini dv tape to 8mb/s cbr video + LPCM audio. When a show is over 60 minutes it ends up on 2 dvd-r discs. Sometimes even 3. I'm not really archiving a lot onto dvd because it isn't really a format I care for. Hope Blue Ray becomes cheap soon. I'm looking forward to a type of recordable media that allows me to transfer my mini dv masters without any quality loss (also great for back up copies!) Blue ray would do the job for standard def. shot on mini dv (1 hour mini dv tape is around 13 GB uncompressed quality) So you would need 1 or sometimes maybe 2 blue ray discs to archive a concert shot on mini dv in standard def. completely lossless. |
| pittrek 22.02.2009 10:27 |
My standard - if possible, I always use 8MBps CBR progressive video + LPCM sound (if I have it). In the case that I get over the DVD5 size I decide if the result will be a 2 DVD set or if I use DVD Shrink to shrink it to 1 DVD. If I have some possible bonus material, I always chose 2 DVDs and fill the rest of the free space with bonus stuff and animated menus, otherwise I try to save as much space as possible and if the result is still too big, I use DVDShrink with "Deep analysis" and "adaptive error compensation - Sharp" |
| YourValentine 23.02.2009 03:48 |
Yes, I have used DVD shrink for slightly too big DVDs, too but not for very big files. For no technical reason, just my gut feeling :) Now that DVD-Rs are not expensive anymore I rather use a second disc. I like your DVDs with good sound - good sound makes an old bad-source concert more watchable imo. But we will still search for the better source:) Concerning the storage issue Ducksoup brought up I think tapes are the best and most reliable media, DVD-Rs are for daily use and very unreliable for storing. Unfortunately, it's very hard to find a true HD camcorder model that uses tapes. When a camcorder records on hard discs it has "hard disc failure" already written over the recording... |
| daffy_the_duck 23.02.2009 09:33 |
YourValentine wrote: Concerning the storage issue Ducksoup brought up I think tapes are the best and most reliable media, DVD-Rs are for daily use and very unreliable for storing. Unfortunately, it's very hard to find a true HD camcorder model that uses tapes. When a camcorder records on hard discs it has "hard disc failure" already written over the recording... Well it's off topic but since you're talking about... I found one time a topic here about storage of bootlegs, videos etc... and the result was to use japanese medias. Following this advice, I've bought Taiyo Yuden dvd & cdr (link for people in Europe who are interested...) and started burning, burning, and burning again... I'm still in the process... I burned boots in flac on DVD's, didn't write on them, put them in a card sleeve and in a box for storage. They just wait for my hard drive crash for their first and only use, until the 2nd hard drive crash;) Did I make a bad investment, and is there a better way to store all this gems? |
| YourValentine 23.02.2009 19:52 |
This is hard to say - I just find that DVD-Rs are unreliable. I lost many self burnt DVDs while CD-Rs seem to last much longer. I am sure that you increase the duration of a DVD medium when you burn slowly on good quality medium and do not write on them or glue something on them. It's certainly good to have a HD copy. My personal safety strategy is sharing with friends whenever possible so I can ask for a replacement copy in case mine fails... |
| Marcos Napier 24.02.2009 01:20 |
I like a better picture quality most of the time, but it all depends on the original source, as you can't improve it but you can easily make things worse. If it is a very good quality video, I don't mind a bit of compression if it helps to fit it in a single disc, but if it is already bad (as in a 1000th generation copy of some old footage), definitely I try to not make it worse. I also don't trust DVD media as a reliable source at all, not even for videos, let's not even mention data backup. I've tried several different brands (generic and known ones) and I had problems with a lot of them. Even with discs stored in relatively safe places (I guess), without any factors that could make them deteriorate (no heat or humidity) and that were barely played, they still got sometimes entirely purple out of nothing after a couple of months. OK, I can download these things again and re-burn them, but if it was sensitive data... I was lost. |
| daffy_the_duck 24.02.2009 09:30 |
YourValentine wrote: This is hard to say - I just find that DVD-Rs are unreliable. I lost many self burnt DVDs while CD-Rs seem to last much longer. I am sure that you increase the duration of a DVD medium when you burn slowly on good quality medium and do not write on them or glue something on them. It's certainly good to have a HD copy. My personal safety strategy is sharing with friends whenever possible so I can ask for a replacement copy in case mine fails... Thanks for the reply! |
| Mkls 24.02.2009 10:13 |
1. dvd-r : never had problems with my own writings in the last 5 years: proper media / burner / writing speed. Plextor, Pioneer burner, Japanese sourced media (tdk ricoh etc with taiyo ... search topics for recommended stuff) . Honestly i dont understand those people who record their precious Queen collection on cheap media / with cheap burner , to save 20 cent / piece... 2. for VHS/and different tape sourced videos, the best i can think of these years (until writable bluray becomes a cheap solution) is hard disk strorage in AVI (13 Gbyte / hour). Since 750gbyte HDDs cost less than 80 eur, it is relatively cheap. A backup HDD is a must for safety copy. The good thing in AVI is that it can be further processed later by software solutions (like neatvideo filter, used for EC77 remaster, brilliant results ). Authoring DVDs longer than 60 minutes is a crime really - especially with crap production (bad vhs transfer / cheap player / without tbc / no EQ / and bad encoding with cheap software...). and most DVDs are like that - and look really bad on 42"-50" screens! I do have 200+ Queen vhs tapes waiting to be transfered to digital format, and have been thinking about the best solution for years - this is what i think an optimal - or acceptable - solution (and i have done many tests). |
