A tricky VCD to DVD conversion

[Haopengyou]

Please forgive me for misposting this if it is in the wrong place. I have a 27 minute interview from a Chinese tv station that I would like to make into a DVD. I have run Gspot on the program and have included the results in a jpeg file. I have read through several posts on how do to this but there are a lot of variables mentioned that I don't understand. I need to make this as high quality as possible because, after editing it down to about 9 minutes, it will be shown on an lcd projection system. Also, the end product will have subtitles added to it.

I have thought that maybe sizing the video to occupy about 70% of the screen (don't let the video fill the entire screen) and then putting the subtitles in the other area might be a way to yield high quality video. Would this work?

Please feel free to direct me to other posts, forums and tutorials. Keep in mind that a 5% improvement may not be noticeable on a home tv set but when projected on a 10 ft screen, every pixel will help.

Thanks in advance.

[Haopengyou]

PS Completely re-encoding this file is an option.

[lordsmurf]

I have thought that maybe sizing the video to occupy about 70% of the screen (don't let the video fill the entire screen) and then putting the subtitles in the other area might be a way to yield high quality video. Would this work?

It would help, yes.

[Haopengyou]

...but how do I do make the result only occupy 70% of the screen?

[lordsmurf]

Use TMPGEnc. Sorry, no time for more details. Somebody else should come along.

[aedipuss]

ok it's vcd. probably 352x240 if it's NTSC. what you can do in tmpgenc is encode it to dvd, but with the advanced setting set to center/keep aspect ratio. that will keep the 352x240 video in the middle of a 720x480 screen with black bars surrounding it. in the bottom 120 black pixels you could add your subs.

don't expect anything but poor quality from this no matter how you do it. blowing up 352x240 pixels that has a bitrate of 1150kbs to a 10ft screen is asking for trouble. there is no way to "add" quality from a low resolution source.

[mikiem]

1st off, please forgive -- this probably isn't exactly what you were looking for, but rather my initial impressions of how I'd try approaching it if I was given the assignment or project...

The specific problems: the resolution is low, so blown up you'll see pixelation, possibly with artifacts & noise from methods used with that size. And also with video compression you'll lose some (valuable) quality re-encoding/re-compressing. But it needs to be done at the highest level of professionalism because why else the 10 ft screen.

The first principle I'd try would be one discussed at length on the web as stations prepare & implement DTV & plan for old, archived footage. Similar to your idea of filling part of the screen, the consensus seems to be to show the video not just in a window, but provide an in-context presentation -- that would mean filling up the space around the video not just with black, but other visual elements (graphics, stills, video...). This says it is professional, distracts from any inadequacies, provides added info on why this clip is important, supporting the video in-other-words.

The 2nd thing I'd try would be to take advantage of PC display technology. It's very possible today to play fairly poor video & have it look much better in the player window on your PC's monitor, even in an enlarged view. There's a recent thread in the forum where screen capture looked better then the actual video, & that can be Very true as well. So I'd propose doing just that with the un-edited footage, using a screen capture codec with probably an enlarged player window. This might take advantage of optimization for viewing, & would have more actual data then the original recording. Then edit this re-capture.

And 3rd, something we've all done at one time or another is to try to cover a slip or mistake or something just stupid by showing we *meant to do that* :P In this case that would mean trying to exploit the weakest part of the video, the quality level. It could involve anything from TV or Film FX, to some sort of poster effects (ie. reduced number of colors). And it might look good only at the very beginning, as a short into -- perhaps something along the lines of an old B & W TV tuning in, with color slowly appearing and interferance fading.

At any rate, that's my thought process, thinking as I type.