Kwag - Your 720x480 Template is Sharp, Nice!

[bbb]

Kwag,

Before I was using 352x480 (kinda blurry) to encode but yesterday after testing your 720x480 template, I was sold.

It's sharp like a good divx rip. Your template is great for widescreen movies. It makes perfect sense since a widescreen movie uses only 1/2 to 3/5 of the screen for moving pixels. The rest is black which doesn't occupy much if any bitrate.

I tweaked the procedure a bit.
1. In VirtualDub, I smart resize - necessaary for anamorphic widescreen movies. I also blur and darken a bit to smooth out the picture.
2. In Tmpgenc, I use 29.97 fps and 2100 bitrate (instead of 2000). I use full edge enchancement (sharpen) to clarify the blur. Last, I use blend deinterlace.
3. I image the mpg with vcdimager using vcd 2.0 mode.
4. I burn image with Fireburner.

The best thing is this plays in my Pioneer standalone Dvd player!

Quality is great and minor motion blocks are not noticeable because every thing is so darn sharp! Kudos to you krag!

*File size is also comparable to a 2200 2 Pass VBR 352x480 file.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: bbb on 2002-01-07 00:13:21 ]</font>

[kwag]

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On 2002-01-07 00:10:26, bbb wrote:
Kwag,

Before I was using 352x480 (kinda blurry) to encode but yesterday after testing your 720x480 template, I was sold.

It's sharp like a good divx rip. Your template is great for widescreen movies. It makes perfect sense since a widescreen movie uses only 1/2 to 3/5 of the screen for moving pixels. The rest is black which doesn't occupy much if any bitrate.

I tweaked the procedure a bit.
1. In VirtualDub, I smart resize - necessaary for anamorphic widescreen movies. I also blur and darken a bit to smooth out the picture.
2. In Tmpgenc, I use 29.97 fps and 2100 bitrate (instead of 2000). I use full edge enchancement (sharpen) to clarify the blur. Last, I use blend deinterlace.
3. I image the mpg with vcdimager using vcd 2.0 mode.
4. I burn image with Fireburner.

The best thing is this plays in my Pioneer standalone Dvd player!

Quality is great and minor motion blocks are not noticeable because every thing is so darn sharp! Kudos to you krag!

*File size is also comparable to a 2200 2 Pass VBR 352x480 file.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: bbb on 2002-01-07 00:13:21 ]</font>
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Hi BBB;

Yes, indeed, it looks sharper and in fast motion scenes the macroblocks are smaller than 352x240 and 352x480, so the high speed scenes blocks are so small that they just look blurred. Actually on the original DVD's they also look blurred.

Only in something like "The Mummy Returns" it's very blocky. But that is something else!. Even on the original DVD, I can see some artifacts. And the bitrate is way above 9000Mpbs.

The other trick is the VBV buffer size, that instead of 40, it's 48. This was necessary because the bitrate is just above the constrained parameter set which is just above 1800Mbps. And because the bit rate fluctuates between a minumum of 0 and MAX value of 2000, this was required because if left at 40, it causes some problems with some DVD players. So 48 is the center point for this bit rate.

Thanks for the Kudos. At least you could appreciate what I tested. I wish more people like you would give it a try. The 2000Mbps I choose for the MAX bitrate was because I wanted to get at least 60 minutes of video on one 80 minute CD-R. And I DID!. Because the average bitrate is always around 1725, and that just fits exactly 60 minutes of video.

Actually 1725 is exactly 50% increase of bitrate over 1150 standard VCD, and that is what I wanted for average.
So I can get just about every movie on 2 80 minute CD-R's with this quality.

This is the format I have been making for over 6 months now, and I'll never go back to anything else.

If you try exactly the same template/method you used, but with MPEG-2, you'll see that the (quality/fidelity/everything) goes way down and becomes a blocky mess. Tell me if you do this, because I would like your opinion on this too.

Thanks bbb!.

Regards,
Kwag




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kwag on 2002-01-07 01:38:20 ]</font>

[Kdiddy]

Funny, though if your template was so perfect, why BBB felt the need to "tweak" it? "and minor motion blocks are not noticeable"..also wee bit odd, if the blocks were not noticeable, then how did you know they were minor??, LOL

"I wish more people like you would give it a try."

Why the need to have everyone try it??? if it works for you then good. Email it to Baldrick to post if he wishes, or do as you have done, post somewhere else for others. Some have tried it, several have not liked it, whereas BBB has.

