TMPGEnc settings for best quality out

[fanmail1]

Hi,
I am using tmpgenc to encode avi files to mpg then using nero 5 to burn them to VCD. I tried to use the SVCD plug in file but it only locked up the program every time I tried to use SVCD. So I want to know if you guys can help me tweek TMPGEnc settings to get the best out before nero burns VCD. I am getting little squares on the screen. I will settle for at least VHS quality if I could get it. Or help figuring out why my mpeg2 plug doesn't take well.

Thank you

[djnibler]

Don't bother with Nero, it sucks for encoding. Stick with tmpgenc. You didn't mention what it was that you were trying to encode, or how long. If you are encoding 1 hour or more, you will need to use a template to get it to look best, with minimal size. If you are encoding less than an hour, do this:
Close the wizard mode that pops up in tmpgenc. Click load, load the SVCD (NTSC) template (assuming you are NTSC and not PAL). Click the "settings" button. For bit rate type, select CBR, and max the bit rate as high as it can go (2520 I think it is). Go down to the motion search quality box, and select the highest motion search quality (very slow). Click ok. Select your target file and output file, then click encode. This will take a long, long time to encode, but the quality is magnificent... guaranteed the best you can get (better then, if not equal to VBR or CQ, though it will take more space).

Using this method takes a lot of space, but if your video is under an hour, it *should* fit on one 80 min CDR... experiment. If you hate how long it takes to encode, change the quality setting down a notch on the motion search and try again.

If your video is over an hour... do a search on this forum for "templates". There are a lot of people in here who have spent many, many hours creating great templates, and are nice enough to share them with the rest of us. You can download them, then load them into tmpgenc (just like I had you do with the stock SVCD template). They all provide a compromise between file size, and quality in one way or another.

Jeff

[fanmail1]

Thank you for replying. I am trying to encode movies I downloaded so we can watch them on the t.v. each movie has two parts, anywhere from 30 mins to an 1hour in length, and I put them on seperate disc right now.

I will try the template way you showed me right now. And reply back with "Success" I hope.

I did run into another problem this morning, I started encoding a movie before I left and when I got back it was stopped at 2 mins from finish, it said " sync lines didn't match up" or something close to that and when I pressed " OK" it didn't start back up from where it left off. Is there anyway to start it back from that point? I'd hate to start all over again.

Thanks again
Lakeida

[Cooly-O]

...For bit rate type, select CBR, and max the bit rate as high as it can go (2520 I think it is). Go down to the motion search quality box, and select the highest motion search quality (very slow). Click ok. ...

Why is CBR better than 2-pass VBR????

[djnibler]

>Cooly-O Wrote:
>Why is CBR better than 2-pass VBR????

Because VBR changes the bit rate on the fly to get the best quality, in the least amount of space. If you look in the VBR settings, you will notice a max, and a minimum bit rate... you can configure these yourself. Note that the max bit rate cannot be set higher then like 2520... that's because this is the max bitrate that mpeg2 allows (for SVCD anyway, maybe for anything). VBR can never, and will never make the bit rate go above 2520; it will, however, drop the bit rate LOWER then 2520 when it thinks that the particular scene does not need such a high bit-rate (like a still image, or scenes with little action etc). You may not much notice the quality degradation for these scenes, but it IS there. VBR just LOWERS the bit rate when it thinks it can get away with doing it without being noticed.... normally this works great, and if you are trying to fit x amount of video on 1 CD or something, this is a very good thing. But the fact remains, if you simply set CBR to the absolute max it can go, then the quality will be the maximum allowed.

It's really only applicable for short things like music videos or half hour tv programs. Anything other then that warrants the use of CQ or VBR etc.

Jeff

[Cooly-O]

Thank you very much Jeff. Great answer.