y would we make VCD's???

[ok_computer]

i have a question
im sorta new to this but if SVCD is better than VCD, and just as easy to make, then why does anybody even bother making VCD's???
i might be missing something, maybe SVCD's have some drawbacks so somebody tell me!

[tat2jr]

SVCDs aren't as easy to make as VCDs. As a newbie I had a very hard time getting my SVCDs to look good, FF/RW, and have the audio in sync. Let alone the fact that VCDs are much more universally played in stand-alone DVD players, and SVCD standards are anything but standard.

After doing this for a few months, and having a DVD player that will play SVCDs I would never make another VCD again, but in the begining it was all I could do.

If you're making great quality SVCDs right off.......my hat is off to you! If not, you should check out this EASY to use program.....
http://www.doom9.org/mpg/dvd2svcd.htm

[Psycho_Dad_Rules]

Hi,

Probably becuase :
-A CD can contain more VCD minutes than SVCD.
-VCD's are better support than SVCD's on DVD-players.
(Most DVD-Players support VCD, not all of them support SVCD)
-The difference in quality between the two isn't that big.

Greetz,

pSyChO dAd

[tat2jr]

pSyChO dAd -
I beg to differ...... a GOOD SVCD looks pretty much like the DVD, a GOOD VCD still has blockiness, has lines from where it's streched vertically and horizontally, and is blurry. My 64inch HDTV really shows just how bad VCD quality is (and how Great a good SVCD burn is)

Before I could make a GOOD SVCD I agreed with you 100%.

[Greg12]

VCD:

320x240, must be streched by ur DVD player, macro-blocking occurs.

SVCD:

480x480, less blocking.

Keep in mind NTSC is 640x480 so their is much less streching.

It is possible to burn a non-standard SVCD with DVD resolution. I have done this with still pictures and short movies

My APEX 660 has extremely relaxed white book standards.

[AntnyMD]

In addition to the statements made above about the standard VCD being better supported by the newer DVD players, I'd like to add that if your VCD is casually lent to a friend, you don't have to have large technical discussions about how to get MPEG-2 codecs on their computers to play SVCDs, or try to sell them on an essentially "no name" standalone DVD player to watch something they'd probably rather have on DVD anyway.

As for the quality of VCD, ever since I worked out my problems with interlacing and field order, I have been making spectacular standard VCDs at a bitrate of 1123 for video and have been shocked at the great quality. I have XVCDs at a higher bitrate that look worse than these latest dubs, and I'm not joking. I don't know what it is, maybe this 1123 bitrate is some sort of "sweet spot" for MPEG-1 video, I dunno ... I've abandoned everything else for standard VCD except full DVD resolution miniDVD/cDVD.

But to answer you questions, I make VCDs because some things are just not worth my money to own on DVD for viewing once or twice. I am building a DVD collection of films that really mean something to me artistically or emotionally (example, The English Patient), and a VCD collection of things that are complete nonsense (pornography; Booty Call; etc).

[hitechjunkie]

Greg12
i've created 640x480, 2300kbps CBR and VBR, non-compliant VCDs, which playback flawlessly on my JVC 523GD, and look incredibly DVD-like on my 32" TV. as long as your player supports it, there's no reason not to create them.

[hitechjunkie]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-01 13:43:17, AntnyMD wrote:
But to answer you questions, I make VCDs because some things are just not worth my money to own on DVD for viewing once or twice. I am building a DVD collection of films that really mean something to me artistically or emotionally (example, The English Patient), and a VCD collection of things that are complete nonsense (pornography; Booty Call; etc).
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

exactly what i've been doing! interesting, The English Patient is a favorite of mine in my DVD collection, as well. some of my other DVD favorites are Braveheart and The Last Of The Mohicans.

[lemmy999]

I just don't understand. I would never spend any time or energy to rip DVDs to SVCD or VCD. I would just buy the thing for $15-$25. That just is not much many and you get better quality, it fits on a single disc, and a pretty package. However, that is what 90% of the people here seem to be doing. I only do (S)VCDs of TV shows or things on VHS that will NEVER be released on DVD (old movies, old rock concerts, home movies etc). Not too many people seem to be doing this.