Alright Kwag, Im gonna say this, and leave it alone, sort of little peace offering bury the hatchet sort of thing tween you I, plus there is no need for us to become like Speedy-Sefy in that other post, LOL.
My only indifference to your posts was to NOT lead newbies to they would expect to be a pot of gold. These are the issues I had with your statments:

"maintains DVD Quality":
Well first you say this, then you back down and say well you meant "only DVD resolution", now you are back to saying DVD quality. Dont be so wishy washy, pick a story & stay with it. Again, here, when you have cut more than %50 of the original bitrate away, you can not have the same/equal as the original when 1/2 the fidelity is gone. Again, I use the analogy, if your boss took 1/2 your pay away, and worked you the same hours, Im quite sure you would not feel equally compensated for the amount of work you do now would you? Now here, we may be using to different measuring sticks. Now if you want to say its looks like DVD compared to standard VCD, then yes I will give you some leeway on that. But I can not give you it looks the same as DVD compared to the original DVD. Especially when both you & others have stated there are visible blocks in high motion scenes. Well the DVD original does not have blocks, if it does, that is maybe the fault of your decoder on your player. Yes it looks very good & sharp when on low motion, I agree. But really, wouldnt you prefer your high motion not to be blocky & blurred, like you low motion. How you may ask? I will discuss that below.

"55-60 mins of 2000 kbps video on 1 80 min CDR"
Well I now see you say "max" instead of just "plain". Like I said before, for the newb reading this, he will think that cbr or average vbr of 2000 kbps will fit on the disk when it will not. Thus be somewhat frustrated at possibly you when he realizes it wont. Now we both agree since you have rewritten your statements.

"mpeg2 SUCKS big time less than 3000 bps"
Again here you were wishy washy, first you stated 2000 now you are up to 3000 kbps. Point being, lets just pretend that this was a true assessment of mpeg2, then why the need for SVCD to built around mpeg2 480x480 @ ~2500 kbps? and yes you wil say "marketing tool." Well I give the Chinese a little more credit than that. They came up with the format in part to counteract the oncoming DVD format, by offering a lower cost option with almost same quality. I find it very hard that the chinese would waste time marketing an idea of using mpeg2 @ 2500 kbps if it "sucks big time". You would think they would have at least tried your template first, unless you think you are the first to think of this idea, wouldnt you think that they would have marketed yours instead? to say mpeg2 sucks lower 3000 kbps is gross mistatement. And on that, I can provide many of clips that will easily say otherwise.

As Ive stated before, I feel that TMPG is better at mpeg1 than mpeg2, and CCE is better at mpeg2 than mpeg1. But this does not lead one to conclusion that mpeg2 is worse than mpeg1. Most people of this forum feel that mpeg1 is best used at res </=352x480 with low bitrate. mpeg2 >/= 352x480 with high bitrate. Yes, there is that gray area of where low crosses into high. And most feel like I do that at equal res & bitrates rate, they perform the same. In any case, I only felt like you may have overstated/overexaggerated exactly the format that you created. I would agree that you create a high quality xVCD that fits most avg movies on 2 CDs. Only drawback is that it may not play on a lot of DVD players. To some this is a big drawback, because they like to trade/loan out their VCDs to other and dont want to worry about compability issues. A suggesstion as well if I may be so bold, if you havent already, I would encode some very short CBR clips of maybe 2500,3000,3500, etc. to see what the max your DVD player can handle, Because a setting of 2000 for your max is may be limiting the potential of your video, which may be adding to your blocks. This will not affect your average, nor amount of time to fit on disk. The encoder will always maintain your average or close by. (well I feel CCE does a better job at that than TMPG but thats whole other story). My max is set to 3000 because my player can handle that high, so my range reads as such min-avg-max = 300-1700-3000, but CCE always keeps real close to 1700, it usually errors on the side of lower than 1700, like maybe 1689 or so, but I still have peak points on some scenes of 2900. You are always talking about "at least try it", so I ask you to do the same, it wont hurt I promise. 480x480 wouldnt hurt either, but I know you completely stonewalled the idea of lowering your resolution. My other suggestion, again if you havent already, wouldl be to try CCE mpeg2 at settings, you can try mpeg1, I dont like it simply for lack of user input settings CCE provides.

