why are my svcd's so big (4 or 5 cd's)

[shawndavis]

Could someone please let me know what I'm doing wrong. I've got a bunch of avi's, and every time I convert any of them to a vcd or svcd, they are huge. When I say huge, I'm talking like 4 gigs. I'm using TMPGEnc, and pretty much the default settings. By default, it set's the bitrate at 1600 for svcd and 1150 for vcd. Those values can only be increased, I can't lower them at all. If possible, could someone please help me out. Thanks.

[Mike6453]

You didn't say what size your avi was or how long your video was. VCD can hold about 80 minutes while SVCD will hold about 60 minutes at the bitrates you stated. The avi will be approximately 13 GB/hour.

Mike

[Gazorgan]

SVCD Rule of Thumb:

1-60 minutes 1 disk
45-100 minutes 2 disks
90-150 minutes 3 disks
135-180 minutes 4 disks
over 180 minutes WTH are you backing up? :P

Notice there is some overlap. It's a judgement call. 45 minutes/disk at 192k audio, with VBR 2-pass video gives excellant results. Letterbox encodes take up less bitrate (solid black doesn't change). Action movies take up more bandwidth.

My settings for xSVCD Min 500, Max 3000, Avg whatever the bitrate calculator spits out. I leave a little room to cut at a scene change and not the 795 MB mark. I have re-encoded to avoid cutting in the middle of a good action scene.

[shawndavis]

That's the thing, these are 600 to 700 Meg files, usually about 90 minutes long. When I convert them with tmpgenc, it says the output file will be anywhere from 3 to 4 gigs. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong, as I have tried adjusting the settings to make it as small as possible, and it is still wnats to create a huge file. I guess I could try a different program, and see how that goes. Thanks for the replies.

[shawndavis]

Mike6453 how do I get the bitrate lower than 1600. If I understand correctly, you are saying that at 1600, one hour of video will be ~13GB. TMPGEnc won't let me go any lower than 1600, only higher.

[Mike6453]

Shawndavis,

What I was referring to with the 13 GB file was your raw (uncrompessed) file. i.e. your avi file. You said that your avi file is only 600-700 MB, but is also 90 min. This appears to be a file that is already compressed. How did you create this file?

As far as your other question about changing the bitrate, I am assuming you are working with the wizard that comes up at the start. You need to cancel the wizard and choose settings at the bottom of the screen. About 1/2 way down is the option to change the bitrate. That is the way to change it, but I think you need to check on the video compression first because 600-700 MB file appears to already be compressed. Also the standard bitrate for VCD is 1150kbps and SVCD is 2520 kbps. You can also check the tools section on this site for templates for TMPGEnc. Hope this gives you some more info to help solve your problem.

Mike

[vhelp]

@ Gazorgan

..good rule of thumb hehe..

Have a nice weekend all.
-vhelp

[funkguy4]

That's the thing, these are 600 to 700 Meg files, usually about 90 minutes long. When I convert them with tmpgenc, it says the output file will be anywhere from 3 to 4 gigs. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong, as I have tried adjusting the settings to make it as small as possible, and it is still wnats to create a huge file. I guess I could try a different program, and see how that goes. Thanks for the replies.

Dude, you're encoding it WAY wrong, if you're getting 4 gigs for 90 minutes. I have achieved very sharp 100% source quality (well, you can't ever have 100%, but I'll be damned if I wasn't close!). Anyways, I went from about 900mb of XviD to about 1.18GB MPEG-2. If you got your settings right, you should be getting what I am, and this was a high-action movie, mind you. I use the KDVD template.

[shawndavis]

I don't doubt that something is wrong, but what. I'm sure many people frown upon this, but I'm downloading movies with bit torrent (which kicks ass I might add), and the avi's are ~700 megs. Every one I load with tmpgenc is huge after I convert to mpeg-1 or mpeg-2. I don't know much, but from what I 've gathered, I'm using the basic settings that everyone else is using. For example, I downloaded dog soldiers, which is a 696 Meg xvid avi at 23 fps. I convert it with tmpgenc, to an mpeg-2 at a bitrate of 1600, and it is just under 3 Gigs. The same goes for every avi I try to convert. What the hell am I doing wrong. Even if I lower the bitrate to to 1150 (the standard for vcd from what I gather), it's still over 2 gigs.

[gmatov]

It seems to me that the stuff you guys are DL'ing is in MPEG4 format, whether it is called avi or not.
I just opened my capture prog, and MPEG4 is spec'd at 264 kbps, a quarter of VCD. So, 700 meg DL, converted to MPEG1, quadruple the bitrate, 2.8 gigs.
If you are getting good conversions, even tho' 4 to 5 disks, MPEG4 has just earned my respect for keeping fidelity in the DL-capture.
I haven't used it because of the low bitrate, even tho' my card-program says my cap drive has 250 hours left on it.
Must try, and then do a convert to 1 or 2. I just might be surprised.

