re-encoding svcd higher quality?

[dave_c]

i have an svcd that currently has a video bitrate of 1550, and i was just wondering if re-encoding the file with TMPGEnc using a higher bitrate would make the quality any better?

some say the final quality is determined by the original file, but if that's true, making high quality dvds of old movies wouldn't be possible then, right? then again, movie makers must have the expensive equipement to do so.

[Dragonsf]

You must distiguish between anlogue and digital source.Encoding from a digital source, it won't get better only same quality or worse.
Going from analogue source, all encoding depend on the original material (which is resolution-wise much better than any digital quality) and converting equipment (optical scanner and A/D converter).
If you look at the M.Monroe DVDs, they show, how the footage was restored.
With optical/chemical pre- and digital post-processing you can achieve a lot of quality.

[RabidDog]

there is virtually nothing you can do at home to improve the qulaity of any digital source you have. The best you can hope for is to the same quality out as you put in. when somebody has access to the original film stock then they can perform miracles with modern equipment and software. You however cannot do this by simply re-encoding.

[mats.hogberg]

...but to answer the question: To us hobbyists, we can't expect better results than the source allows. Some might argue that applyng certain filters will make the quality higher, but I'd rater say that filters makes the deficiencies less obvious.
To boot, as mpeg is not a lossless encoding method, each encoding process introduces some inevitable degradation in quality.

/Mats

[Gazorgan]

It's virtually impossible to 're-encode' and get higher quality. Increasing your bitrate to 2400 from 1500 won't do anything, you are already limited to a 1500 bitrates worth of artifacts.

You can only re-encode from the source (DVD).