Peter7769,
that is a GREAT observation and post! I do not have anything useful to add to your query, but I REALLY hope 1 or 2 of the best and brightest here will see this and dig a little to see what might be happening. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
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Peter7769,

For a direct comparison of the DVD HQ vs Smart fit you would have to use MediaInfo to compare the bitrate and resolution of the video on the DVD.

Smart fit lowers the bitrate to fit the capacity of the disk if your content exceeds the disk at normal DVD HQ quality.

It is possible to fit up to 6 hours of video on a 4.7 GB DVD, but the quality of the video is very poor quality. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Quote: Smart fit lowers the bitrate to fit the capacity of the disk if your content exceeds the disk at normal DVD HQ quality.

It is possible to fit up to 6 hours of video on a 4.7 GB DVD, but the quality of the video is very poor quality.

Carl 312 – I believe that also and that may have been true with the earlier versions of PD. That did not work for Pete. Jeff stated that SmartFit can only reduce the bitrate to 50% so 2 hours would be the max not 6 hours. See this link: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/47045.page .

Maybe SmartFit can give 6 hours on a 4:3 ar dvd but I haven't tried it. I think LP would work.

Hi

i did use Mediainfo, here are the two specs from two VOB files, one from HQ & one from Smart Fit

what do you guys think??



Pete

Hi Pete -

To me, that just looks like SmartFit didn't have to do much mathematical gymnastics to fit the project onto the DVD. That's why the bitrates are so similar.

In real life, I doubt you'd see much difference in PQ between the two discs. Label them A & B & see if anyone can spot the difference.

I seriously doubt that the SmartFit disc is "better" than the other, just on the basis of a few Kbs p/s.

Cheers - Tony
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Quote: Hi Pete -

To me, that just looks like SmartFit didn't have to do much mathematical gymnastics to fit the project onto the DVD. That's why the bitrates are so similar.

In real life, I doubt you'd see much difference in PQ between the two discs. Label them A & B & see if anyone can spot the difference.

I seriously doubt that the SmartFit disc is "better" than the other, just on the basis of a few Kbs p/s.

Cheers - Tony

I agree Tony but what I'm confused is to why in my original post the Smart Fit takes up more space than the HQ one, surely it should be opposite?



Pete

Quote: Peter7769,

For a direct comparison of the DVD HQ vs Smart fit you would have to use MediaInfo to compare the bitrate and resolution of the video on the DVD.

Smart fit lowers the bitrate to fit the capacity of the disk if your content exceeds the disk at normal DVD HQ quality.

It is possible to fit up to 6 hours of video on a 4.7 GB DVD, but the quality of the video is very poor quality.

Hi!

The poor quality Carl refers to is due to DVD-LP authoring. Severe pixelation can, and will occur at the lower end of the quality scale. For me, DVD-SP provides a good quality, watchable video, with no freezing(unless you need to put a lens cleaner through your DVD player)., plus the ability to put up to 2 hrs, 25 mins, of content on the disc, which is plenty! To this end I use PD8 for authoring, PD14 is for editing.

Cheers!

Neil.

Thank You, Neil.

What you say is correct, Powerdirector may not lower the bitrate and video size that much, it makes sense, any more than about 2 hours on a 4.7 GB DVD is very poor quality.

From Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video#Video_data

The lowest standard video resolution is 352 × 240 pixels on a 4.7 GB DVD.

That is very poor quality.

Powerdirector may not allow that low a quality. Just because the DVD Video Standard says you can does not mean you should. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Sorry Carl, I have to disagree, I've produced plenty of dvds over 2 hours and they are perfectly watchable. Just obviously not produced with powerdirector.

Also it still doesn't answer why smart fit produced a bigger file than HQ best quality?

Pete

Quote: Sorry Carl, I have to disagree, I've produced plenty of dvds over 2 hours and they are perfectly watchable. Just obviously not produced with powerdirector.

Also it still doesn't answer why smart fit produced a bigger file than HQ best quality?

Pete

Because of the amount of space that was free on the Disk, Smart fit wanted to fill the space, since your files were less than the full capacity of the Disc, smart fit increased the bit rate a few Kilobits/second.

DVD HQ is a pretty much constant 8.3 Mbits, Smart Fit is variable bit rate.

Smart Fit works in your favor when the videos are less than the capacity of the disk.

I have a VHS TAPE to DVD recorder that I use to transfer Video Tape to DVD, It has the ability of fit 6 hours of video on a 4.7 GB DVD, (bad quality), I usually limit the Tape Transfer to Two Hours, the quality of the video is acceptable, the Bit rate for 2 hours on a 4.7 GB disk is around 4 to 6 Mbps. A little less quality than the Maximum If you record only one hour on a 4.7 GB DVD.

Attached is MediaInfo from one VOB file of a two hour DVD recorded on the above DVD recorder. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Thanks for the clarification Carl, it makes a bit more sense now.

Pete

Quote: I have a VHS TAPE to DVD recorder that I use to transfer Video Tape to DVD, It has the ability of fit 6 hours of video on a 4.7 GB DVD, (bad quality), I usually limit the Tape Transfer to Two Hours, the quality of the video is acceptable, the Bit rate for 2 hours on a 4.7 GB disk is around 4 to 6 Mbps. A little less quality than the Maximum If you record only one hour on a 4.7 GB DVD.

Hi, Carl!

That which you describe was basically a VCR with a DVD recorder tacked onto it. You could transfer from DVD to VHS or from VHS to DVD but it was fairly basic with little or no provision to edit the content(except for DVD to VHS, perhaps). They were fairly commonplace in the dying days of analogue broadcasting. I wonder how many of these are still "floating around" out there. As for me I'd much rather use a capture card to take the signal from a VHS deck or any other analogue video source, and process it(clean it up) before committing it to a DVD. Whichever software you use, be it Power Director or any one of a myriad of other software programmes, you have far more control over the content and how it will look and sound at the end of your processes than just shoving a tape and blank disc into a VHS/DVD recorder. Though I figure you'd use the resultant DVD from one of these machines as your "raw material" for editing in PD(any version).

Cheers.

Neil.

Quote:
Hi, Carl!

Though I figure you'd use the resultant DVD from one of these machines as your "raw material" for editing in PD(any version).

Cheers.

Neil.

That is exactly what I do. The tape transfer is the main function. I don't do any Editing on that machine, I just capture the VHS tape to DVD, the DVD then becomes the source for Powerdirector to edit.

Most of my VHS tapes have commercials on them. Captures from TV shows. All before the DVR became readly available.

Some of those tapes were recorded in LP mode, so there may be up to 6 hours on one tape. I only record to the DVD a max of two hours because of the quality of the video.

That machine does not record to a double layer DVD, only Single Layer 4.7 GB. Kind of limits what you can do.

I have a USB capture device that is a very good device. But to me it is way more work transfering VHS that way. It ties up the computer for the whole time you are recording from a VHS tape. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.