DV > Decent Quality (X)(S)VCD

[sunil\online]

Sorry if I am posting a very simple question or one that's already been asked; I'm still a newbie at this...

I firewired a bunch of video onto my harddisk, hoping that I could burn all of my video onto CDs so I could reuse my MiniDV tapes. Now using TMPGEnc, I have tried a few settings on its standards: Making NTSC VCDs and SVCDs (and then burning with VCDeasy). The VCD looked like garbage. SVCD was a huge improvement, just with a "boxy" picture during fast movement. XVCD didn't differ much from VCD (I encoded at 1250 kbps).

I was wondering what quality other people have had success with viewing on a APEX AD-1500. Also, is there a full DV to (X)(S)VCD guide tutorial out there that I couldn't find?

Thanks a lot,
Sunil

[mickboss]

Hi,

find and use DVD2SVCD (it has an option to do AVI2SVCD)

or use CCE (cinemacraft) to compress video:

- CCE up to v2.50 -> compress only video
- CCE above v2.50 -> compress video + audio

Use Nero to record SVCD disks

[House de Kris]

You might try the 2-pass VBR in TMPGEnc to encode SVCD. This may help with the blocky fast motion scenes. Personally I was really disappointed with TMPGEnc for miniDV to SVCD convertion due to the sound. MiniDV is 48kHz sample rate while SVCD is 44.1kHz. TMPGEnc simply thows out samples instead of resampling. This give a horrible effect. Others have said to use yet another free program to do the sound, but is it worth it?

If your target is just playback on the AD-1500 you could try upping the bitrate to achieve better video performance. One person said it worked fine up to 4500bps.

[vhelp]

sunil,

not to sound stupid, but there really is NO need for yet another guide, even for DV, ie DVtoSVCD. Basically, DV is just another AVI file.
TMPG, CCE, Pan,... all these encoders encode AVI files, weather from
your analog capture card or from your DV avi file.

So, if you've ben following a guide to create an VCD or SVCD, continue doing so. You simpley drag you AVI (dv) into tmpg, and just follow the guides you ben following since. It's not different! It's not magical!
There, no guide needed

I encode my AVI's the same way I've ben doing it with analog avi's.
You're asking how to walk with shoes, when you already know how to
with sneakers, LOL.

I'd think again before dumping all my footage from miniDV to your HD.
If you really need to do more taping to miniDV, try and find a store like
BJ's or something wholesale'like, and buy a 6pack (I did) for $29, vs. $50
at circuit-city, or $8 * 6 = $48 for cheapest at circuit-city.

As for Apex AD-1500, all my enocodes come out great for this player.
Too many quick-fix answer seekers out there. Try and do a bunch of encodings on a 1 min. clip (or less) and see how far you get. By the time
you do a couple hundred of these, you'll have some fair experience.

later.

[sunil\online]

Everything you guyz said was right, but it wasn't really what I was looking for.

Let me clarify: What settings have people used to make good quality (X)(S)VCDs that are also somewhat economical in the terms of CDs being burned onto. With TMPGEnc (at SVCD quality), I'm already using on CD per 35 min of video!

Thanks,
Sunil

[rrhea]

I can give you a direct answer to your question. The following settings will give you near DVD quality on (X)SVCD. My source is a Sony Video8 camcorder with firewall capture. You get about 21 minutes of video per CD-R. (Sorry, but if you want high quality, you need to have a high bitrate, in this case, 4000 kbps. If you want more time per CD, lower the bitrate, but live with lower quality.) The settings are 720x480, 4000 kpbs CQ, MPEG2.

Here is the URL for the settings. Copy it to a file with a ".mcf" extension. Then load it into TMpegEnc using the "Load" button on the bottom right of the window. Encode the file, and then burn to a SVCD format with Nero. (turn off standards compliance when prompted) The SVCD will play in an AD-1500, but may not play in other DVD players.

http://216.73.156.146/X-SVCD.mcf

[shagrath]

What I would suggest is try vcd instead svcd, I think as Baldrick said, and please correct me if I am wrong it is not worth doing svcds because of low mbs of DV. I have done many xvcd and they look as good as the original dv tape only I have them on cdr. Try constant bitrate at 2000 in tmpgenc, motion search - highest quality. I got 23 min at 358 mb and you should fit 35 mint on cdr without any problems with great quality, and why 2000 cbr you can go higher but some dvd players get chocked if you go higher, over 2300. It works perfect in apex, and all the players i have tried that accept vcds.

[nsdn]

I will echo a earlier poster that said USE DVD2SVCD it as a AVI input option now.

CCE does a far superior job for converting DV to Mpeg.

BTW a lot of DVD players fall over at > 3.5M average. you do not need anything near that bitrate using CCE. Of course during high motion if u look carefully enough you can still see those little succers but.....no one else will ....thats at about 1.5M/sec PAL!!!(NTSC should be better). I am sure winding up the bitrate to 2 or 2.5 would virtually eliminate them.

Problem with using DVD2SVCD is that u have to "find" CCE **smirks**

BTW a while back I tryed using CCE without the DVD2SVCD client....and it was not that much better than TMPGE...I am not sure what the DVD2SVCD does in the processing of the AVI, but the result is sure better than what I was able to achieve manually.

Also for all those TMPGE die hards...DVD2SVCD now also allows the option of choosing TMPGE as the vid encoder.... Yep I like DVD2SVCD ...I even sent him 50 bucks.