Blocky SVCD results...

[Devnull]

I've been making VCDs for quite some time. However, when capturing with my tv card(Pinnacle PCTV Pro), high res interlaced video of SVCDs has a lot more potential than 352x240 vcd. My DVD player is a JVC XV-523.

Anyways I've been able to make two SVCD samples that came out good. A while back I recorded an old star trek off tv and encoded it to a standard SVCD, wasn't able to duplicate it for a while. My SVCDs would come out unusually blocky, and especially so in areas of movement. Like a bad DivX looks, with some ghosting or both.

I am using the newest version of TMPGEnc and VirtualDub right now, the last decent SVCD I made was using older version though, which I still have. Anyways a week or so ago I tried some more SVCDs, having the usual problems, finally got a good one from tv, I wrote down a note that I used 640x480 24 bit RGB, mjpeg codec to record it in VirtualDub, then to convert to SVCD I used the standard template and then set the field order to B and de-multiplexed and re-multiplexed to mpeg1(I have to for my player, it works fine on lots of pre-made SVCDs, so I don't like that's an issue here). It looked awsome.

I've tried using identical settings and procedeures as far as I can tell, and again not able to duplicate my success. Does anyone have any ideas regarding what settings could be affecting this? My player works fine with the pre-made SVCDs after I fixed them, but I haven't been able to make many from tv that came out. I wish I could provide better information. It's just frustrating that I've only been able to make 2 SVCDs that didn't look like crap. I've tried just about every setting in VirtualDub and TMPGEnc I can think of. I always use high or highest motion search precision.

[N0SoopForU]

There could be numerous reasons why you aren't achieving the quality you desire.

For starters, what kind of material are you tring to capture? Animation, TV Shows, etc.? You might be able to inverse telecine and boost your quality.

[Devnull]

Yeah tv shows. And it's not just a matter of quality as in degree of quality, problems are serious visual artifacts...

[xeromark]

Now I could be wrong... but I might try de-interlacing the video after you capture it. Television is interlaced, and movies are progressive.

When you claim that you have artifacts that are particularly bad in motion, this gives me a hint that the interlaced video is affecting the encoder.

In TMPGEnc - fool around with the de-interlace filter and see what you can find. I suspect that the interlacing looks good at high res but when you bring it down to VCD or SVCD res, it causes problems.

Just my 2 cents...

[Devnull]

I've played other Interlaced SVCDs fine, it is interlaced, but if I deinterlace it, it IMO will look no better than any VCD, but I will try.

[xeromark]

I only suspect an interlacing problem because you mention artifact problems during motion, and this is mostly where interlacing comes into play.

[Devnull]

yeah, I understand why you think that. I suppose it's possible but there has to be a better solution than to deinterlace. I had major interlacing artifacts when I used YUV as opposed to 24 bit RGB.

[xeromark]

Thats because Television displays RGB, not YUV.

[Douglesh]

For the original poster of this thread. I have done a TON of testing on this topic. Anyway, heres what i do to achieve best results.

Open VDub 1.47, open your video file, and use the filters, Dynamic Noise Reduction, Static Noise Reduction, And 2D Cleaner, all on the default settings. You wont lose much sharpness from these settings, and it will clean up all noise. Now frameserve to TMPGENc, and use your SVCD template, making your motion search on HIGHEST QUALITY (Believe me it makes a ton of difference), then use 2pass VCD with a max of 2520, and an average of 1900. That should yield pretty good results, ive done it resulting in almost blockless video.

[Devnull]

I'll give that a try, deinterlacing didn't help at all.

[Devnull]

Also, the AVIs I captured with VirtualDub look fine if I view them in WMP. No artifacts until I go convert to SVCD, they come out ok as VCDs.

[Devnull]

Here is a small sample, 1.59MB.

Download here.

[Devnull]

Douglesh would those happen to be custom filters and where can I get them? I don't see them in VirtualDub.

edit: nm, google is your friend.

[Devnull]

Tried the filters your recommended, didn't see an improvement. Not suprised, because it looks fine until I convert the avi to mpeg2.

[Douglesh]

Well then there is something unusually wrong at your end, because ive used those filters, and cleaned up blocky source files before with no drama's. If i were you just use VCD, the smaller res. will mean you get less blockiness.

[baker]

I am wrting a guide which should be out shortly on how to get the best capture results from a digital source.

Baker

[Devnull]

Very intersting... I tried converting the same AVIs to VCD instead of SVCD and they came out blocky as well. Captured at VCD resolution and converted to VCD and it came out fine. But the high-res AVIs don't look blocky. Quite confusing. I guess I will tinker around in VirtualDub some more, or maybe try AVI_IO.

[billja]

I haven't tried using VDub's filters yet to clean up a video file (an old animation file that definitely shows some blockiness) but doesn't TMPGenc also have a few filters that can do this? Which program's better?

Thanks much!

[kwag]

Hi devnull:

You may want to look at this:
http://ns1.shidima.com/kwag/city-hall.mpg

Use WinDVD or PowerDVD to view it.

It's a S-video capture with a WinTV Go cheap card.

kwag