High resolution X(S)VCDs look blocky

[Bullworth]

I've tried creating higher resolution 720 X 480 XSVCDs and XVCDs and they both look blocky. The samples I downloaded look good. I tried this last night by encoding a one minute portion of Ghost in the Shell DVD and muzzle flashes and explosions look realy blocky, like they were encoded from a really bad souce. I increased the bit rate up to 3000Mbit/sec but it still happens. However when I encoded it in the normal 352 X 240 it was OK. Who else has done this successfully and what settings are you using?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Bullworth on 2002-01-11 10:35:14 ]</font>

[kinneera]

I have done this, but here are my rough guidelines for when I choose to do so:

1. Movie must be low-motion. This essentially excludes action movies. For those, I use 352x480.
2. The length per disc is no more than 50 min., less than 45 preferable (more specifically, bitrate should be at least 2000Kbps).
3. Movie must be widescreen, preferably 2.35:1
4. Encode using VBR, the more passes the better (TMPGEnc's 2-pass performs reasonably well when the other conditions have been met, but CCE with 5+ passes is preferable).

Short clips will yield terrible results, as the encoder is unable to effectively utilize the variable bitrate. Especially short clips with high motion. CBR will also perform very badly with respect to blocks, even if the whole disc can be encoded at the maximum bitrate.

Bottom line, though, is that it will be very difficult to make 720x480 look good at those bitrates, and it isn't often worth it. FitCD offers a good example of the effect of that resolution: typical compression increases to 60:1 at that resolution, whereas VCD is about 17:1 and MPEG is considered optimal when kept under 30:1.

[Bullworth]

Thanks kin. At least now I won't be racking my brain over something that can't be. I sure hope a DVD burner standard comes out soon to help out in this repect. I want to buy one but I know it's anyone's guess what standard will be adopted Hopefully we'll find out within this year.