Marching Band DV to SVCD/XVCD -aritifacts,ghosts...help

[paulb]

I am still fairly new at this and need help from the forum. I capture DV of marching band. I have tried using various SVCD/XVCD templates and advice from this forum but what I need is:

How can I convert my DV AVI to the best SVCD/XVCD without the ghosts/artifacts (I think this is what they are called) since I have high motion scenes. I have a purchased copy of Ulead VideoStudio and I have tried TMPgenc also. I don't care how big the MPG files are since the performances are only 10-12 min long.

Is there someone out there who has solved this problem?? My DVD (Pioneer 440) will play up to 2500 bitrate (I think)

Thanks,
Paul

[jgl24]

Crank up the bitrate!!

If you are doing it MPEG-2, then your standalone
DVD player should be able to handle up to 9 Mbits/s.
Don't try this high of bitrates with MPEG-1 however.

[kinneera]

The standalone can handle bitrates up to 9Mbit off of DVD media!! For CDs, don't go past ~2500 if thats what is specified as the max for your DVD player!

[paulb]

OK...I tried SVCD @4000 CBR and when played it is like in slow motion with stops and starts every second or so. Totally not watchable. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Paul

[JHebert]

Have you tried 2500 CBR (Not CQ) in TMPGEnc?
The default SVCD template uses CQ 65 with maximum 2520 but with this setting your average bitrate will probably end up being 2000 or less.
If your player maxes at 2500 try just setting TMPGEnc to 2500 constant bitrate and see if that looks better. This would still be a standard SVCD.
If you are still not satisfied, and if your player supports it, try dropping the resolution from 480x480 to 352x480. This should help your motion scenes look a little smoother. However this would be considered XSVCD and compatibility with players is not guaranteed.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JHebert on 2001-12-21 17:36:51 ]</font>

[tacosalad]

Do these "ghosts" seem to shimmer or shake rapidly?

If so, make sure the "interlaced" box is checked in TMPeg's Video tab. Then go to the Advanced tab and set the video source type to "interlaced". If you're not sure which field order the clip was captured with, try one clip using "Field order A" and another clip with "Field order B".

If this is the cause, one of these two test clips will look right when recorded to an SVCD. (Due to the nature of DV, it doesn't work well as ordinary VCD.)

[EricB]

PaulB:

I use DV exclusively and have the absolute best results doing XSVCD using the standard TMPGenc template and changing the video size to 352x480. This gives excellent clarity and plenty of bitrate. MPEG2 is good for DV because it is interlaced on the input and encode. HOWEVER, it looks like from the DVD list, your player doesn't support XSVCD.

In that case, I would use XVCD. Again use the standard template (source interlace, encode non-interlace) and a bitrate of 1800 - 2000. That gives me good motion smoothness and enough bitrate to keep noise from being a problem.

[paulb]

Eric and All,

Thanks for the advice. When you ay you are using the standard template, the std template for SVCD (TMPgenc) has a constant quality rate of 65 to max 2520. Did you leave everything as is and only change the size to 352x480? Motion search precision is still set to fast on the template also? This was better for me but I still have have this "pixel ghost" edge around people marching and moving their arms (drill team pom poms).

I appreciate everyone's help. Haven't tried reversing the field order yet.

Thanks,
Paul

[EricB]

paulb:

Yes when I say default template, I take the standard, unlock it, and modify just the frame size (for XSVCD), or just the bitrate (for XVCD). Motion search should be set to the slowest if you have a lot of time. I usually use "normal" with pretty good results.

Marching band is probably a tough assignment because you have a lot of movement all over the screen. This stuff still looks best on closeups where you see a lot of detail, but in reality, most of it isn't moving at once.

I think people expect miracles from SVCD because a lot of these posts are from people doing DVD rips, or using other really clean sources. Most home video is just not as good a source. I think when we are all burning DVD-R next year (?), most of these problems will go away. If you have analog-in on your camera, try taping a half-time show off from cable and look at the quality of the resulting SVCD.