| brians wig 24.02.2009 13:15 |
Miklos wrote: 1. dvd-r : never had problems with my own writings in the last 5 years: proper media / burner / writing speed. Plextor, Pioneer burner, Japanese sourced media (tdk ricoh etc with taiyo ... search topics for recommended stuff) . Honestly i dont understand those people who record their precious Queen collection on cheap media / with cheap burner , to save 20 cent / piece... 2. for VHS/and different tape sourced videos, the best i can think of these years (until writable bluray becomes a cheap solution) is hard disk strorage in AVI (13 Gbyte / hour). Since 750gbyte HDDs cost less than 80 eur, it is relatively cheap. A backup HDD is a must for safety copy. The good thing in AVI is that it can be further processed later by software solutions (like neatvideo filter, used for EC77 remaster, brilliant results ). Authoring DVDs longer than 60 minutes is a crime really - especially with crap production (bad vhs transfer / cheap player / without tbc / no EQ / and bad encoding with cheap software...). and most DVDs are like that - and look really bad on 42"-50" screens! I do have 200+ Queen vhs tapes waiting to be transfered to digital format, and have been thinking about the best solution for years - this is what i think an optimal - or acceptable - solution (and i have done many tests). Your best back-up solution Miklos, is to send me copies as you do them. I'll send you a few hundred blanks if you like! :) |
| brians wig 24.02.2009 13:25 |
I'm keeping all of my VHS/ SVHS tapes so they can be re-captured in the future if needs be. I also make 2x DVD copies when I burn a disc. Recently I bought 1 TB drive and I'm slowly making ISO images of my Queen discs. I use DVDs that use the Ritek G05 dye. I have done since that dye first came out. Before that the G04 dye. I always burn my master copies at 2x speed and 4x speed for the duplicate "everyday" copies. I've never yet burned a disc at the top speed allowable! I have had the occasional disc that has become a dud within a few weeks of writing it but, to be fair, I must have written over 20,000 DVDs in the last 8 years for myself and my friends, and I've maybe only been asked to replace 10-20 discs. Of course, who's to say that a DVD I wrote 7 years ago isn't going to work next time I play it - hence Hard Drive back-ups of my important stuff. |
| pittrek 24.02.2009 13:35 |
brians wig wrote:You were faster then me ;)Miklos wrote: 1. dvd-r : never had problems with my own writings in the last 5 years: proper media / burner / writing speed. Plextor, Pioneer burner, Japanese sourced media (tdk ricoh etc with taiyo ... search topics for recommended stuff) . Honestly i dont understand those people who record their precious Queen collection on cheap media / with cheap burner , to save 20 cent / piece... 2. for VHS/and different tape sourced videos, the best i can think of these years (until writable bluray becomes a cheap solution) is hard disk strorage in AVI (13 Gbyte / hour). Since 750gbyte HDDs cost less than 80 eur, it is relatively cheap. A backup HDD is a must for safety copy. The good thing in AVI is that it can be further processed later by software solutions (like neatvideo filter, used for EC77 remaster, brilliant results ). Authoring DVDs longer than 60 minutes is a crime really - especially with crap production (bad vhs transfer / cheap player / without tbc / no EQ / and bad encoding with cheap software...). and most DVDs are like that - and look really bad on 42"-50" screens! I do have 200+ Queen vhs tapes waiting to be transfered to digital format, and have been thinking about the best solution for years - this is what i think an optimal - or acceptable - solution (and i have done many tests).Your best back-up solution Miklos, is to send me copies as you do them. I'll send you a few hundred blanks if you like! :) Hey guys (and a lady), what do you think about Verbatim discs ? I personally had never problems with it, the discs which I burned 9-10 years ago are still readable, but many people don't like them. What's your oppinion ? |
| Bo Alex 24.02.2009 17:12 |
I always burn with Verbatim discs. I think they are good: they don't gave too much problems. |
| daffy_the_duck 24.02.2009 17:32 |
I've never used Verbatim discs so I can't help you but I found some website which can be helpful to make your choice: http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm or http://club.cdfreaks.com/ |
| inu-liger 24.02.2009 22:45 |
Verbatim makes excellent DVD R discs, both single and dual layered. Never had a problem with them. I understand their Blu-ray Recordable discs are also very excellent. Fujifilm's DVDR DL discs are also very good, also never had a problem. Memorex on the other hand, I would NEVER use their Dual Layered discs ever again - nothing but coasters! Burnt once, never again. Their single layered DVDR discs on the other hand however have been pretty good, as has Maxell's. Rarely had problems with those, but they should stay away from making DVDR DL's. Am afraid to touch their BD-R discs however, after my bad experience with their DL DVD's, even when I eventually get a burner. |
| inu-liger 24.02.2009 22:46 |
daffy_the_duck wrote: I've never used Verbatim discs so I can't help you but I found some website which can be helpful to make your choice: http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm or http://club.cdfreaks.com/ link is another good site. Check under DVD Writers (not Recorders) and Media for discs. |
| bigV 25.02.2009 07:29 |
YourValentine wrote: This is hard to say - I just find that DVD-Rs are unreliable. I lost many self burnt DVDs while CD-Rs seem to last much longer. I am sure that you increase the duration of a DVD medium when you burn slowly on good quality medium and do not write on them or glue something on them. It's certainly good to have a HD copy. My personal safety strategy is sharing with friends whenever possible so I can ask for a replacement copy in case mine fails... For a second there I thought that I had written that. Only it was someone smarter than me. And much prettier, I'm sure :) V. |
| YourValentine 25.02.2009 09:02 |
Thanks for the unexpected compliment :) I take your safety copies if you want ;) |