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  1. I've made a few vcd's and svcd's in my time, but I'm not sure how to get the highest quality vcd results with TMPG. Is there a template to use? Or modifications to a template? I know it is dependent on the quality of the source file, but are there universal settings to get the best quality?
    Thanks a ton!
    Jon
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  2. Depends who you ask,read "How to Convert" & "F.A.Q."
    <-----------------------
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  3. OK.....I'm curious what setting you all use when you are trying to make high quality standard compliant vcd's
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  4. The "best settings" are kind of like the "best homemade chili" or "best beer", etc etc etc.

    There's no strict way to define "best" (at least there doesn't seem to be), so the PerfectTemplate is the holy grail that many seek, but none ever find (because the judging criteria are almost totally subjective, and vary from person to person).
    As Churchill famously predicted when Chamberlain returned from Munich proclaiming peace in his time: "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war."
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  5. So you don't want to share? I know there are no "end all be all" settings, I'm just curious what other use so I can experiment.

    Thanks!
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  6. Looks like you're getting a lot of double talk. I would like to see somebody elses setting too.
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  7. If you look to the left, under TOOLS you will find a number of TMPGEnc templates that other folks have put out for our use, if you don't like them you can use them as a starting point and experiment with various settings to come up with a new one.Bud
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  8. Member zzyzzx's Avatar
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    The "best" settings depends upon input quality and therefore varies.
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  9. jonny,
    if im doing standard compliant i use a 2-pass vbr in tmpgenc at standard settings.
    I'd check out some of the guides from Sefy (sxvcd, mpg2 most times 352x240) not compatible with many dvd playerz.
    Or
    the Kwag templates, kvcd.net,,,352x480, kvcd, non-standard, mpg1,,,works with a lot of players, except some apex models that I know of.
    Using kwag'z templates though, you can squeeze more higher quality video on one cdr.
    Schizzon's tempz are good too.

    I'd kinda stay away from appz like DvDX or the like. They work on some movies, but not as flexible.


    ztr....
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  10. El_Mero_Zooter, i'd just like to point out that the guide itself shows how to create a fully compatible VCD, as for SxVCD, it is confirmed to work on 30 DVD Players.

    Side Note: SxVCD will only work on a DVD that is atleast capable of playing back a Super Video-CD.
    Email me for faster replies!

    Best Regards,
    Sefy Levy,
    Certified Computer Technician.
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  11. El_Mero_Zooter, thanks for the tips.....I'll have to give them a shot.

    Any one else care to share?
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  12. The Idea of best quality is rather simple:

    For "Standard VCD" bitrate 1150 Video and 224 Audio

    The Idea here is to get the best compression ratio to "Fit" in the Bitstream.
    Audio is fine at 224K Stereo so I will just deal with the video here.

    For starters if your source video is noisy or grainy then use the "Noise Reduction" in the Advanced menu.

    ALLWAYS use "Highest Quality" motion precision. Allthough "motion Estimate" is faster and works well too.

    Use a longer GOP sequence with more "B" frames as they are the most compressable - some experimentation will be required here but I have sucessfully used 4P & 4P for one setting and 5P & 6B in another.
    The longer the distance between I-Frames the more compressable the information and thus it will better fit in the bitstream.

    Use 10 bit DC Precision if using MPEG-2 and Floating Point DCT

    Use the soften block noise option - it works well!

    When all of these techniques are applied the result is usually the best it can possibly be. If it is still not good enough then do SVCD or XSVCD at full D1 Resolution (This is what I do and I am picky). Using the above techniques I have been able to achieve full 720 x 480 video at 2500K SVCD bitrate and have it look good on my 51" Digital TV! Normally this requires 4000K+ bitrate.
    Rob
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  13. Way to go ratt794. Nice post. Just the kind of info I've been looking for. Thanks a lot.
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  14. The highest quality settings for a VCD,XVCD,SVCD, etc. = the highest possible bitrate.
    ( There's no way around it! )

    Increase GOP P's beyond 20 = Higher compression, lower quality ( Ghosting starts to occur. )

    Increase B to 3 = Max. Beyond 3, no more changes.