[Ronnie777]

Lemmy999, that's exactly what I'm doing. Coping older TV shows, Home Video, Mature Films w/menues for easy access to good-quality video on a skinny, space-saving disc, rather that outmoded, clunky, degrading VHS Videotape.

[askanison]

lemmy and ronnie,
i just started making the vcds/svcds but i hope to start copying my old tapes of tv shows, tv movies, wrestling tapes, etc. onto the little discs instead of big tapes. but right now i am testing my capabilites by ripping and burning dvds in my collection, onto cdrws, so i can get the best picture quality when i finally start to convert my old tv shows, and current tv shows too. any suggestions on on capture devices and settings for this. thanks in advance.

[Greg12]

I'll try that

Oh and a 64inch tv will show inperfections in anything

[lemmy999]

askanison, i have been getting good results with this method.

used vd_start (i think that is the name)to start Vdub and capture to segmented files in Vdub live off of TV. Vdub is set up to capture at 29.97fps, Huffyuv codec, 480x480 (352x480 for VCD). I then open the file in Vdub, cut out all commercials, do an inverse telecine operation (if the program I have captured is NTSC telecined). For filters, I add deinterlace at high threshold (85) to remove anything left by inverse telecine, temperol smooth at a setting of 4 and smart smooth at a setting of 5 & 30. If I were doing a VCD I would resize to 352x240. I save this to segmented AVI file. I open it back up in Vdub and if the show had an annoying logo on the screen, I use the logo remover filter and then start the frameserver and frameserve to TMPGEnc. I set TMPGEnc up using the SVCD NTSC Film template(since I have inverse telecined, I have a 24fps video). I use 2100 CBR bit rate which gives quicker encoding and about 46 minutes on an 80 minute CD-R. In the advanced tab I set it to progressive, 1:1VGA, and center or full screen (did not have luck with any of the "preserve aspect ratio settings". I start the conversion and then when finished, I demux with TMPGEnc to get seperate audio and video files, I then open bbMPEG to put them back together into one file (this inserts entry point information). I then use TSCV (GUI to VCDImager 0.7X) to create chapters and make the .bin and .cue file. I then burn this with CDRWin. If I were doing VCD, I would just use the VCD NTSC Film template in TMPGEnc and create the MPEG and then burn the .mpg file with NERO (of course you will not have chapters, at least with the NERO version I am running). I have had good results. The biggest improvement I made in quality with all of my testing, was capture live instead of going to video tape first. If you are coming off of video tape, you might want to use more filtering or stronger settings. And maybe try the fxVHS filter (I think that is the name of it).

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: lemmy999 on 2001-08-07 11:59:39 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: lemmy999 on 2001-08-07 12:01:40 ]</font>

[askanison]

so i'll need stronger settings if i want to capture from old vhs tapes. ok, atleast i knwo where i am headed now. thanks for the help.

[hvr]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
....things that are complete nonsense (pornography; Booty Call; etc).
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
...erm... I guess quite a few people would actually not share your opinion on that one *g*

[VerbatimDVD]

Porno Man haha!

[RFontenot]

AntnyMD,

What are you using to encode your VCD captures @ 1123Kbps?

RF

[AntnyMD]

I've given up on captures until either a) purchase a proper video capture card with MPEG-2 (my current WinTV Go + MJPEG codec causes my computer to crash, refusing to start up again from anywhere from 30 minutes to four days), or b) purchase a standalone Terapin VDR.

My standard VCDs are DVD rips from Netflix and my own collection, and a DVD porn site I just love to bits (can I mention it here?).

[RFontenot]

So what are you using to reencode? TMPGEnc?

RF

[cmirza]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>WinTV Go + MJPEG codec causes my computer to crash, refusing to start up again from anywhere from 30 minutes to four days</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Four days? I've never had a computer refuse to start for four days. I think your computer has some major issues if you can't boot for four days.

I'm a college student, so for me $15-$20 is alot for movies. Plus I'm watching my movies on a 10 year old Mitsubishi 26" w/ 2 ch stereo, so I'm not really missing 'DVD quality'. So I make VCD rips of anything that I rent that I like.

