High Quality VCD's. How are they done?

[Kolosus]

I downloaded a file a while back in vcd format. (Which I wish I could find now) After burning to CD, I popped it into my dvd player, and proceeded to watch the cleanest, and best looking vcd I have ever seen in my life.
After checking the original, and making sure it was standard vcd format, I'm still wondering how this was done months later. It easily stacks up to VHS in clarity. Anyone know how this was accomplished? I've never been able to get this from a vcd. Even capturing at high resolution and bitrates and compressing it to vcd standards, I've still never gotten one to come out that good.

[jimmalenko]

The author most likely had TMPGEnc set up for optimum results.

I have found that Eazy VCD on the setting Highest Quality (Very slow) gives excellent results.

[Kolosus]

I'll have to try both. I'd love to be able to duplicate that on vcd or dvd-low.
Thanks for the reply. If I can figure out how to accomplish that kind of quality in vcd or dvd-low, it could be very useful.

[twinegar]

I just purchased Procoder 1.5 and Procoder Express and will do a Laserdisc to VCD conversion. Judging by the high quality results that I achieved with DVD I am curious to see. I wish the Procoder filters were as easy to use as TMPGEnc.

[Supremus]

If your source material is good, then it's very easy to produce a high quality VCD encode. My home made VCDs, captured from digital cable, are far superior to my VHS recordings from the same source. In my opinion, only commerically produced VHS can beat a good looking VCD.

When encoding NTSC material, many people encode to the wrong specs. For material such as sitcoms, dramas, movies, cartoons, etc, you need to IVTC and encode at 23.976fps, not 29.97. It makes a huge difference.

[Kolosus]

Ok Supremus, you've piqued my interest.
So what resolution, bitrate, and format do you capture with for the express purpose of making a vcd? And would dvd-low be similar except with mpeg2 instead of mpeg1?

[Supremus]

Ok Supremus, you've piqued my interest.
So what resolution, bitrate, and format do you capture with for the express purpose of making a vcd? And would dvd-low be similar except with mpeg2 instead of mpeg1?

I capture at 384x576 (PAL) using AVI_IO + HuffyUV codec. I IVTC with DeComb for AviSynth, edit and resize with VirtualDub, and encode with TMPGenc. Some people IVTC and edit in TMPGenc, so that skips a few steps. I just prefer my method.

I use the exact same process for DVD, except I resize to 352x576 (PAL again) instead of VCD resolution. For DVD, I typically use a bitrate of around 2500-3000, depending on the type of material.

In my opinion, using 352x576 for DVD offers the best compromise between size, quality and encoding time, compared to full 720x576.

[Kolosus]

Thanks Supremus, I'm definitely going to experiment with what you've given me and see what comes of it. It should be interesting. I'll post my results in this thread. Regards.

[jsl272003]

i use tmpgenc also and the vcds that i put out are awesome quality. took me a lil while to get the settings right where i needed them, but now they are ver high quality vcds.

[zilog_jones]

I capture at 384x576 (PAL) using AVI_IO + HuffyUV codec. I IVTC with DeComb for AviSynth, edit and resize with VirtualDub, and encode with TMPGenc. Some people IVTC and edit in TMPGenc, so that skips a few steps. I just prefer my method.

Err, why are you IVTC-ing PAL video??!? IVTC is for converting ~30fps NTSC (when film content is on it) back to 23.976fps (film is normally 24fps). Yeah, sure, you should de-interlace it if encoding the MPEG at 25fps, but you don't need to do anything else! Unless you want to keep the smoothness of actual video content (i.e. not something that was originally filmed), then you should encode it at 50fps (60 for NTSC). But if you're doing that, each frame will only have have the bandwidth...

[Supremus]

Err, why are you IVTC-ing PAL video??!? IVTC is for converting ~30fps NTSC (when film content is on it) back to 23.976fps (film is normally 24fps). Yeah, sure, you should de-interlace it if encoding the MPEG at 25fps, but you don't need to do anything else! Unless you want to keep the smoothness of actual video content (i.e. not something that was originally filmed), then you should encode it at 50fps (60 for NTSC). But if you're doing that, each frame will only have have the bandwidth...

IVTC'ing is also for recovering progressive frames from combed PAL video. I only use the Telecide command and don't decimate or remove 3:2 pulldown, like you would with NTSC, of course.

[zilog_jones]

Oh, OK. I didn't know that was also telecine...