I can turn a rendered .MP4 into a .VOB with an authoring tool (WinX app). The .MP4 is about 2.3 Gb. The .VOB is something like 200 Mb and the resolution is nothing like the .MP4. How do I coerce an authoring tool to just pass the source file straight through without shrinking it?
ADDED: I dropped WinXDVDwhatever (it’s bundled with other stuff I do need) for AVItoDVD. I changed the MS codecs for LAV codecs. I raised the upper bound for rate to 9000 (MediaInfo says the video maxes out at 8900+). The file’s now mildly longer but still nowhere the original 2.3 Gb.
[quote=“RBEmerson, post:1, topic:3209”]
How do I coerce an authoring tool to just pass the source file straight through without shrinking it?
[/quote] Not possible!
RBE, you do know that there are DVD Export presets, don’t you? I know you are shooting HD video and any DVD creation software has to down-res the video. Perhaps Shotcut will do a better job.
I tried a DVD preset without changing any of the defaults. The original mp4 file was 1.5ish GB and the resulting vob file came out to 5.4ish GB with no discernible loss of quality.
I have posted this elsewhere recently - but it’s worth posting again.
“The highest resolution that the DVD format can support is 720 x 480 pixels per frame for NTSC (or 720 x 576 pixels per frame for PAL), which is at best only 37.5% of the resolution of 720HD.”
Thanks, everyone, for reminding me about the DVD presets. Talk about use it or lose it - I lost that they’re in Shotcut.
I was able to get Shotcut to output a 1080 16:9 59.94 fps .vob but… there’s still far to much pixelation due to compression. The final product will be seen on a 50+" display. This resolution just doesn’t get it done. I get the DVD’s size limitation, and edited the video down to about 4 minutes. The video’s about 2.63 Gb or loosely half of the DVD size limit.
The .vob size limit is 1+ Gb per .vob and 4 or 5 sequential .vob’s can be present on a DVD-5 disc. Any Win10 authoring tool, as well as Shotcut, doesn’t seem to come anywhere near this. Why?
But I don’t get what you are trying to do. DVD, as Steve says is limited to Standard Definition video. Even if you could get a DVD writer to work at High Definition a DVD player wouldn’t play it! If it’s OK to play only on a PC then save it as a x264 High Option mp4. That can be burned to a DVD data disk (not as vob) and “some” DVD players will play it. What I am doing is writing to flash drives and some DVD players and some HDTVs will play them.
Another option is Amazon has Sony DVD Archirect 5 still available for $40 and you could burn to BD disks.
Starting from the DVD end… Occasionally I get a promotional DVD. It fits on a normal DVD (not double-sided), plays on a normal DVD player, and is visually sharp with no obvious pixelation compared to what I’m getting now. That’s what I want to do with 4 minutes of Shotcut video.
Oooooh. The plot thickens. High definition video files often have a “ts” to define 'transport stream." In this case the *_TS is normal SD video files for a DVD.The mystery for you is how did they get such a pristine down-res? I have HDV tape-based video that transfers to my PC as .m2ts or just .mts extensions.I think most HD video cameras these days used memory cards. They are smaller and much easier to work with but the down-res to SD video has had an historic problem with artifacts. One of the fortunate circumstances for me is that HDV is anamorphic video and it down-rezes very well. Memory card video is full 1920 pixels for HD and for some reason the down-rez needs some “finess” for lack of a better term. Some video editors are known for being able to do that well. This is an area where you will have to do some research. Have you tried Shotcut’s DVD presets yet?
I can tell you that my DVDs played on an up-scaling DVD player (HDMI output) look almost as good as the Blu-rays. -=Ken=-
Your output was pixelated because you increased the resolution to 1920x1080, which is not DVD compliant, used MPEG-2, which is not a very efficient codec, and left the bitrate at a low setting for that codec and resolution. Just use the DVD export preset and don’t change anything. You will get a compliant .vob file but not in an authored format. You need a pas-through style DVD authoring tool. DVD Styler is one such tool.
Transport stream format has nothing to do with resolution.
Ah well, at least this project is a one-off for someone without a DVD-capable Chromebook, only whatever’s tied to his whacking home entertainment system. The poor guy’s so far out in the sticks FiOS isn’t an option. VZW replaced his very unreliable wire connection with a dedicated cellphone service. No YouTube for this guy. Even his Dish goes out when it rains. [/sad]
