SVCD Quality Questions

[Zipfel]

Hey all, its been a while since I have posted at this awesome site.

I was just wondering what a good bitrate to look for in SVCD movies. I want to get the highest quality possible. When I look at the .nfo on some of these things it says 6pass VBR. I know Variable Bit Rate is suppose to smooth out the bitrate for smaller file size or something ( is VBR any good for watching SVCD on tv ? ) but I don't know what it means when it says 6 pass?

Also is there a tool that I could download that will tell me the quality of mpeg2 movie file? such as audio bitrate and video bitrate?

When looking to get the highest quality possible is there other things I should look for other then bitrate?

I know thats alot but thanks alot for taking the time to read my post, and thanks in advance for your replies.

this place rocks

[Zipfel]

any one have any ideas that they could give me?

[ZippyP.]

I was just wondering what a good bitrate to look for in SVCD movies. I want to get the highest quality possible.

If you really want the highest quality then you must use the highest bitrate of 2520 Kb/s for video and CBR mode. This also will give you the least amount of minutes per disk though, about 40 mins.

When I look at the .nfo on some of these things it says 6pass VBR. I know Variable Bit Rate is suppose to smooth out the bitrate for smaller file size or something ( is VBR any good for watching SVCD on tv ? ) but I don't know what it means when it says 6 pass?

6-pass means that the encoder (probably CCE since TMPGEnc only does 2-pass) will go through and analyze the video 6 times, each time making a better estimate of how to apply the bitrate. It's generally thought that any more than 3 passes is a waste of time though. It doesn't "smooth" the bitrate, it applies higher rates to high action scenes and lower rates to more static scenes in order to keep the quality up and the average bitrate (therefore file size) lower. VBR gives more minutes per disk while keeping quality.

Also is there a tool that I could download that will tell me the quality of mpeg2 movie file? such as audio bitrate and video bitrate?

Bitrate viewer, it's in the Tools section. Generally, the bigger the file the higher the bitrate that it was encoded at, so the bigger the better.

When looking to get the highest quality possible is there other things I should look for other then bitrate?

Higher resolution is better, although it's fixed at 480x480 for SVCD.

For SVCD a CBR encode of 2,000 Kb/s should be good and a VBR encode of 1,700 Kb/s average as well. Although the amount of action can affect the results.

[RabidDog]

8) 6 pass is just bragging! to encode at the highest quality use cq mode on tmpgenc and set it at 100,(top qual) this will give you a file smaller tham a cbr encode @ 2520

Search on two pass VBR and CBr and tmpgenc and VCD XVCD XSVCD

NTSC vcd 352x240
PAL vcd 352 x 288

[ImaWeTodd]

When I look at the .nfo on some of these things ...

What's the .nfo? Info? Maybe a Sony thing.