High Quality SVCD

[KidCisco]

Hi,

I'm new to all this and need some advice. I want to create the highest
possible quality SVCDs of my DV videos.

I have a digital video camera (Sony DCR-TRV310E) and a Canopus Raptor capture card.

I capture my videos with the included Canopus software which creates an
AVI file.

I edit my video with Premiere 6.5 and then save it as an AVI file.
Premiere 6.5 offers the file type "Microsoft DV AVI" and "Microsoft AVI".
Which should I use?

I then convert my AVI file to MPEG2 using Canopus ProCoder.

Which are the best settings so that during conversion the target file is
left as close to the original as possible. Im using 2 Pass VBR and
a video bitrate of 2520. I am using VCDEasy to create the SVCD.

I have a test AVI file which is 100 MB. After conversion with the above
settings the MPEG2 file is around 9 MB. I'm loosing alot of information
and quality here!

The quality of the converted file is good but I still notice a quality
difference when compared to the original AVI file.

What is the best method to convert a AVI file to MPEG2 without
quality loss? Can I create a MPEG2 file without or with light
compression? Target file size and decoding time is not a problem.

Any help here is greatly appreciated!

Thanks for your time.

Kid

[adam]

If possible you shouldn't convert to either form of avi before encoding. If you convert to uncompressed avi your file is going to be massive, and if you convert to any codec then there is most likely going to be some quality loss. Procoder has a premiere plugin. It should allow you to install it from the same installation program that you installed the standalone version. With the plugin, you can go straight from Premiere to Procoder without having to encode to an intermediate avi file. This will minimize quality loss.

As far as the encoding stage goes, there's really not all that much you can do. You are already maxing out the bitrate allowed in the SVCD standard, so you really aren't even gaining much by using 2-pass VBR. You would probably get the same results with CBR. You may want to deviate from the SVCD standards a bit and raise your max bitrate to around 3 or 3.5mbits. This will make your disk less compatible on dvd players, but it will definitely increase quality.

If you want the best quality use the mastering quality setting.

You may want to try using Procoder's field based encoding. It provides substantially better quality with interlaced material, what your dv most likely is, at the expense of compatibility. I don't quite understand why, but not all player will play a file encoded in this manner.

You may want to experiment with Procoder's various blend filters, which are really just noise reduction filters. Dv contains alot of detail which is difficult to encode well at low bitrates. Using light noise reduction will make your material more compressible without causing any noticable quality degragation. Just don't go overboard.

Other than that, you are just reaching the limits of what the SVCD standard has to offer. I was perfectly happy with SVCD from a DVD source, but I found DV sources lacking when converted to SVCD. As a result I bought a DVD burner and am now fully satisfied with the quality of my captures.

[willy_annand]

I edit my video with Premiere 6.5 and then save it as an AVI file. Premiere 6.5 offers the file type "Microsoft DV AVI" and "Microsoft AVI". Which should I use?

Out of interest, have you tried going from Premiere, directly to SVCD compatible MPEG2?

To do this, in v6.5, "Export Timeline", then select "Adobe MPEG Encoder". Then select SVCD and go.