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Best PowerDirector Production Settings for converting Home Movie DVD's to iPad??
johnrr6 [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Mar 01, 2011 20:07 Messages: 6 Offline
[Post New] Jul 10, 2017 19:35
Hello. Am a PowerDirector15 user fairly new to the forum and have researched till I am blue in the face. Thought I'd ask some experts. I have 8 DVDs of Home Movies of my family (16 mm film) that were converted years ago to DVD format and display at aspect ratio of 4:3. Each DVD has a play time of approx 2 hours.

VLC tells me they are:
Codec Mpeg 2 (mpgv)
Resolution 720x480
Display Resolution 720x480
Frame Rate 29.970029
Decoded Format Planar 4:2:0 YUV

I no longer have access to the source 16mm film and to be frank...even if I did it may be unrecoverable because of storage issues in my sister's house and some water damage. So I'm stuck with the DVD's as my best source material.

My entire family and relatives have all basically joined the "Apple Ecosystem" and all have iPads and iPhones. And since I am retired now my family has appointed me head movie maker and wants these movies on their iPads.

Hence, I want to create digital MP4s of each one of these disks. I have experimented with several of the different PowerDirector presets (Apple Device iPad and some different H264 custom settings, etc) but feel I am missing something as the video quality of the DVD is rather good when viewed on my PC, from the straight .vob files during PowerDirecter15 editing......but when I have converted the quality degrades, a lot of fuzzy and blurry.

I'd like to get close to those original .vob files in quality and try to keep the files smaller than 3 GB each if possible. What do you feel the BEST possible production settings would be for this type of video conversion to iPad??

Any help/advice most appreciated.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jul 10. 2017 19:36

johnrr6 [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Mar 01, 2011 20:07 Messages: 6 Offline
[Post New] Jul 12, 2017 21:06
Haven't gotten any replies but went over to the Handbrake Forum and got some help and have been "experimenting."

So far....best I have been able to produce uses this preset:

Apple Devices

iPad

640x480p 30 2mbps

They play nicely on both iPhone and iPad and a 2 hours worth of video renders out at approx 1.9 GB.

The quality almost matches the source....not quite....sometimes the scenes are a tad blurry from thei devices upscaling.

I'd like to get them a bit sharper without just huge file sizes.

Handbrake Forum suggests settting the render to 720x480p 30 with a Bit Rate around 2 mbps but I have not figured out how to make that setting in PD15 yet.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jul 12. 2017 21:07

tomasc [Avatar]
Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline
[Post New] Jul 12, 2017 21:35
640x480p30 is fine with handbrake. Your original was 720x480/60i. Try Filters/Deinterlace/EED12Bob if you stand the long processing time for best quality. 240 lines of vertical resolution had to be removed otherwise to stop the jagginess of converting interlaced to progressive.
johnrr6 [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Mar 01, 2011 20:07 Messages: 6 Offline
[Post New] Jul 12, 2017 22:15
OK...thanks!! Will try that in HB but I am really looking for a "best" production setting in PD15.

I want to add a simple title to each video produced and HB doesn't edit....so correct me if I'm wrong but won't PD15 just re-render any Handbrake video I insert in during PD15's production phase.

I was under the impression that the more content is redered the greater the loss in quality.
tomasc [Avatar]
Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline
[Post New] Jul 12, 2017 22:37
You already know the problem. You originally had 60 interlaced fields. You now want 30 progressive frames. This is best done with handbrake.

You can always edit the mpeg-2 720x480/60i, add titles, or whatever and use intelligent svrt on the PD15 produced files before the conversion with handbrake.
johnrr6 [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Mar 01, 2011 20:07 Messages: 6 Offline
[Post New] Jul 13, 2017 18:47
Quote You already know the problem. You originally had 60 interlaced fields. You now want 30 progressive frames. This is best done with handbrake.

You can always edit the mpeg-2 720x480/60i, add titles, or whatever and use intelligent svrt on the PD15 produced files before the conversion with handbrake.


Oh I like this idea a lot! Thank you.

I had no idea what Intelligemt SVRT was until you mentioned it and I looked it up.

Sounds like exactly what is needed.

Thanks again!
johnrr6 [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Mar 01, 2011 20:07 Messages: 6 Offline
[Post New] Jul 14, 2017 22:54
Wow.....14 hours to encode on handbrake using that filter..

And I have a pretty high end machine....LOL

I will let you know what it looks like.
GGRussell [Avatar]
Senior Contributor Joined: Jan 08, 2012 11:38 Messages: 709 Offline
[Post New] Jul 15, 2017 11:56
YOu could always create a custom output profile 720x480 AVC@30fps progressive at a higher bitrate for better quality in PD15. Intel i7 4770k, 16GB, GTX1060 3GB, Two 240GB SSD, 4TB HD, Sony HDR-TD20V 3D camcorder, Sony SLT-A65VK for still images, Windows 10 Pro, 64bit
Gary Russell -- TN USA
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