[AntnyMD]

Yes, I use TMPGEnc to re-encode the MPEG-2 from DVD to MPEG-1 for VCD. I make NTSC VCDs @ 29.976fps. My standalone DVD players won't play NTSC VCDs @ 23.976 smoothly (but when it does play, the quality is even better).

Yes, my computer does have some serious issues, I just don't know what they are, and it's driving me nuts. This is my second computer (first one kinda blew up in a power surge) and I don't want to buy another one for at least another year, but I see all the people here with fast computers making full movie conversions in 5 or 6 or 7 hours -- I'm still in the dark ages, my conversions for lets say a 120 minute movie still taking 18 to 20 hours.

[UrQuan3]

lemmy999, where did you get the "vd_start"? I've been trying for years to find/write something that starts VirtualDub recording automatically.

[greggk]

Ok, I use Virtual Dub, and TMPGenc. I have heard a lot on the boards about FRAMESERVING from Virtual Dub to TMPGenc, however no one has ever posted exactly how that's done. I tried doing the frameserver, but I sure don't know what the hell Im doing!

[Vejita-sama]

Frameserving means that instead of using VDub to create an avi and then using TMPGenc to make the MPEG, you have VDub send each frame in real time to TMPGenc; ie. frameserve.

Take a look at: http://www.flexion.org/video/DVDConv/DVD2AVI/index.html

scroll down some and they'll walk you through it.

[greggk]

Thank you, I will look at that link.
Is there any advantages to frameserving?

[threev]

Just curious, do you use CBR or CQ setting?

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-01 13:43:17, AntnyMD wrote:
In addition to the statements made above about the standard VCD being better supported by the newer DVD players, I'd like to add that if your VCD is casually lent to a friend, you don't have to have large technical discussions about how to get MPEG-2 codecs on their computers to play SVCDs, or try to sell them on an essentially "no name" standalone DVD player to watch something they'd probably rather have on DVD anyway.

As for the quality of VCD, ever since I worked out my problems with interlacing and field order, I have been making spectacular standard VCDs at a bitrate of 1123 for video and have been shocked at the great quality. I have XVCDs at a higher bitrate that look worse than these latest dubs, and I'm not joking. I don't know what it is, maybe this 1123 bitrate is some sort of "sweet spot" for MPEG-1 video, I dunno ... I've abandoned everything else for standard VCD except full DVD resolution miniDVD/cDVD.

But to answer you questions, I make VCDs because some things are just not worth my money to own on DVD for viewing once or twice. I am building a DVD collection of films that really mean something to me artistically or emotionally (example, The English Patient), and a VCD collection of things that are complete nonsense (pornography; Booty Call; etc).
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

[lemmy999]

UrQuan3, you can find the program here:
http://www.geocities.com/sssoft2001/Downloads/EigeneProgramme/eigeneprogramme.html

it is not as nice as AVI_IO because it can only do one event, but that is all I need. it is VERY easy to use and has never failed me. I am surprised it is not mentioned on these forums very often. I was getting ready to buy AVI_IO even though I really didn't like it, just to get the timed capture. Then fortunately I found this program.

[iant]

Greggk.
The biggest advantage to frameserving is when you are doing a split-file capture. Instead of encoding all the separate AVIs and then trying to join them together ( with the inevitable audio synch issues ) you just frameserve the one file and end up with a single mpg with perfect synch at the end.

[greggk]

Thanks for the info iant.
Lemmy99 had a pretty good description on capturing and authoring, he however mentioned sevaral FILTERS that I do not find in my VirtualDub, like the Logo Remover. How or where do you get that? That would be a very cool tool.

[lemmy999]

http://sauron.mordor.net/dgraft has some filters for vdub. just unzip in the /plugins directory

the logoaway filter can be downloaded from:

http://www.vander.prv.pl

you need to test it and see if you like it. if the logo is really obnoxious (like the WGN logo) I think it is better to use it. there will be a blurry spot where the logo was. when it is a solid background where the logo is, it is almost perfect. the worst case is if text goes across where the logo is.

this place has a filter that is supposed to help with cleaning up VHS captures. I have never used it though:

http://flaxen.dynip.com/vdf/




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: lemmy999 on 2001-08-07 12:09:34 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: lemmy999 on 2001-08-07 12:27:07 ]</font>