Now getting to no block issue. That is one of the reasons I encode with CCE, while yes not GUI friendly as TMPG, I always got minor blocks on the fast scenes with TMPG (regardless of resolution) whereas with CCE I do not get ANY. Not mention how much faster of an encoder CCE is than TMPG. Also, with the use of the avisynth/mepg2dec frameserver, I use the "Sharpen" command to clear up any blurriness (However, I only do that when encoding for my neighbor's machine that only accepts VCDs at 352x240). For me, I encode with mpeg2 480x480 usually with ranges 300-1700-3000, which rarely needs the sharpen command. And IMO, I get quality equal to yours on low motion scenes & better on high motion (ie, no blocks). Why I dont do 720x480, well my machine won't take VCDs/SVCDs at that res, it drops frames. I use to do miniDVDs like that, but that forces me to either drop bitrate to obtain equal amount of time per disk, or move to a 3rd disk. I decided that having 5.1 ac3 sound, was not that big of deal, and that I would rather have a movie with 2 disk & very good Dolby Surround. However that may change if I can talk wifey into buying the 3 disk capable version of my DVD player for my bday (keeping fingers crossed). Now if you or any else even cares to see one of my clips, then I'll be happy to post somewhere. But keep in mind, my xVCD clips are mpeg1 by CCE which Ive already stated I dont think does a good job which is why I dont do xVCDs, still better than TMPG (no blocks), and still sharp. My SVCD clips however I find to be very good. If no one cares to see, then I'l leave at that. Again, Kwag, no hard feelings toward you,.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kdiddy on 2002-01-07 05:07:47 ]</font>

[bbb]

Theory is nice. It allows people of the same trade to strike up interesting conversations. However, when one (person or group) starts to push one form of thought as the pure and only way by addressing theory as the supreme, unchanging authority, this leads to stagnantation of progress and unnecessary persecution of those whose view differ from the currently accepted doctrine. If human beings are to evolve past our irrational and shortsighted tendencies (e.g., stubborn adherance to outdated but traditional beliefs with which we were raised), we require the courage individuals who are willing to defy doctrine in pursuit of actual knowledge and improvement.

The real world result of using Kwag's template is that it produces far more pleasing video to the 20/20 human eye than using a template with SVCD or lower resolution on widescreen movies.

Using the described above procedure, the motion blocks really are negligeable, especially when burned onto cdr and viewed on TV. On computer, the resulting mpg resembles like a good divx encoding.

Additionally, how can one, in this day and age, critique so harshly without even seriously trying it out. I mean can't we all get along and share our different experiences.

[Kdiddy]

I have & will never push one form of video encoding as to be the sole way of doing something. Lord knows I have encoded several different ways. I agree that the sharing of ideals is vital which is why I did & will continue to correct fallacies in statements when I see them.

"The real world result of using Kwag's template is that it produces far more pleasing video to the 20/20 human eye than using a template with SVCD or lower resolution on widescreen movies. "

So in speaking of that, lets view your statement that in the light that it is your opinion and not of a "real world" truth in which you present it. We must also reveal the full details of it being a template that is not %100 compatible on all players. Most likely will have the same incompatility ratio equal to that of SVCD, which does not provide majority any true improvement gains. While you may find the template agreeable to your standards. Others have not been so pleased with it. None of which is in no way criticism of the template itself, but simply truths about the template. However, many others of the opinion that motion blocks are never neglieable when there is an alternative format which will not produce those blocks & have the same result as his template, but yet be more compatible to the majority of VCD capable players.

"If human beings are to evolve past our irrational and shortsighted tendencies (e.g., stubborn adherance to outdated but traditional beliefs with which we were raised), we require the courage individuals who are willing to defy doctrine in pursuit of actual knowledge and improvement. "

As you said, that theory is nice, but this unfortunately is what makes us human beings. Which is the reasons that prejudices of race, religion, sexual oreintation, etcs. still exist today as it did thousands of years ago, it is not going away, but that is topic for another forum.

[KennyC]

Kwag,

I quite like your 720x480 template, but it's too far from VCD MPEG-1 specs, it will work on some DVD standalones, but not others.

I have a good quality Gina_Goes_Wild.avi, yep you guessed it and I've been trying to convert to .MPG to burn as VCD.

The .AVI specs are 352x288 (PAL I assume) and I tried your template, good results but won't play on one of my DVD's. If I do 4:3 Full Screen, it's all blocky and horrid.

So I did some tweaking with VCD settings and they work a treat:
Video Stream Type = MPEG-1
Video Stream = 352x288
FPS = 25
Rate Control Mode = MVBR 2100
VBV Buffer = 48
Motion Search = Highest

Video Arrange Method = Centre (Custom Size) = 264 x 216

Soft Motion Blocks = 35

System = MPEG-1 VideoCD (non standard).

