Easy Steps to long VCD's

[oflahsp]

Seen many topics regarding CVCD and XVCD. I have used templates to encode these formats but the resulting mpegs are regarded as invalid formats by WinOnCD . My goal is a one CD version of a film to play on a DVD player. Quality is not paramount. There are bitrate calculators to work out the bitrate to achieve a certain filesize but not that clued up about it Any chance of a step-by-step for losers.

[Sefy]

Step-by-Step on what regard ? bitrate or a DVD to VCD ? cause for the DVD you got plenty out there, as for Bitrate, well, you gotta remember, that when doing changes, your WinOnCD will complain, cause it requires a Comliant VCD stream.

[oflahsp]

I have AVI which I can play on a PC with the correct codecs. Would like to convert to VCD to play on DVD. Nothing new there. Standard VCD only gives 70 mins which means most films need 2CD's. I would like to fit a full movie on 1 CD - sacrificing quality. I have seen (tried) templates for TMPGEnc to make XVCD/CVCD's which promises to fit more on 1 CD. I believe these tweak bitrates to fit more on. Is it possible to calculate bitrates (for templates) to create files of a certain size which can then make valid VCD's (VCD burners will allow it) and play on DVD's . Lot of if, buts and assumptions I know. If this is tosh then I'll buy a TV-out card for my PC.

[Sefy]

Well, I can tell you from my experience, and quite a few of the people on this forum, that you can use my SeVCD or SxVCD Templates to encode, and if you use a 80min CD, you can put nearly upto 95min or more of movie on it without sacrificing quality, but you will need to check compatibility with your DVD Player.

[sean madison]

i have never tried sefy's guides so i dont know if they are compliant but if they are not, and your dvd player only supports compliant ones, you can try vcd-x and svcd-x guides i have.

Allowing u to put up to 110 min of movie also w\o sacrificing quality still in compliancy.

For those who want to contradict the svcd-x

Not only is the vid bitrate lower than 2520, the audio bitrate is also lower than 224 but still plays in standard only players since i have a dvd player than cannot play my xsvcds but can play these svcd-x movies.

[Sefy]

Sean, i've not once tried to make you feel bad on the forums, and I don't see what's with this sudden outburst on me, for one, you yourself said in one of the topics you opened that YOU used my Guides, and now all of a sudden you do not know if they are compliant or not ?

Secondly, the last Templates which I released on VCDhelp use some of your optimiziations, which caused them not to play on my DVD Player, as for quality, I myself so no diffrence on PC playback, and I had to upload older Templates cause people started complaining the new Templates create files that do not play on the DVD.

You cannot call your Templates standard, cause I find it hard to believe you have access to every single piece of VCD capable equipment in the world that you can test it on.

And Quality is in the eye of the beholder, you may think you are not losing quality, but someone else may think it looks awful, and lastly, you cannot put a 110min movie using a VBR of 2520kbps or around that high, you will be defeating the laws of Computers, not to mention math.

Now I don't mind you spread the words on your guides, but that doesn't give you the right to slender my guides, I worked hard on them, and I dont ask for money for my Templates, I share my knowledge that I have aquired here on VCDhelp, and this page gets all the credit for what I know, but I believe I deserve an apology from you regarding my guides and my Templates.

[agzz]

"Allowing u to put up to 110 min of movie also w\o sacrificing quality still in compliancy"

here we go again. more comments nessicary, dont think so.

[sean madison]

sefy, i think u are missing one important thing

These 2 guides of this new thing i made has NEVER been sent to baldrick before.

The only guide i have on here is for XSVCD which i made so long ago, i dont even recommend it to anyone anymore cuz of all the new stuff i have found.

I dont know why but people keep on referring to that guide.
I am NOT talking about xsvcd, its SVCD-X.

If your dvd player can play standard vcd\svcd, it can play svcd-x.

Now some dvd players i have noticed have speed problems playing vcd-x due to it being mpeg-1 stream and its trying to play whole movie in 80 min where as i have made a movie in svcd-x that is 2 hr 9 min and has played fine on in person- 3 dvd players and 16 reported by email.

I think svcd-x should work for any dvd player that can play the default standard svcd cuz it used the same stream method as dvd.
I dont know if thats why its easier to play svcd rather than vcd but for right now, thats only thing i can come up with.

If u dont believe me, let me send u a sample, and YES, if anyone wants one, i will make sure its in good quality so no one complains about that either

[sean madison]

and before someone starts telling me its not standard here are the specs even-

480x480 fps 23.976 or 29.97
Bitrate- whatever my calc tells ya
Motion search precision highest quality
dc precision- 8 bit
Non interlace
4:3 display
audio bitrate- 44.1 khz stereo 128 kbit

After a few little "secrets" of doin all that, i take it keeping in mind its still using 128 kbit audio, run it thru nero, it accepts as standard compliant, but just because it does that, doesnt mean it will work on dvd players.
So, while its burning, i take some of my old xsvcds and put em into this new dvd player i got but uh oh, they dont work. So only thing that would is standard formats.
Well the cd is done burning now, 2 hr 9 min long by the way.
I put it in and WALLA! it plays.
There are a couple fo members here who use this method and love it cuz they cant play xsvcds either.
This should only be used if ur dvd player can only play standard formats and if u have a dvd player too, cuz it works only on dvd players.

