Quick question about converting Divx to SVCD using Tmpgenc

[hardbody6pack]

Ok, I've read all the posts about the convesion and want to know if this is the basic steps I need to take to do this right.

I have a movie less than 80 min in divx form and want to convert it to SVCD, so I browsed the movie, loaded the SVCD template and then pressed Run. Is this all I have to do? I automaticly put in the bitrate at 2520 and 480 x 480 for resolution. Is that the best I can do to get the best quality on SVCD?

[hardrock]

If you put a high bitrate, you'll get a high quality

[hardbody6pack]

Now I have a 50 min video that's over 1,000,000,000 bytes!!! What!! 25 min on each CD??? There has to be a way to fit this on 1 cd... Do I have to drop the bitrate to make it fit?

[fyreboltx2]

yup.. the lower bitrate will give you a smaller file size. or you could split the file and burn it to mutiple discs.

one thing, dont use a bitrate thats wayy higher then the orignal source.
i.e. if your divx file has a video bitrate of 900kbps, then making a 2500kbps svcd wont make it look better.

[hardbody6pack]

I got the bitrate calc. and putin the values and it gave me 1774 as the bitrate compared to 2520 that Ihad before. the Calc. I was using also gives you max svcd bitrate and that was around 2400!!! I know that can't be true though for 1 cd. It still would be too big. Any idea what that max svcd birtrate might be for?

[fyreboltx2]

i think thats the max bitrate for a svcd. use 1774.

[banjazzer]

Now I have a 50 min video that's over 1,000,000,000 bytes!!! What!! 25 min on each CD??? There has to be a way to fit this on 1 cd... Do I have to drop the bitrate to make it fit?

Unlock the template and use either 2-pass VBR or CQ mode. This will give quality equal to CBR with 50-60 minutes per CD. (provided you choose sensible min/max bitrates etc).

[hardbody6pack]

so lets say if you convert the same file with same bit rate in 2 pass VBR and the other constant CBR, would the VBR one be a smaller filer than the other one? (how would the quality compare)

[banjazzer]

2-pass VBR has 3 bitrates to select, min, max and average. It's the average one which determines the size of the mpg. If you encode a 2-pass VBR with average bitrate the same as the CBR bitrate, you will get similar filesize.

Heres a suggestion which will work. Load the standard SVCD template. In video settings, alter rate control mode to 2-pass VBR. Alter min bitrate to 300, max bitrate to 2520, average bitrate to anything, say 1000. Tick *enable padding*. Alter motion control to *High quality*. Now save this template with a new name.

If you are using a recent version of TMPG, use the Project Wizard to create your SVCD, with your new template. At step 5, select *Expert* features, check all the settings are as you expect, then *OK*. Alter *media* setting to 80 min (VCD/SVCD). Then adjust the average bitrate to fit your CD. If you don't have a recent version of TMPG with the Project wizard, just use a bitrate calculator to work out what your average should be.

This works very well, but it is slow, which is why I prefer CQ method which gives equal quality in half the time, but with no guarantees about filesize. 8)

[hardbody6pack]

Ok, I'll try that...when I read about CQ though it says "in this mode encode is done consecutivly, then the quality gets wors, and force picture type is invalid because bit distribution by GOP can not be used" What in the hell does that mean in English?

[banjazzer]

I don't know where you're reading that from. My help file says "When one is more concerned about picture quality than file size, one should use this mode. Using the CQ mode, one can set all of the aspects of quality to use in the encoding. This mode will guarantee a high quality movie; however, movies with many scene with rapid motion can become rather large." 8)

[hardbody6pack]

I left the movie over night converting and when I woke up this morning there was an errors message. I checked the sceen and the movie seemed finish. The file is a huge file, and it's the full movie. The only problem is, there is no sound! What went wrong and how could this be fixed?

[banjazzer]

Load the DivX into VirtualDub and tell us what the file information shows.

[hardbody6pack]

640 x 272 23.96fps
# of frames 138216
divx 5.0.2
keyframe 2405

audio
44000
mp3
stereo

avi size 699 mb

what should I set the resolutin setting to, bitrate etc. ?

I ran it through vdub and got the wave sound and I'm running it right now with the avi with svcd template at bitrate of 1859, using tmpgenc, resulution though I think I might have made a mistake on, Ihave it on 480 x 480..is that wrong?

[banjazzer]

With that framerate you need to load the NTSC(film) template. You could get away with using the PAL template, but the result will not be as good. You should set Source aspect ratio=1:1(VGA) and Video arrange method=Full screen(keep aspect ratio). You don't mention the length of the movie, but you should most likely be looking at 2 CDs for a SVCD. Your best bet if you want a SVCD is to use the project wizard and choose the 2-pass VBR. A reasonable setting would be min bitrate=300, max bitrate=2520, average bitrate=anything. Then use the built in bitrate calculator to fit an 80 min (S)VCD at 200% - ie 2 discs. This will adjust the average bitrate so your file if split properly will fill 2 discs. In fact, I'd go for 185% unless you like to have fun splitting mpeg-2.