Now what this has accomplished is the MPEG-1 is displayed on the TV with a border, the viewing screen is 75%.

Quality is great and it seems to play on most DVD players and encoding time is much faster than yours even with some filters used.

Now I know this is also far from VCD specs, but it plays GREAT, I might try this with a DVD Rip soon, maybe the 1st 5 minutes of The Mummy Returns, a great testing sequence.

Cheers.


©.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·-- KennyC --·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.©



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: KennyC on 2002-01-07 07:08:57 ]</font>

[kwag]

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On 2002-01-07 07:07:02, KennyC wrote:
I quite like your 720x480 template, but it's too far from VCD MPEG-1 specs, it will work on some DVD standalones, but not others.

I have a good quality Gina_Goes_Wild.avi, yep you guessed it and I've been trying to convert to .MPG to burn as VCD.

The .AVI specs are 352x288 (PAL I assume) and I tried your template, good results but won't play on one of my DVD's. If I do 4:3 Full Screen, it's all blocky and horrid.

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Hi KennyC:

The problem is that you are up-scaling your 352x288 to 720x480, and that will look pretty bad.

You need your material, in this case your .AVI file, to be equal or higher than your output. If you want to produce a 720x480 video, then frameserve at 720x480.
If you want 352x288, then frameserve at 352x288.

So for your "Gina_ Whipped_Wild!!!" movie , just do a standard PAL VCD, because that is a 352x288 movie.

As for players compatibility, I have posted before the models I have tested.

If you want, I'll post them again.

Hope this helps.

[Sefy]

Guys, all I wanna say is that i'm proud of you! isn't it nicer when people don't bash each other, you actually get to understand and learn more that way

[bbb]

Ya! We're making love at this very moment.

[natcom]

what temple is this you talking about can i get a copy thank you. please e-mail me

[bombero]

I want to comment on Kwag's template.. It is a very good one, I used it just as it is, with no adjustments and it works great. I just finished with The Mummy Returns and it looks great, the most noticable part is the battle scene in the begining. It looks fantastic, this is a one of the best templates I have seen yet. He really knows what he is doing. I have an Apex 660-AD stand alone and it workx fine for me, my rip & burn process is:

Smart Ripper
DVD2AVI
TMPGEnc
Nero

and like I said, It looks great, this is one of the best templates I have used to date...........

Bombero

[JHebert]

Kwag, I have been very skeptical about the idea of encoding 720x480 with such low bitrate mpeg-1 as you are recommending, but I gave it a try on a DVD rip of Lethal Weapon 4 and I have to say it does look pretty good. Not DVD quality, but it does compare favorably to SVCD at similar bitrate.
I had been doing a lot of XSVCD using 352x480 mpeg-2 at the same bitrate as your template, because I found that 480x480 and 720x480 mpeg-2 had too many artifacts when encoding in TMPGEnc at low bitrates.
But at 720x480 I think mpeg-1 seems better than mpeg-2 at this bitrate when encoding in TMPGEnc.
I don't want to get into another theoretical debate flamewar over mpeg-1 vs mpeg-2 at various bitrates, with everyone quoting articles and links and throwing around technical jargon. But my gut feeling is that TMPGEnc is simply a better mpeg-1 encoder than mpeg-2 encoder, at least at low bitrates.
One question - My settings were a little different than your template, I used vbv buffer 112 (like SVCD template) instead of 48 like you suggested. What difference if any would this make?

[ApacheWraith]

One question - My settings were a little different than your template, I used vbv buffer 112 (like SVCD template) instead of 48 like you suggested. What difference if any would this make?

What differenve DOES vbv buffer make?

thanx
wraith

[OldDog]

Could someone tell me where on this site I might find this template. I didn't see it under Tools.
I've been spending time tweaking TMPGEnc, but from what I've seen on the posts here looks like kwag found the right combiantion.
I do mostly DivX conversions, does Highest Quality(Very SLow) provide much improvement over High Quality (Slow) I know GIGO, but I'm working with some pretty decent quality DVD/DivX Rips.
Thanks

[Muzza]

Could someone pliz email this template to me. It sounds great!! If not could u please post a link to the template
Thanx

[swizzbeatz905]

Can i get a copy of this template... Swizzbeatz905@yahoo.com

[JCPicache]

i think this is Kwag's template...i got it off his Yahoo briefcase (where he posted his Mummy Returns sample) a while back

i've gotten excellent results from this, hope you do too!

http://www.endcorporate.com/720x480%20Template.mcf