[kv5]

Sean......... Would you consider mailing me this Template ? - I am always messing around with various settings and would realy like to see the output results of your SVCD-X....... I have tried Sefy's Templates and I can highly recommend them.... especially his SEVCD Enhanced...... Nice one Sefy ! 8)

[oflahsp]

Sorry for creating a clash between Sefy and Sean. I am open to ALL options and will try both routes. Can I get hold of the templates and guides you guys are talking about. Are they on this site somwhere (I will have a browse). What VCD burners do you suggest for most success. You mention Nero. I have downloaded EasyVCD. Usually use WinOnCD. I may have caused a bit of chew but you guy have give me some hope . All the best from a complete novice.

[MITSUI_1]

I just posted a thread on this very topic. You might want to check out my thoughts.

I just recorded the entere "Leathal Weapon" movie (110 minutes) from my VHS collection onto a single VCD and am reasonably happy with the result. (Actually, I ran the footage through VirtualDub first and filtered out a lot of the crap from the VHS tape so the xVCD arguably looks better than the old tape).

Good luck.

[Sefy]

oflahsp, my clash with Sean at the moment is not your fault, so don't worry about it, I don't mind which guide you use if you get the results you want, that is what's important.

Sean, you are missing my point, I never said anything regarding your guides, i'm going to the fact you said "i have never tried sefy's guides so i dont know if they are compliant but if they are not" and if I go to one of your other topics, you say you followed my guides, so to make "commercial" for your guide, you slender the hard work I put on my guide ? that is what I want an apology for, I have not said a bad thing about you, and there you go doing something like that.

As for compatibility, SxVCD which is the least compatible one of my Template i've tested on 4 DVD Players myself and the current status is 30 compatible models reported by users, but you don't see me going on saying it's the standard template in the world and would work on anything.

As for your settings, in order to fit around 120min (2 hours) on a 80min CD when your Audio is 128k, your Video would have to be around 750kbps (more or less) and at that resolution, well, quality is in the eye of the beholder, but lets just say people complain about VCD being low quality for just using 1150kbps for 352x240, no matter how much optimization you do, at 480x480 @ around 750kbps VBR or not, it's not enough bitrate.

[Dhruv]

Use Nero rather than WinOnCD.

[sean madison]

oh my god sefy, u serious?

I had mentioned me using ur guide for DVD-RIPPING, not encoding.

I had never dvd ripped at the time and that was why i was using ur guide.
There is no standard for ripping, lol, it is just a method

anyways, for a 1hr 50 min mvie, aka gone in 60 seconds, i used min-o max-1000 qu 50

Even at 480x480, quality is freakin awesome, why? the source dvd is pure

[sean madison]

and when i said i never used any of your guides, that was referrin t the Sevcd guide and the Sxvcd guide.

I NEVER use a persons guide on somethin i already know how to do!

It was true to say i never used any of your guides cuz this is relevance of encoding and not dvd ripping so therefore it would have made no difference if i said, well i havent tried those guides but i did try ur dvd ripping guide, that guide is of no relevance to this topic.

[Sefy]

Sean, since when do you see me using my SeVCD or SxVCD Templates in any of my guides ? they all show VCD as the example, and ripping is just using a program i'd hardly call it a method, not much to use a guide for that one.

Oh, and DVD isn't pure source, you forgeting DVD was created from something as well, and DVD is compressed MPEG2 at around 9000kbps, so, pure it is not, I'll agree it is higher quality source though.

[JCPicache]

my questions to sean madison are: how do you go about calling yourself a "video performance master" when you still need a guide for ripping a DVD? how can you claim expertise in S/VCD "DVD quality" standards when you have already admitted you don't know much about DVD ripping?

if you are encoding from screeners and telesyncs released on the net by pirate groups, then i can see how you can claim there is no loss in quality, even at such low bitrates (garbage in, garbage out). but i agree with most everybody here: it just ain't possible to replace the data you lose by using filters and what have you.

[sean madison]

Well that was what i was referring to sefy, was just not using the encoding guides.

I am sorry if i mislead u.

I call myself a video performance master in the field of encoding.
Ripping is a step before encoding.
I know i should have known about this before but i had never ordered me a dvd rom drive til now.

Also, i dont know if i misread your reply but i had never mentioned anything about encoding a movie from a dvd rip and keep that quality.

Especially on 1 cd?, thats impossible.

What i do is make the best pic quality out of what i can possibly do and for me and the others that frequent me in emails and IMs also love the quality of the movies i do.

Now, not all movies use the same settings except maybe for dvd rips but sometimes that can change.
TS, scr,dvd-scr,tc,cam,wp- out of all of those, i only use ts,scr,dvd-scr.
And out of those, i keep the same quality from 2 cds down to one and even reconvert them to svcd standard rather than vcd standard.