    All these values are for CQ or VBR and tested with TMPEG 2.53 and 2.53 Plus.

    At CBR, no matter what the GOP structure is, final size will be the same because bitrate is fixed. So changing GOP for CBR is useless.

    kwag
    KVCD.Net - Advanced Video Conversion
    http://www.kvcd.net
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  15. yea... i am havin problem when i play it on my tv..... the piexlation drives me crazy...... can anyone help me elimate this
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  16. I have used GOP's as long as 60 Frames between "I Frames" with no "Ghosting". 5P and 9B setting

    FACT:

    If more efficient compession is used then more information will fit in a given space - this is exactly what happens with longes GOP sequences.
    P frames take less space than I , and B less than P. So it makes sense to have as many "B" as possible as long as they are of high accuracy.
    This gives an improvement of about 40% over the standard 15 frame GOP. At the standard VCD bitrate one can expect about 40% quality improvement.

    If all of the "Tricks" are applied like noise reduction, Soften Block noise, and longer GOP the result can be very rewarding. I would not post things that are not true and I have tried and proven out myself.
    Rob
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  17. Originally Posted by ratt794
    I have used GOP's as long as 60 Frames between "I Frames" with no "Ghosting". 5P and 9B setting

    FACT:

    If more efficient compession is used then more information will fit in a given space - this is exactly what happens with longes GOP sequences.
    P frames take less space than I , and B less than P. So it makes sense to have as many "B" as possible as long as they are of high accuracy.
    This gives an improvement of about 40% over the standard 15 frame GOP. At the standard VCD bitrate one can expect about 40% quality improvement.

    If all of the "Tricks" are applied like noise reduction, Soften Block noise, and longer GOP the result can be very rewarding. I would not post things that are not true and I have tried and proven out myself.
    Go ahead and do something like "The Little Mermaid" with P's at 60 and you'll see what I mean. Just watch when something moves, and you'll see a trail longer than a kite's tail

    Been there, done that!

    kwag
    KVCD.Net - Advanced Video Conversion
    http://www.kvcd.net
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  18. Kwag:

    You must be setting something wrong - I have NEVER seen the ghosting "kite tails" with longer GOP. You are also missing the point of the orginal post: "How to get the Best VCD Quality"

    There are 2 ways - yes increase the bitrate will give better quality but this is Non-Standard. The other is to improve the compression efficiency by using a higer number of "B" frames which use the least number of bits. The second method fits within the standard.

    I did some experimentation last night with VCD MPEG-1 at 352x240 NTSC and varing the GOP settings from the Standard 15 Frame to 60 frames.

    My GOP settings were
    1) 4P,2B Standard
    2) 4P,5B GOP=30
    3) 5P,9B GOP=60 (Works better with MPEG-2)
    4) 2P,4B same GOP length of 15 with increased "B" Frames

    Bitrate CBR 1150 and Stream VCD MPEG-1 compliant
    Source Video was DV-AVI Type-1 and Noise free with lost of detail and motion (A very hard clip for an MPEG encoder)

    All of them looked good - the best one was 4P,5B GOP=30 and had No significant MPEG artifacts. GOP of 60 is better with MPEG-2 than MPEG-1.
    I usually use MPEG-2 for my projects at full resolution.

    Now I also checked the MPEG's with Bitrate Viewer - this confrmed the higher Quality as the compression ratio of each frame DROPPED with the longer GOP / more "B" frame MPEG's.
    Rob
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  19. Originally Posted by ratt794
    Kwag:

    You must be setting something wrong - I have NEVER seen the ghosting "kite tails" with longer GOP. You are also missing the point of the orginal post: "How to get the Best VCD Quality"

    There are 2 ways - yes increase the bitrate will give better quality but this is Non-Standard. The other is to improve the compression efficiency by using a higer number of "B" frames which use the least number of bits. The second method fits within the standard.

    I did some experimentation last night with VCD MPEG-1 at 352x240 NTSC and varing the GOP settings from the Standard 15 Frame to 60 frames.

