Improve Source

Twist86

Twist86

Active Member
I am curious would there be any benefit for trying to improve a video source ? Make the video look better on high resolution monitors. I just got done making the first DVD and it looks good on my 21'' monitor but it looks kinda blocky on my 32'' monitor.

If it would see benefit what is a good program? I can't seem to find any that do a good job. Thank you.


*edit*
I forgot to mention the DVD is of home videos so the source is not super fantastic to begin with. I also need a joiner program to make things easier but the issue I find is most joiners convert the files and its usually to poorer quality. Is there a basic joiner that just joins the files and nothing else?
 
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alot of its the program you use to play your videos, try vlc media player, realplayer, adobe media player, and xbmc media center, they are all free so try them and pick for yourself which one you prefer overall.
 
No I don't need a media player what I am doing is making some home videos for my grandparents. I need to boost the quality of the source so it looks better when I convert and burn to DVD. The issue is the program I use to make them into a DVD file just converts what it has. So if I can boost the quality I get a more quality finish. See what I mean?
 
The more obvious deduction would be the 32" monitor is crappier than the 21" monitor! However, I suspect it's a trick of the eye.

If you moved your 32" monitor far enough back so it appeared to be the same size as the 21", the blockiness will probably disappear.

Assuming monitor res to be identical, every pixel on the 32" monitor is 50% larger than the 21" so your eye will see more of a block (it's area is over twice the size). It the same as blowing up a jpeg. The larger it is, the more blocky it appears.

It could also depend on what the native resolution of the monitor is. Suppose your 21" monitor's native res was 1280x720 and that was the res of the video you are showing. That's fine. Suppose the 32" monitor had a res of 1400x790 (just for example). Now the video has to be resampled to 1400x790 from 1280x720 which could result in loss of quality. This can be quite dramatic with spreadsheets etc.

Edit: I should add that native resolution is an issue between what your graphics card can produce and the res of the monitor.

You mention about joining video and putting stuff on DVD. Are you talking about a proper DVD with menus or a collection of files on a DVD?

If a proper DVD, a decent author program should allow you to add files one after the other. Since most DVD authoring involves converting to mpeg2, the joining has no effect on quality compared to if it were just one clip.

If a collection of files on DVD, do you need to join together? If you do, and have a bunch of AVIs of the same type and size, you can join them losslessly using apps like VirtualDub (Video/Direct Stream Copy option).
 
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Your right after some testing on the way home I found my buddies 1950x1080 it looked good. My parents found a 50'' projection type TV and it looked great on it too. So its the 32'' I myself found as it must have a lower resolution. So thanks for reaffirming that.

Nanobyte said:
You mention about joining video and putting stuff on DVD. Are you talking about a proper DVD with menus or a collection of files on a DVD?
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Yeah I use proper DVD/menus with AVStoDVD which is free and so far really good program. I also added English subtitles for those in the family that are hard of hearing.

The only problem I have is when I use multiple files it makes a error and only encodes 1 of the (example) 4 files. Even using the proper method it still causes problems so the only solution is to turn multiple AVI into a single AVI. Then have it encode and create my DVD archive and burn it that way.
 
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Twist86 said:
....Even using the proper method it still causes problems so the only solution is to turn multiple AVI into a single AVI. Then have it encode and create my DVD archive and burn it that way.
Click to expand...

As I said, if they are all the same size, codec etc you can join them losslessly. There are free and payware apps. As I mentioned, VirtualDub is free, but does not like variable bit rate audio.

Brief instruction for VirtualDub or VirtualDubMod (handles mpeg too)
File/Open - first avi
File/Append Avi segment - repeat for all segments. If not compatible will get error message.
Video/Direct Stream Copy
File/Save AVI
 
Thank you Nanobyte that actually worked perfectly. I also used the xvid codec to compress the video down and it didn't appear to downgrade quality.

The reason I did this was if I made a file larger than 700mb it would be over 4.2GB once converted to DVD. So this way I turned a 1.4GB collection of files into 680mb which fit on a DVD without lowering quality during the process at all.
 
You will have lost some quality if you did not use Direct Stream Copy but no biggie.

I don't follow the dvd size issue. When you fit files on to an NTSC video dvd, the video is converted to 720x480 mpeg2. The dimensions of the original video does not matter, but the TIME does. Whatever the size of the sources, it will end up at 720x480. If you slapped your Direct Stream Copy in place of the compressed video (which runs the same time) the size on the dvd would be the same.

The only factor that would cause a significant difference is if the compressed xvid lost so much detail that it could be compressed into a smaller mpeg file. The more detail there is in jpegs and mpegs, the larger the file size. You reported little loss of detail.

In most dvd software you can arrange to have the video compressed to fit the 4.37GB dvd but that will result in some loss of quality, depending.

If you are happy, stick with what you have. I mention for the benefit of others.
 
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