Now, i've been doin that for about almost 2 months now.
I used to use xsvcd but with svcd-x, its more compatible.

[sean madison]

oh, and one more thing-
Sefy, your dvd ripping guide is sweet.

Now, i understand al the technical terms but u didnt have any in there!
Great newbie guide and very easy to follow.
Sefy gets 5 stars! *****

[Sefy]

Thank you Sean, I appriciate that, and lets keep things on a friendly level.

[sean madison]

oh trust me, i never try to make anyone mad intentionally.

It looks as though i just accidentally phrased my reply wrong.

[adam]

"For those who want to contradict the svcd-x

Not only is the vid bitrate lower than 2520, the audio bitrate is also lower than 224 but still plays in standard only players since i have a dvd player than cannot play my xsvcds but can play these svcd-x movies."

"If your dvd player can play standard vcd\svcd, it can play svcd-x."

Sean how many times do I have to explain this to you? The only bitrate requirements for svcd are that video bitrate does not exceed 2.6mbits, audio bitrate does not exceed 384kbits and that total bitrate does not exceed ~2.88mbits (I forget the exact number.)

Your svcd-x format is simply a regular SVCD. If people want to fit x amount of movie onto a disk in SVCD format all they need to do is continue lowering the bitrate until it fits. The guides on this site fully explain how to create svcds and there are bitrate calculators which tell you the bitrate to use to fit the desired amount of movie onto a cdr. Enough with the svcd-x crap already, what you keep saying is obvious. Fit as much movie onto the disk as you can in an acceptable quality. If 700kbits at 480x480 looks good to you then fine, but to the vast majority of people it is not acceptable.

No offense to sefy or sean but the fact is that even at max bitrates vcd and svcds are already highly lossy, assuming your source is good. If you use sefy's templates or sean's "formats" then you are sacrificing quality for compression. If the resulting quality is acceptable to you then thats fine and I encourage you to use these methods. However, no one can claim to have any template or encoding method which fits more movie onto a cdr without sacrificing quality, its not possible.

[Sefy]

Adam, have you ever heard me saying my Templates will give DVD quality ?, i've always stated they will give VCD Quality (since they use exact settings), so no offence taken, but quote me correctly

[oflahsp]

Lots of stuff flying around since I asked the question. Options are developing but not the why-and-wherefor's .

I have Sefy's templates - 95mins should be enough. I'll give 'em a whirl.

I can't see Sean's guides/templates on this site - do you let people have them ? Is there a charge ? Can I e-mail you ?

Adam says that you can calculate a bitrate to make a SVCD fit on 1 disk. I hoped this was true. I have a bitrate calculator but where in the template do you enter this - there are loads of bitrate parameters. And what about audio bitrate ? Any help? The links in tools (eg. FitCD) don't seem to work.

As I have said before - quality I will sacrifice for volume. The bigger the better I say .

[bigcolinp]

Hi Sefy,

I used your SeVCD basic PAL template to encode an 89 minute movie (captured with Vdub 352x288 25fps), the only thing I changed was motion precision to High.
The resulting MPG was nearly 900Mb in size and wouldn't fit on a single CD.
Would increasing the motion precision increase the file size ? Or have I done something else wrong ?

I am using TMPGEnc 2.51

I mailed you on this so apologies if you are reading this twice!!!

cheers,

Col

[Sefy]

Colin, no worries, i'll simply answer twice, as i've mentioned, i've been recently told that TMPGEnc 2.5x sets VBR to a default of 2000kbps, which is why the SeVCD/SxVCD will NOT encode properly, I do not know why on earth they did that, but I suggest you use the older versions from 2.02 and backwards, they will be more accurate in encoding.

oflahsp, I do not suggest you attempt to reduce your Bitrate that low for fit an SVCD on a single CD unless you are reducing the resolution (like SxVCD) cause you will be using a high resolution which isn't being supported by enough bitrate.

[adam]

if you use a 80min CD, you can put nearly upto 95min or more of movie on it without sacrificing quality

I was referring directly to this statement. I never said anything about dvd like quality either, now your misquoting me

I know you understand the quality of movies authored using your templates. The problem is that other people might not, and statements like this can be misleading because, despite what you say, you cannot squeeze 95 mins onto a single cdr without sacrificing quality.

For what it's worth, my statements were directed more towards sean.

[Sefy]

You are correct Adam, my apologies, I will rephrase that sentence from now on so people will not think i'm misleading, how about this:
"if you use a 80min CD, you can put nearly upto 95min or more of movie on it without sacrificing quality compared to regular VCD standard"

[oflahsp]

I have looked at Sefy's templates and the guide that comes with them and it seems the info I need. I'll try these and if i can get 80-90 mins of OK quality on 1 CD that will play on a DVD then that's OK. It's the only "here exactly what to try" type answer to my original question. Now I'll have to get Nero from somewhere.