    My GOP settings were
    1) 4P,2B Standard
    2) 4P,5B GOP=30
    3) 5P,9B GOP=60 (Works better with MPEG-2)
    4) 2P,4B same GOP length of 15 with increased "B" Frames

    Bitrate CBR 1150 and Stream VCD MPEG-1 compliant
    Source Video was DV-AVI Type-1 and Noise free with lost of detail and motion (A very hard clip for an MPEG encoder)

    All of them looked good - the best one was 4P,5B GOP=30 and had No significant MPEG artifacts. GOP of 60 is better with MPEG-2 than MPEG-1.
    I usually use MPEG-2 for my projects at full resolution.

    Now I also checked the MPEG's with Bitrate Viewer - this confrmed the higher Quality as the compression ratio of each frame DROPPED with the longer GOP / more "B" frame MPEG's.
    Hi ratt794:

    I don't know what TV set you are using to view those 60 P' mpegs.
    In a HDTV you WILL see ghosting trails with anything above 20 P's.

    And this is not new. I've had many users report the problem, specially with "anime" type films. Even at P=18, "The Little Mermaid" video shows too many artifacts when characters are moving and suddenly stop.

    If you do a test with a GOP of 20 P's and 3 P's, and do the same test with 20 P's and 10 B's, you'll notice that there is hardly any more space gained by increasing the B's. But the quality will be worse.

    If you increase the P's to 60, as you say, the compression will be very good but the mpeg produced will be very unstable.

    Actually after 43 P's you won't get much difference in space gain.

    The maximum compression is achieved with a GOP I=1, P=43, B=3.
    But the quality is bad big time, because the P's are so far apart from the I frame, that artifacts show when something is moving and suddenly stops.

    You will see a trail of artifacts. At least on big screen TV's and HDTV's.

    I had defined in my template an original GOP structure pattern of 1-20-3, and now i't been adjusted to 1-12-3, mostly because I use CQ of 70 in the KVCD template and by tightening the sequence to 1-12-3, the quality is much higher while still keeping a very good compression ratio.

    There's a thread here:
    http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36
    If you would like to follow the results that people are achieving.

    kwag
    KVCD.Net - Advanced Video Conversion
    http://www.kvcd.net
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  20. Kwag:

    You are still missing the point:

    "P" frames are not the most important - "B" frames are.

    The average compression ratio of the various frames from Bitrate Viewer:
    I Frames = 7:1
    P Frames = 20:1
    B Frames = 80:1
    This is under the Standardl GOP of 4P,2B or 5P,2B

    When I change this to increase the "B" frame percentage I get the following:
    I frames = 5:1
    P frames = 10:1
    B Frmaes = 40:1
    This was under the modified GOP of 4P, 5B or a total if 30 frmaes in a GOP

    This is LESS compression and higher quality. MPEG-4 and Windows media are using a similar technique to achieve higher compression efficiency. When doing this kind of thing you MUST use hgih quality motion precision otherwise artifats can occur similar to what you describe.
    I would never use a lot of "P" Frames because the benefit is just not there.
    Using LESS "P" and MORE "B" is the way to go. MPEG-2 is better at this because it handles motion vectors with hgher accuracy than MPEG-1 does.

    I hope this clarifies what I am doing here - it has been tested and does work. I have ewven been able to lower the bitrate from 1150 down to 850 with very good quality VCD MPEG-1 352x240 video. This would not be possible without better compression and thus "B" frames to the maximum. Going beyond 30 frame GOP does not provide much benefit and beyond 60 is risky so I would not recomend it.
    Rob
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  21. Oh yes - as stated before I am using a 51" Panasonic HDTV set with component video input from my APEX DVD player. I can see any and all defects in the video including ones in HDTV broadcasts and Direct TV video as well.

    The video I used to test this is EXTREMELY demanding on MPEG. It contains highly detailed images and a lot of Start-Stop motion and fast panning of the camera. (No ghosting at all) These types of images give MPEG encoder's the craps (Except for TMPGenc 2.53). Uleads new codec and Logos LSX can't handle this video at all - even at high bitrates!

