best program for conversion of divx to vcd for quality?

[jasond]

What is the best program to convert a 2 cd divx to vcd?

I am looking for the best quality from the svcd/vcd's


what suggestions does everyone have?


mediastudio pro 6?

videowave 5?

premiere 6?

ulead movie factory?

any others suggested?

I am looking for the best possible quality for these svcds/vcd/xsvcd/xvcds, and speed is not an issue..

would it be better if I uncompressed the divx file to uncompressed avi first and reencoded it to mpeg? (harddrive space is not an issue and buying the software is not an issue)


any suggestions?

Thanks






<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jasond on 2001-11-30 12:52:03 ]</font>

[Truman]

You don't need to spend money. Use Avisynth if you need to add some filters like resize and noise reduction and TMPGEnc to encode to MPEG. Both tools are not only free but the best solution to convert divx to vcd.

[jasond]

i tried TMPGEnc, and they work but the quality is suffering bigtime. even though I use the vcd and even tried the svcd templates.. I understand the "crap in - crap out" comment, but the divx is great quality even full screen, but the vcd is very blurry..

[Stinky]

why do I see this so often?

I just helped someone else realize that TMPGEnc makes AMAZING DivX conversions - great in great out

make sure your converting with motion search on 'highest' - your source is set to 1:1 and your using the correct template - PAL for 25 fps and NTSC for 29.97

I put in a high quality DivX and a great VCD pops out.

Never check your VCD on full screen on a computer - the resolution is 352x240 and when you blow it up to 1024x768 it's going to suffer - remember the DivX is probably 3x the resolution on your computer!

[jasond]

I will give it another try tonight after work..

Thanks

[Stinky]

the last person I helped emailed me a small sample of his DivX (2 meg worth cut with VirtualDub) and I showed him how it should look - then walked him through it step by step.

you shouldn't lose any quality if it's done right

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: stinky on 2001-11-30 16:51:40 ]</font>

[jasond]

Thanks

[monster]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-11-30 13:35:05, Stinky wrote:
why do I see this so often?

I just helped someone else realize that TMPGEnc makes AMAZING DivX conversions - great in great out

make sure your converting with motion search on 'highest' - your source is set to 1:1 and your using the correct template - PAL for 25 fps and NTSC for 29.97

I put in a high quality DivX and a great VCD pops out.

Never check your VCD on full screen on a computer - the resolution is 352x240 and when you blow it up to 1024x768 it's going to suffer - remember the DivX is probably 3x the resolution on your computer!
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
Hey Stinky, what if the DivX was done in 23.97 fps. Should you still use the vcd template(NTSC) with 29.97 fps?

[Stinky]

No, don't ever change the frame rate if you don't have to

25 = PAL (352x288)
29.97 = NTSC (352x240)
23.97 = NTSC Film (352x240)

load the NTSC Film template - 23.97 is very common in HQ DivX files because it makes smaller files with no noticable loss in quality

[jasond]

by setting to 1-1 does that change the resolution on films like heartbreakers 2cd divx that is widescreen?

[Stinky]

1:1 lets TMPGEnc take the file 'as is' and fit a widescreen DivX file to the VCD resolution (it will keep it as a widescreen and create those black borders)

TMPGEnc does a great job of this - I just had to calculate it by hand for a VirtualDub frame serve and I'm thankful that TMPGEnc does it for you - it's much harder to figure out what multiple of 16 the height should be and then fill in the borders with black with VirtualDub for a 352x240 VCD

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Stinky on 2001-11-30 18:33:33 ]</font>

[jasond]

thanks for the reply

[Stinky]

If anyone has some web space, 2.9 meg to be exact, I made an example of how little you have to lose in quality when going to VCD standard.

I made a 720x432 DivX file and converted it to 352x288 VCD Standard with zero macro blocks.

or if your email can accept 2.9 meg files I can email you the examples

[Truman]

I think I have some space. Please email me the files if you like.

[mach]

I have a couple of questions about frame rates and source ratio as i live outside of US. If using NTSC when the source is not 25 fps and here in europe we only use RAL system does it affect the film quality or not. And secondly the source aspect ratio does it always have to kept in 1:1 VGA or whatever the program suggestes?
appreciate some answer.

[Stinky]

I think all players that play DVD's will play both PAL and NTSC VCD's (not DVD's though) so no need to change to NTSC or PAL if thats not what the source is. Test it on you player with a short sample VCD.

if your source is true 4:3 NTSC 352x240 then yes leave it as 'auto suggested' by TMPGEnc but if it's not an exact 352x240 or 352x288 or the like then make sure it's 1:1 so the aspect ratio isn't screwed up.

[Truman]

Now you can download the samples here.
Stinky, do you want to add comments, templates, anything?

[sweenman]

What about just using Nero? How long does that usually take? And how about quality-wise?

[Stinky]

I just created the files to show how little quality you lose converting to VCD from DivX using the standard TMPGEnc VCD templates. I didn't tweak anything - all I did was set the motion estimate to "highest" nothing else.

the avi is direct from DVD to DivX using DVD2AVI with slighly higher than default DivX settings (720x432 PAL DVD)

the mpeg was converted with TMPGEnc using the basic PAL VCD template set to highest motion search (352x288 PAL VCD)

there is no audio with either track

one thing thats very important to note is that any imperfections in the VCD came from the DVD to DivX conversion (which I know very little about - I've seen much better DivX files than what I made ... but I don't ever rip DVD to DivX so I don't know what the best settings are)

-----
I would love it if you post the above text to that page - thanks for the help btw!

[Stinky]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-01 09:37:16, sweenman wrote:
What about just using Nero? How long does that usually take? And how about quality-wise?
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Nero delivers pretty bad quality encodes - you would be better off to do it via TMPGEnc or Pansonic