Is pixalation normal for DVD 2 SVCD?

[swayinOtis]

I have a copy of a movie ripped from DVD to SVCD. It's in letterbox format. For action scenes there's tons of pixilation, and on some scenes there's what looks like mirroring or ghosting or glimmering, hard to describe. I was rather disappointed. I just picked up my Pioneer DV-250 DVD player yesterday based on what I read here (it is highly rated). I have not had a chance to rent a real DVD.

Is this pixalation common with SVCDs?

Thanks

[poopyhead]

depends on the bitrate and other settings you use...

higher bitrate generally leads to higher quality...however, you will be able to fit less video per CD-R...so you may end up having to get up more often during a movie to change CDs

multipass VBR is very good at achieving good quality video for a specified file size..(i.e. i want to fit this movie on 2 CD-Rs). it's file prediction is very good, as it's based on the avg. bitrate...so, you can basically just take how long the movie is (in seconds) and multiply by the avg. bitrate you use (mbit/second). also, it makes multiple passes through the video while encoding, so it is very good at bitrate allocation. the only drawback is that multipass VBR can dramatically increase the encode time...

(i.e w/ tmpgenc, 2-pass VBR essentially doubles the encode time of CQ VBR)...however, the output size is more predictable and higher quality if you go w/ 2-pass).

so, depending on your bitrate and other quality settings, yes...you may get pixelation in fast action scenes...even my 2.2 - 2.5 mbit/s SVCDs show some background pixelation during high action scenes...however, they are in the background and i must be really looking for them. try not setting your avg. bitrate below 2 mbit/s....if you can still fit the movie on the # of CD-Rs you want.