XVCD vs SVCD quality?

[rkr1958]

Forgive me if this is a dual post but I've seemed to lost my "orginial" somewhere. Anyway, I use to play in my Apex 1500 SVCDs that I made using the following settings; NTSC, MPEG-2, 4500 kps, 720x480, 3- fps. My Apex 1500 broke (technical term) and I replaced it with a Toshiba SD2800 which plays XVCDs but not SVCDs. So far, and I'm still checking, the most stressing (and hopefully best quality) configuration I've gotten to play in it is; NTSC, MPEG-1, 5000 kps, 352x240, 30- fps. My questions:

1. What is the difference in quality between SVCD (MPEG-2, 4500 kps, 720x480, 3- fps) and XVCD (MPEG-1, 5000 kps, 352x240, 30- fps) when being viewed on a 21" T.V.?
2. Holding everything else constant what difference does MPEG-1 versus MPEG-2 make?
3. Does the speed at which I burn the CD (e.g., 2x versus 4x versus 8x) make a difference in whether or not an XVCD will play correctly in my Toshiba SD2800? If so, why?
4. For the XVCD, if I can increase bit rate from 5000 kps to 6000 kps will this make a notable difference in quailty when played through the Toshiba and view on my 21" T.V.?
5. I'm using TMPGEnc to make my XVCDs; any suggestions on different settings that may improve quality?

[wkc]

1. SVCD would have better resolution. Even with the high bitrate and less MPEG artifact (when it happens) from XVCD, you can't recreate what you don't have from lossing the resolution.

2. MPEG2 is a better codec.

3. Generally speaking yes. For certain high quality CDRs, burning speed may not cause problems for settop box play back. Most people use cheapy CDR nowadays. Test it out with higher speed, if the play back from your DVD player is choppy, use lower speed.

4. Probably not that much different. XVCD in 5000kps is very good already, considering you're compressing only 352x240 pictures. SVCD could benefit a lot more with higher bitrates due to the higher resolution of 480x480 (or even higher).

5. 2 Pass VBR with high quality!

[snowmoon]

I ditto here... use VBR those type of bitrates would result in so much wasted bandwidth.

I encode standard compliant SVCD's and play them on a 42" HDTV without problems. I am limited to 2.6mbps and they look good.

Some players just can't track with CD-R's burnt on very high spped, probably becuase of high tolernaces for jitter or drift. 80 minute disks are non-spec as the track pitch is too small, so they just complicate the issue.

[rkr1958]

Thanks for your good responses, they cleared those questions up for me. One other question. I re-encoded one chapter of my XVCD using VBR. I set the maximum to 5000 kps and the average to 2500 kps. It significantly reduced the size of the file. My question, what is a good bit rate to use for the average if I set the maximum to 5000 kps?

[wkc]

The average is the main number. The program would try to encode your movie using the average bitrate as the target. Therefore, you can basically pick ANY average bitrate you want.

The maximum bitrate is just a ceiling that stopping the encoding program from going over it, in the case of some occasional complex screne that somehow go over the trageted bitrate.

So, to answer your question, pick whatever the average bitrate you want depends on how big your final filesize your want it to be. Hense the quality goes alone with it. The max bitrate is how much your DVD player can handle in some not too often situation. It affects very little on your final filesize.

[DVWannaB]

Forgive me if this is a dual post but I've seemed to lost my "orginial" somewhere. Anyway, I use to play in my Apex 1500 SVCDs that I made using the following settings; NTSC, MPEG-2, 4500 kps, 720x480, 30- fps. My questions:

1. What is the difference in quality between SVCD (MPEG-2, 4500 kps, 720x480, 3- fps) and XVCD (MPEG-1, 5000 kps, 352x240, 30- fps) when being viewed on a 21" T.V.?

Correct me if I am wrong. But isnt 720x480 MPEG-2 actually a DVD and not SVCD (480x480). Meaning you could actually burn this file on a DVD-R or a CD-R if you so choose. While SVCD cannot be burnt on a DVD-R. So rkr1958 actaully made a DVD right?

[rkr1958]

Instead of calling it a SVCD would it be more correct to call it a mini-DVD?

[wkc]

Right, it's mini-DVD.

BTW, you can put SVCD (480x480) onto DVDs too. You just have to fake the video using DVDPatcher and convert the audio to 48K. Quite easy and doesn't take much time.