How to get the best quality for Blu-Ray movie disks (BDMV)

TerryQ111

Newbie Joined: Apr 30, 2014 15:36 Messages: 38 Offline

Solved by

Jul 03, 2015 17:31

I've made vacation DVDs for years, most recently with a D8 camera (DV format .avi). Last year I purchased a camcorder with HD 1920x1080/60p capability (nominal 28 Mbps). So far I've only shot 1920x1080/60i (about 12 Mbps), which is the camera's default setting.

This week, I produced my first DVD using PowerDirector 13, MPEG-2 "HQ - Best Quality." I was VERY impressed at how much better the DVD looked than my previous DVDs.

I then used the same project file to produce a Blu-Ray movie disk (BDMV). PD selected MPEG-2 HD 1920x1080/60i. I played it on a 58 inch Samsung TV (1080p capable), connected to a DVD/Blu-Ray player through an HDMI cable.

At first I thought the Blu-Ray playback was no better than the DVD (despite the data file size of the Blu-Ray being 3x that of the DVD). So I paused the video on certain frames, and photographed the image with a 9 mexapixel camera mounted on a tripod. Comparing the Blu-Ray to the DVD images, there was a slight improvement in resolution in the details of the picture with the Blu-Ray.

All of this leads up to an unexpected conclusion: The Blu-Ray disk didn't seem all that much better than the DVD made by PD13.

And that leads me to further questions:

1. Am I overlooking something I should be doing to improve the Blu-Ray disk quality?

2. I understand that the Blu-Ray BDMV specification does not yet support 1080p progressive video. And I see nothing in PD13 to suggest it will output 1080p to a Blu-Ray disk. But I've also read on the Internet that there are ways to trick PD into accepting 1080p files. Does anyone have experience doing that? Does it improve the image quality significantly, or is it just beneficial for action shots?

Any advice will be appreciated.

Terry Quinn Thanks for everyone's help,
Terry

Power Director 14
HP Z230 Workstation (Intel Core i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz, 16GB RAM, 250GB SSHD, 3TB Toshiba Data Drive, Windows 10 Professional, nVidea GeForce GTX 750Ti)
Panasonic HC-X920

GGRussell

Senior Contributor Joined: Jan 08, 2012 11:38 Messages: 709 Offline

Jul 03, 2015 18:45

Does your Bluray player upscale DVDs? If you connected a DVD Player to that same TV and played the same DVD, that would give you a better idea of the difference. 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

TerryQ111

Newbie Joined: Apr 30, 2014 15:36 Messages: 38 Offline

Jul 03, 2015 22:37

Gary, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "upscale," but I'll guess that you are wondering how much of the gain was coming from the better camera resolution, and how much from the new Blu-Ray player with the HDMI cable (vs my old Sony DVD player that used an S-Video connection). Also, how much was due to going from new camera DVD to Blu-Ray disc.

I just went back and played an older DVD recorded with the D8 camera, and viewed it on both the old Sony with the S-Video cable, and the new LG Blu-Ray/DVD player with the HDMI cable. Then I did the same with the new DVD where the source was the new camera and PD13 software. In terms of quality improvement going from old DVD on the old DVD player to new Blu-Ray on new player, I'd swag that 45% of the gain was going from old player with S-Video to new player with HDMI connection, 45% was due to the higher definition camera and PD13 software, and a final 10% was going from new DVD to Blu-Ray.
Thanks for everyone's help,
Terry

Power Director 14
HP Z230 Workstation (Intel Core i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz, 16GB RAM, 250GB SSHD, 3TB Toshiba Data Drive, Windows 10 Professional, nVidea GeForce GTX 750Ti)
Panasonic HC-X920