    The point of diminishing returns appears to be at 60 total GOP length. Going longer will not compress beter and increases artifacts especially at low bitrates. So the distance between I-Frames should be held to a maimum of 60 for MPEG-2 and 30 for MPEG-1.
    Rob
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  22. Originally Posted by ratt794
    Kwag:

    You are still missing the point:

    "P" frames are not the most important - "B" frames are.

    The average compression ratio of the various frames from Bitrate Viewer:
    I Frames = 7:1
    P Frames = 20:1
    B Frames = 80:1
    This is under the Standardl GOP of 4P,2B or 5P,2B

    When I change this to increase the "B" frame percentage I get the following:
    I frames = 5:1
    P frames = 10:1
    B Frmaes = 40:1
    This was under the modified GOP of 4P, 5B or a total if 30 frmaes in a GOP

    This is LESS compression and higher quality. MPEG-4 and Windows media are using a similar technique to achieve higher compression efficiency. When doing this kind of thing you MUST use hgih quality motion precision otherwise artifats can occur similar to what you describe.
    I would never use a lot of "P" Frames because the benefit is just not there.
    Using LESS "P" and MORE "B" is the way to go. MPEG-2 is better at this because it handles motion vectors with hgher accuracy than MPEG-1 does.

    I hope this clarifies what I am doing here - it has been tested and does work. I have ewven been able to lower the bitrate from 1150 down to 850 with very good quality VCD MPEG-1 352x240 video. This would not be possible without better compression and thus "B" frames to the maximum. Going beyond 30 frame GOP does not provide much benefit and beyond 60 is risky so I would not recomend it.
    Sorry ratt794, but you are missing the point.

    From the book "Video Demystified", probably one of the best sources on Video reference right now.

    On page 524:

    A group of (GOP) is a series of one or more coded frames intended to assist in random accesing and editing. The GOP value is configurable during the encoding process.
    The smaller the GOP value, the better the response to movement ( since the I frames are closer together), but the lower the compression.


    And as it says above. The closer together the I frames, the better the response to movement, and the better the quality.

    This is not experimenting, this is plain MPEG mathematics.

    kwag
    KVCD.Net - Advanced Video Conversion
    http://www.kvcd.net
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  23. " For "Standard VCD" bitrate 1150 Video and 224 Audio "

    tmpgen ver a have a file u can pic sayin 1250 bitrate and when i encode in it and try to copy it with adaptec.... it comes up and says something about the bit rate but it says i can burn it..... when i do it still plays.... will it give me any other trbl or trbl with other movies if i do this..... and how far can i bump the bitrate up b4 it stops playin in my dvd ?????
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  24. Member
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    LOL mol3k.. for someone with a hundred posts to their name these are pretty lame questions to be asking

    The Adaptec software is warning you that the bitrate setting for the video is instandard, as long as it plays OK on your DVD players then its nothing to worry about.

    Maximum bitrate values differ from player to player. Check the DVD player compatibility list on this site for some idea.
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  25. Sef,

    sorry broah, i hadnt bother to check the updated list of dvd players that can play sxvcd's. In retrospect, I had meant to say 'some' instead of 'many' players. Guess i remembered only being like 5 or 6 players back in da 'old' days when u started the list. I never quite got it to work with my apex so i gave up on it. That was before i got my panasonic though. Got enuff templates to do what i need to do now. But i did start messing wit all this xvcd stuff from your guidance.

    thx again

    zTr
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  26. Member
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    Hi!

    I've readed the post: "The Best TMPGEnc Setting for HQ VCDs".
    Now, I want to make a standard compliant VCD (PAL), using TMPGEnc 2.53.
    What "GOP Structure" should I adopt?
    If I use differents GOB values, what destination will I obtain? Compliant or not?

    Thanks for your answers.
    Daniele Esposito.
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  27. For high quality vcd's I try to use a 1600 birate with 244 audio for files 150 mb & under. The bigger the file the lower I go but 1200 birate is the lowest I'll do. For compliance issues take a look at your frame size 352x240 @29.97f/sec or @ 23.976 f/sec are NTSC compliant & 352x288 @ 25 f/sec is pal complaint.
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