DVD to VCD rip with XMPEG and CCE... help!?

[Cubbs]

I've read the guides in various places for a DVD rip to VCD or SVCD using XMPEG (flask) and CCE, by way of the VideoServer. I can get everything to work, and encode, and sync; except for two elusive problems:

Any motion scenes have jaggy lines all around the border. IE someone walks around, has hazy jagged lines dancing all around him while moving. I'm guessing this somehow relates to interlacing, the source DVD is interlaced, 29.97 fps. I've tried a few settings and always end up with the same crappy problem.

The other thing is that the picture doesn't take up the entire TV viewing area.. and it should. Basically the aspect ratio is a bit off or something... again, im pretty clueless as to why or how to fix it.

Anybody know how to fix these problems? help much appreciated.

-cubbs

[stanwebber]

my guess is the field order got fucked(all too common with cce). Contrary to the obvious, the 'upper field first' checkbox has nothing to do with setting the TFF (top field first) flag. In fact, Cinemacraft encodes with the TFF flag ON regardless of any setting. Enabling 'upper field first' in reality inverts the field order by shifting the entire image up 1 pixel....even scanlines become odd and vice-versa. This causes order reversal or mismatch problems if your source is anything other than top-first(see chart in my homepage news). The solution is to pre-empt Cinemacraft from altering anything ('upper field first' OFF) and set the TFF flag with Pulldown using the -nopulldown -tff [odd even] switches at a later stage. Progressive material (IVTC/forced film or PAL standard telecine) is unaffected other than being shifted 1 pixel and thwarting attempts to letterbox on 16x16 macroblock boundaries