Best xvcd encoding resolution for sharpness

[Jerry]

Hi,

I'm capturing at 720x480 from a dv source. I can't play svcds on my dvd player so I want the best vcd I can make.
I'm using TMPGenc to encode. I've tried encoding at 720x480 and the sharpness is excellent but can't get rid of blockiness even encoding at 2600bps which is about the max for my dvd player.

I've tried the following settings with these results
352x288 - Quality looks about like 352x240
480x480 -The image is about half normal size and to the left middle of the screen -
480x576 - The image is still small and to the left bottom.
My question - are there any other settings to try or should I simply stick to capturing at 720x480 and converting to 352x240?

Thanks, Jerry


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jerry on 2001-11-10 19:38:42 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jerry on 2001-11-10 19:43:44 ]</font>

[Anonymous65]

Capture at 704x480 and use Tmpeg to convert to VCD (352x240) and play with the edge enhance filter to give it a bit of cripsness. If you have problems with blocks, then make the VCD at higher bitrate (use mpeg-1).

[N0SoopForU]

If you truly want to keep the sharpness of your video I would suggest encoding to an interlaced SVCD, but since you can not play them on your DVD player here is my suggestion:

First of all forget about the 352x288 and 480x576. Those are the PAL (Outside North America) resolutions for VCD and SVCD respectively. Using those resolutions in an NTSC(North America) format will make your video look awkward. I'm assuming you are in North America, if not then use the 352x288 and 480x576 resolutions.

Second, since you are creating a VCD, your output video will not be interlaced, which will take away from some of the sharpness.

Also, since your DVD player is limited to 2600kb/s, you will never be able to completely get rid of the blockiness. But at 2600kb/s it shouldn't be too severe.

If you are looking to maximize sharpness and keep blockiness to a minimum, my advice would be to capture at 352x480 and resize to 352x240 using VirtualDub with the resize filter set to precise bicubic. Then encode at 2600kb/s or 2520kb/s. I would have said to capture at 480x480 and encode to a 480x480 XVCD, but you said the image was a little off at that resolution.

It sounds like your DVD player might not support XVCD resolutions, so you might be stuck with making only XVCD's at standard resolution (352x240).

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: N0SoopForU on 2001-11-11 00:28:57 ]</font>