video quality

[speedbird]

I am using a trial version of Ulead's Video Studio 6. After I capture and edit my video from my camcorder I make a VCD. I then play it on my DVD player and the video quality is really quite poor. Does anyone have any suggestions about what I am doing wrong??

[vcdfreak]

You mean the video is blocky? Or jumpy? Blockiness is common VCD format. If you want something better, try SVCD or VCD with higher date bitrate or even DVD. Plus, Ulead Video Player encoder is not reall good. You might want to try TMPGEnc but it comes with a price: TIME.

[speedbird]

Thanks for the reply. The picture is blocky even when I encode to SVCD. I will try to tweak the data bit rates and see if that works. But it looks like I will need to get a DVD R drive and a better video editing program.

[craigsalter]

I have great results using virtualdub and the Huffyuv v2.1.1 codec, follow the instuctions in the how to section (green - Capture section) all you need is free from the links on this site. it's how I learnt, Now I make Top Quality Video clips from all kinds of places.

Craig :P

[Spicuzza]

Speedbird, you didn't offer any information as to how you captured or what file format you captured or what frame size you captured.

Please repost and correct me if I'm wrong but it is my guess that you captured directly to MPEG from your camcorder, edited the MPEG, then re-encoded your final project from the edited MPEG to VCD compliant specifications. If this is the case, this is what has caused the poor quality.

Try capturing 352 x 480, uncompressed AVI, edit the AVI, THEN encode the AVI to (X)VCD 352 x 240, MPEG-1 @ 2300 kbps and see if this doesn't greatly improve the visual quality. The assumption is that your DVD player will play an (X)VCD.

[snowman7071]

I'm a newbie and have been playing with capturing for about a month. So far I'm getting excellent results with a common formula:VirtualDub w/huffyuv capturing in 640x480 AVI (haven't tried 352x480 yet) and encoding to 352x240 MPEG-1 in TMPGEnc. Capturing in 352x240 results in poor quality (alot of flickering color blocks)

Ryan

[troyvcd1]

I am about ready to give up. I capture avi using videostudeo 6 then use tmpenc to convert to mpeg but I have tried all kinds of settings in tmpenc and my video always comes out crappy on my DVD player. I capture 720-480 and I convert usually 480-480 mpeg2 using tmpenc. I have tried all kinds of different settings in tmpenc. It is allways crappy. I think that the only way to get quality is to get a dvd burner.

[macleod]

Is it a Hi8 tape (basically asking if it is a analog tape). I have had similar issues with pulling in video from a av camcorder to burn on SVCD/VCD, etc. Can't explain why, but when I first transfer to VHS tape and then pull it in using my VCR, the quality is MUCH better. Like I said, don't know why, but it works much better.

On the VCD vs SVCD, VCD give you 320x 240 at 1150 bits. You WILL get more blockiness than if you did it in SVCD (for readers of another one of my posts, I am using absolutism here) which is 480 x 480 and 2250(est).

I currently use powervcrII (with the tweeks) with my ATI TV card and have had the BEST (and fastest) sessions from capturing at SVCD quality and then using nero to burn (compliance turned off). Mind you, I have not gotten to the "is it live or memorex" stage as there is some pixelation during VERY high motion scenes and it is not as crisp as the VHS tape. But overall, it is around 90-95% of the original.