[shawndavis]

ok, so I see why the file is so big, but I don't know why it's reporting the info it is. TMPGEnc says that the video is 298 minutes, but it is only a 90 minute movie. Can anyone help out from the info I've given, I know it isn't much. Basicaly when running the wizard, when I get to the bitrate window, it says Movie info: 480 x 480 / 44100 Hz Stereo / 298 minutes 55 seconds. From the settings I have set at 2520 kbps, it says the file will be 5.9 Gigs. Why is it reporting 298 minutes, if the movie is only ~90 minutes. Thanks again for all of the replies.

[gmatov]

Check the guides, and when you see Cecilio's name, ask him.
For a 15 year old he's pretty sharp on DVD2SVCD. And, if nothing else he'll talk to you.
Try 352 X 480, and 48 khz, 1/2 D1, and maybe you can reconvert from that output to what you really want.
Other than that, I can't say. 90 min should fit on 1 1/2 VCDs, 2 SVCDs. Some kinda glitch says 298 minutes.

[vhelp]

hi gmatov,

Must try, and then do a convert to 1 or 2. I just might be surprised.

I haven't trie w/ a full divX movie conversion to mpeg, but those few tests
that I did do were based on what I considered "good quality" from a divX
source.. they CAN be good quality!

I think that as long as you have good quality source, and the source was
done correctly (whatever that means in divX land) then perhaps it would be
true for other as well ? Anyways..

@ gmatov,

Some kinda glitch says 298 minutes.

Does Doom9's dvd2svcd know about this glitch, and doing anything
about it ??

Have a great day all,
-vhelp

[Sord_Fish]

what type is the audio?

[MOVIEGEEK]

@shawndavis,
I would demux(File>MPEG Tools>Simple De-mux) your avi file and then convert,it sounds like the header on your avi is all screwed up.If that doesn't help uninstall TMPGEnc,go to regedit and delete all TMPGEnc entries,reboot and reinstall.

[funkguy4]

@shawndavis,
I would demux(File>MPEG Tools>Simple De-mux) your avi file and then convert,it sounds like the header on your avi is all screwed up.If that doesn't help uninstall TMPGEnc,go to regedit and delete all TMPGEnc entries,reboot and reinstall.

Or, you could just frameserve it..... Also, CQ is actually a weird VBR, so try it like this. If you don't mind making a slightly "X" SVCD, then you can set the max bitrate to something like 4000 and set the quality to something like 70. This will allow the encoder to squish the bitrate wherever it can and maintain a good quality, and the bitrate will spike for like a couple frames wherever it needs to. Also, try the KSVCD, it's kewl.

@gmatov:
I'M 14. .

[ashtones]

I dont know if this is the same issue your having but a while back I had a few xvid files that Tmpeg would convert and then add like an hour of black video or just one frame at the end, resulting in an oversized mpeg file. What I did was to source frame the file. Then it was able to convert it to the correct length.

[funkguy4]

I dont know if this is the same issue your having but a while back I had a few xvid files that Tmpeg would convert and then add like an hour of black video or just one frame at the end, resulting in an oversized mpeg file. What I did was to source frame the file. Then it was able to convert it to the correct length.

What is "source framing"? I hope it's not like frameseving because that's what I said to do.....and that would be a waste of forum space.....

[ashtones]

Nope it's completely different. But thanks for having such a keen eye. Usually you would use the source frame feature in Tmpeg if you wanted to encode just a section of the file or maybe cut out the credits. On the files I had that were screwed up I used the source frame to select the movies true end so tmpeg wouldn't just keep encoding a single frame at the end of the movie. Like I said this only happened on a few of the xvids I had and it worked great.

[funkguy4]

Nope it's completely different. But thanks for having such a keen eye. Usually you would use the source frame feature in Tmpeg if you wanted to encode just a section of the file or maybe cut out the credits. On the files I had that were screwed up I used the source frame to select the movies true end so tmpeg wouldn't just keep encoding a single frame at the end of the movie. Like I said this only happened on a few of the xvids I had and it worked great.

That makes sense, i guess the way you phrased it confused me....

[shawndavis]

It was the audio causing the problem. I followed Sord_Fish's tutorial in another thread, and stipped out the audio as a .wav file with virtual dub, and that corrected my problem. Now instead of TMPGEnc reporting the video as ~300 minutes, it shows as ~90 minutes, so the converted files can fit on 2 cd's. Thanks for everyones help, especialy Sord_Fish for his tutorial.

[funkguy4]

YAY

[honorarybrutha]

very interesting discussion. i haven't encountered this problem yet but now i know the solution if i do. thanks to all who helped.

[funkguy4]

very interesting discussion. i haven't encountered this problem yet but now i know the solution if i do. thanks to all who helped.

Why does the honorary brother's avatar look like a woman?