adjust quality of video before burning to VCD

[corumz]

I have several mpg movie videos that are a little dark - poor contrast and brightness. Is there a way to adjust this, improve the contrast and brightness before I encode to VCD?

[jimmalenko]

Just to get something straight:

You encode to VCD-compliant MPEG-1, then you author to VCD - two steps.

Nero can encode and author in what seems like one step, but you don't have many options at all in terms of filters or custom settings, and TBH, the quality can be quite ordinary at times. You're probably better off doing each step seperately - TMPGEnc (or any MPEG encoder) can do your encoding, then you can use Nero solely for authoring or try the highly-regarded VCDEasy.

So any decent encoder will allow you to adjust contrast and brightness by using filters when re-encoding to VCD-compliant MPEG-1.

[corumz]

Thanks for your help. I know the first part you mentioned - already have encoded and burned vcd's, but had not explored the other features as yet of tempgenc except for merging small files together as a single stream. Thanks for encouraging to look into that.

Another problem: I have a file that consists of 38 short mpg files (about average size of 10 mb) which is a continuous instruction video. When I went to load the files in the the Tempgenc merger, one file in the middle it says it can't open, not compatible. However, properties indicate that it is the same as all the rest, same mpeg1 codec, same frame rate, same resolution. Also it will play in all my players I use (5 different ones).

Any thoughts or suggestions as to what I can do to make this file compatible and open in Tempgenc. The only idea I've come up with so far is to try to convert with in Divx to Divx5 avi and reconvert it back to mpg. I even tried to do a mpg to mpg conversion and the converter crashed.

Thanks

[TBoneit]

If it crashed the converter then that file has something wrong with it. To keep best quality get the Trial version of VideoReDo and run the quickstream fix tool on the file. Also you can use it to make one big file from your little ones.

Good Luck

[corumz]

Tried this but it didn't work. The VideoReDo could not open the file. Even though the players will play it, it must be corrupt in some way. I'm working at now trying to find another copy of the the complete file setup (all the files) from another souce.

Thanks for your help.

[TBoneit]

Did you try opening it or did you open VideoReDo without opening the video?

What you need to try is only start VRD then tools menu quickstreamfix and then select the video many times the file won;t open but can be QSf'd

IOW the QSf is a separate process that does not require the file to be opened. I do it many times with files that won't open and end up with a good MPG that can be used.

Good Luck