cvd authoring

[rpgmaster777]

I've searched around the different topics and I can't seem to get a clear answer to my question. i have an mpeg2 file that i want to burn as a cvd which my standalone player supports. in order to use as much space as possible on a cdr(its all i have at this point) i encoded my:

source avi file

640x480 23.976 fps
48khz audio

using tmpgenc plus as a svcd with the following settings:

NTSC FILM
VBR long sustained format format
VBR at min-300 max-2520 and average bitrate of 1050kbits/sec

i've burned the encoded mpeg2 alone without any authoring with nero and the quality i get on my tv is excellent.
this way i can fit 4 anime episodes on a one 700mb cdr

my problem starts when i try to author the mpeg2 file using ulead dvd movie factory 3. after i author the movie with chapters and all that ulead re-encodes the mpeg at the 1050kbits/sec i manually told it to in order for it to alter it little or not at all the end result i get after i burned and played it on my standalone dvd player is horrible it totally downgraded the quality that i struggled to find in order to have good quality and fit more on a cdr.
even though the quality is horrible with ulead re-encoding it i still want the authoring instead of the usual still picture i get with nero. is there any way to stop ulead from re-encoding the mpeg2 ive tried the do not convert compliant mpeg files and customized the settings so that they are as close as possible to the mpeg2 file but to luck it still re-encodes giving me the degraded quality. is there any way to make it stop re-encoding the file or is there another program that will work for what im trying to do.

i've tried nerovision express 2 but the lowest bitrate setting is 1600kbits/sec which will make it forcefully re-encoded it. vcdeasy does'nt seem to work well with my standalone dvd player and does't display right. Is there anything i can do to author it without having to re-encoded as 1050kbits/sec is a low enough bitrate that any lower and it will look horrible. id really apreciate it if anyone has an answer to this as ive searched all over especially here but no answer yet.[/quote]

[reboot]

Your answer may lie here: https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=221931

[ujjwal]

try this too:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/t213408.html

I had faced a simillar problem and after a long time realized that with for 2520 kbps SVCD I had to change my 224 audio to 'Joint-Stereo' from 'Stereo'

[rpgmaster777]

i have 192 audio but ill try it anyways

[rpgmaster777]

audio doesn't seem to be the problem but the resolution is i encoded it as 352x576(PAL) and also tried 352x480(NTSC) but ulead only accepts 480 as its horizontal lines resolution there is also a user defined resolution but its locked and I dont seem to be able to change it at all.

[ujjwal]

So culprit is the resolution !!
Standard SVCD resolutions are 480x480 & 480x576 so if you're planning for making SVCDs with '352x576(PAL) and also tried 352x480(NTSC)' they won't work (atleast not in ULEAD).
So I would suggest, re-encode the AVI file to 480x480 using TMPGEnc (with full screen maintain aspect ratio option)

[ujjwal]

forgot to add...
ULEAD doesn't support CVD, only SVCDs...
Choose Nero to burn it as SVCD and'Turn off the standard complaince'. try it with CD-RW first to see whether your DVD plaer can play it.

[energy80s]

If you are burning onto CDR use NERO, if you are burning onto DVDR use Ulead.

[rpgmaster777]

i can already burn with nero but I want to author the svcd with ulead. Oh and I ran into another problem it seems that at whatever resolution I encode as (in TMPGENC) when i play the movie on my tv it gets cutoff if it were a regular movie i wouldn't care but it has subtitles that get cut off any way to fix this. sorry for mixing the topics.

[energy80s]

Does this also happen when you play the VCD back on your computer? If it does, then you have set the aspect ratio wrong in TMPG, if it only happens on your TV, then it is a fault with your DVD player / TV set and "overscan".

[rpgmaster777]

computer plays fine so its probably the dvd player, again though is there a way no bypass or fix the video in a certain resolution so it won't get cut off .

[ujjwal]

Movie shouldn't get cut...
With SVCD resolutions if you maintain aspect ratio (for your 640x480 movie) then it should be played in widescreen (i.e. black rectangle covering it from top and bottom in your television).
This way your subtitles can never get cut (as they are usually displayed at the bottom).
If you don't maintain the aspect ratio your movie will seem like it is streached and all faces/people will seem elongated.
In your case where exactly is the movie getting cut ?
Assuming that it would be getting cut from the sides, the problem might be that your DVD player doesn't support CVDs resolution (but has support for SVCD resolution).
And when you try to play your 352x480 it takes the horizontal resolution (352) and thinks of it as 480 cutting the side edges of the movie.
I may be very wrong, this is just a wild guess.
Have you tried with 480x480 ? please try and post the result.

[rpgmaster777]

tried 480x480 and still gets cut off ive tried almost all resolutions in tmpgenc but still nothing.

[adam]

When you watch the movie on your pc, do the subs extend very close to the edges of the screen? Within 8-12 pixels? If so this is just overscan. You always lose the outer edges of your picture when played on a tv. Try this with a commercial DVD and you'll notice the same thing. Of course this normally doesn't cause problems since the disk is authored with overscan in mind, but since I assume your source was intended to be played on a pc, perhaps when the subs were hard encoded they were allowed to extend to far to the edges, since it wouldn't matter.

So if you can determine that overscan is in fact the problem, then try to estimate how many pixels are being cut off on your tv. Then add a black border of this size onto your video when you encode. The viewable picture will be shrinked to fit your screen, and just the black border will be cut off instead.

If this is not an overscan problem, then it does sound like your aspect ratio settings are off somewhere. Make sure you are encoding with the 4:3 aspect ratio flag. 16:9 isn't supported at this resolution.

[rpgmaster777]

thanks everyone for all your help i hope i can return the favor someday.
Anyways this is how I solved the resolution problem sorry adam i found the answer before ur post but u were on the right track.

I'll recap so all can see the question and answer.

I started with an avi source with 640x480 resolution, 23.976 fps, 48khz audio. I was trying to author the cvd i would get after encoding it with tmpgenc plus. The bitrate I encoded it as was 1050bits/sec which I then burned with nero (without authoring) and the tv result was excellent quality. (plus it was anime so it can give away more bitrate and still look good) My problem ocurred when I authored the mpeg2 with ulead visual studio 7 but it would have to reencode the video and give crap as the quality when played back on my standalone dvd player. I was looking for a way to make ulead not reencode the movie and found that the culprit was the resolution (as ujjwal said). As we all know cvd resolution is 352x480(NTSC) and 352x576(PAL) ulead only accepts svcd resolution with is 480x480(NTSC) and 480x576(PAL) as u can see the horizontal resolution is unmatching 352(cvd) 480(svcd). I couldn't make a svcd because it would only fit 2 anime episodes 23min long each instead of 4 or 5 that I could fit if I used cvd.(with good quality I might add) I didn't find an answer to the ulead authoring problem so I have postponed that until I have more free time since it takes a lot of time do deal with video.

My other problem was with the resolution, the video would get cut off when played back on my standalone dvd player. This would happen on the ntsc film resolution i encoded to. With settings of source video resolution of 1:1 VGA and fullscreen keep aspect ratio, resolution would be 352x480. I figured out after many tests the the overscan was cutting out around 32 pixels both horizontal and vertical. My solution was as follows: Source video aspect ratio=1:1VGA
Video arrange method=Center(custom size) 320x448 resolution with created a black box around the video witch would get cut off and display the video in fullscreen without getting cut off.

Perfect!!! it feels great if u devote so much time to something and end up getting something right.