DVD2SVCD Advice

[elister]

Im using this program, still learning, yet its obvious to me, after using various other programs, that this is what I should be using.

Im still using the default settings, and yet, I fear that I could be improving the quality of the SVCD. I have a few DVDs that I have made back ups of DVDs I own, stuff thats hard to find in rental stores, and the quality is nothing compared to what ive downloaded.

What ive done so far is turned off the CD Image portion, and thats it.

How do I make the SVCD cleaner? Ive seen plenty of traditional mpeg artifacts show up in mild scenes (IE: Where theres not alot of camera movment, or action), yet SVCDs ive downloaded, everything looks clean. WTF? What am I doing wrong? What advanced settings should I toggle?

Variable Bit Rate or Constant Bit Rate? 2nd Pass? I dunno.

[jnk76]

Most defaults work pretty good.
I don't make SVCD anymore but when I did I think I changed the audio bitrate, video bitrate and that was pretty much it. I think on avg. the video bit rate was 2100-2300. You should not be getting any very noticable things happening at that rate. Depending on your audio bit rate you can set your video higher to a max of 2756 for audio and video.

To do DVD encoding with DVD2SVCD there are many more things that need to be changed.

So if your movie is 90min - 140 min. approx. it should end up fitting on 2 80min. CD's.

Any help?

[macleod]

Here are screen shots of the settings I use with DVD2SVCD (I actually make CVD's which are in my opinion better than SVCD's). http://www.dewayneward.0catch.com/CVDindex.htm

It has pics of each of the settings and really walks you through the process.

[jnk76]

Don't know about CVD being better than SVCD. There are DVD compliant though with there 352*480/576 rather than 480*480/576. Making them a little easier to author and put on DVD's.
Quality wise......I would think SVCD should come out on top slightly. This is based on the higher res. and not a comparison because I have never made a CVD before.

[macleod]

all I'll say about cvd vs svcd, is the proofs in the pudding. I've done both, and I am FAR happier with CVD than SVCD. People will say one way or the other. Do a sample of both with everything the same except for resolution and see what you think.

Good point on dvd compatibility. Been converting CVDs to dvdr and enjoring the fact that I can just dump it in and not have to mess with everything else.

[elister]

jnk76,

Well, the movie is 93 minutes per DVD (4 DVDs total). It encodes them into 2 files, between 650-720 megs per file. Much better than DVDx (which creates files much larger), however, I still see alot of mpeg artifacts.

What im trying to do is create SVCD files, and merge them with SVCD2DVDMPEG+, in order to squeeze two movies onto a DVD-R. Maybe the odd cult flick ill share out, but most of it is private use, so it doesnt matter if its going to fit on a 80 min CD.

Exactly how do I change the bitrate with DVD2SVCD? That window tab seems a bit confusing to me, and some if its greyed out so i cant change them.

Also, im using TMPGEncPlus 2.5 to do the encoding, should I be using this program or should I be using Cinema Craft Encoder? Only reason why im using TMPGnc is that I found it off a newsgroup listing, and all of my old encoders are from 1998 (im used to making VCDs the old fashioned way, capture&encode).

Macleod,
I followed your link, very helpful. I changed the settings as best I could and my system, which nomally will encode a 90 min movie over night, woke up and it was only at 30%. I canceled out of it, yet it deleted the mpeg so I couldnt tell if it was better quality. Is it normal to take three times as much time to encode it properly?

[jnk76]

I use CCE not TMPGnc. It is much faster and you will not get the noise or macro blocks.

If your intentions are for putting on DVD-R I would encode as a DVD compliant format from beginning.

So in this case CVD or DVD.

[elister]

Ok, ill look around for CCE. However, for DVD Compliant files, I've been using SVCD2DVDMPEG+, and it works well.

[jnk76]

That program works but is extra work.
The program was mainly developed by chrissyboy to convert existing SVCD's to DVD. If you have a choice.......why not do it the easy way from beginning?

[elister]

That program works but is extra work.
The program was mainly developed by chrissyboy to convert existing SVCD's to DVD. If you have a choice.......why not do it the easy way from beginning?

Because Im not sure how, im still new to DVD-Rs, SVCDs and such. VCDs, not a problem I tell ya. But this is still new ground for me. I only have this special version of Nero Burning Rom that came with my DVD-R.

Or are you saying I can just drag and drop CVD mpegs onto a DVD-R, not needing these IFO and BUP files?

[elister]

Well if the proof is in the pudding, I guess that pudding be Cinema Craft Encoder. Man you wernt kidding, its not only faster, but the quality is ALOT better. 480x480 SVCDs look great!

Thanks to everyone for the input.

[macleod]

Or are you saying I can just drag and drop CVD mpegs onto a DVD-R, not needing these IFO and BUP files?

By using the modified CVd format (actually the "modified" form is to make it 48 mhz audio instead of 44.1mhz), it is actually a DVD resolution size (commonly referred to as half d1). If you get an app like movie factory 2 or spruce up or quite a few others, you just dump the mpeg into the authoring program and then have it burn it to DVD. Nothing to it.

In my opinion (and quite a few others'), Cinema Craft encoder does a MUCH better job on mpeg 2 than TMPGENC, AND it is much quicker. Others say that you can get really good encodes with TMPGENC, but I go with what works for me.

Macleod,
I followed your link, very helpful. I changed the settings as best I could and my system, which nomally will encode a 90 min movie over night, woke up and it was only at 30%. I canceled out of it, yet it deleted the mpeg so I couldnt tell if it was better quality. Is it normal to take three times as much time to encode it properly?

It should take anywhere near that long. from the point that I click "OK" to the point that it is ready to burn/or be dumped into an authoring program is about 6-8 hours. I normally do 2-3 pass (including the vaf). I am running a 1.2 gig with 320 pc100 ram. Dont know why it was so slow, unless you were using TMPGENC, that could explain it?!?!?! Sounds like you are happy with the finaly product. Just to 'hopefully' prove a point, try to encode the same movie as a CVD and bump it up against your SVCD. Think you may surprise yourself. Also in the CVD vs SVCD camp, is that more DVD players will play CVD than SVCD-DVD. Just some food for thought (gotta stop thefood references)

[elister]

It should take anywhere near that long. from the point that I click "OK" to the point that it is ready to burn/or be dumped into an authoring program is about 6-8 hours. I normally do 2-3 pass (including the vaf). I am running a 1.2 gig with 320 pc100 ram. Dont know why it was so slow, unless you were using TMPGENC, that could explain it?!?!?! Sounds like you are happy with the finaly product. Just to 'hopefully' prove a point, try to encode the same movie as a CVD and bump it up against your SVCD. Think you may surprise yourself. Also in the CVD vs SVCD camp, is that more DVD players will play CVD than SVCD-DVD. Just some food for thought (gotta stop thefood references)

Pretty much yeah, I was using TMPGENC, which was causing it to take way too long to encode (well it was Analyzing?). Ill do some samples of the CVD format for comparisons, sounds like its not much a visual difference from SVCD. But for now, I am happy with the huge difference between the two encoders.