Compliant Vs. Non Compliant

[corwin1]

I use TMPGenc to convert an average avi file of about 700MB (full movie 23.976 fps NTSC Film) to SVCD format using Kal-els template of the following:
480x480 23.976fps(internally 29.97fps) Automatic VBR(CQ_VBR) max bitrate 2200 NTSC Film layer-2 44100Khz stereo 224.

Once the file is finished encoding I get an mpeg2 file about 1.568Gb and I then split it using the mpeg tools.

I then use Nero to burn it to disc(version 5.5.0.3). When I select New, I choose the Super Video Cd and click the NTSC button. Once Nero has checked the mpg file I get the following warning:

the file blahblah.mpg is invalid, need mpeg2 which was encoded for Super Video CD:
audio 44.1Khz mpeg-1/2, layer2;
stereo/dueal channel/multichannel
video 480x480@ 29.97 Hz or 480x576@25 Hz
The following problems were found:

-invalid stream:29.97 fps, 480x480 pixels
you are creating a Super Video Cd v1.0 compliant, but the mpeg is not suitable.
How do you wish to proceed?

At this point I choose the option " turn off standard compliance and continue".

The CD burns fine and is playable without a hitch on my pioneer DV-343.
My question is, why does it give this warning?. The original avi file was an NTSCFilm 23.97 fps file and so was the end result mpg, yet Nero says it should be a 29.97 fps stream.
Most popular DVD rips that I have d/l are in fact 23.97 NTSC Film. Does Nero not recognize NTSCFilm?

How do I get a great quality AVI that is NTSC Film(average movie size is 700Mb) to SVCD onto two 80min CD-R's and have it be Compliant? I assume that if it is Compliant it would play on more standalone DVD players.
I hope somebody can shed some light on this. Thanks

[LanceSteel]

If I am remembering correctly SVCD does not support streams that are 24fps. I believe you have to set the 3:2 pulldown option when you are encoding a SVCD stream using Tmpeg. The 3:2 pulldown will bring the framerate up to 29.97fps

[adam]

This is a bug in Nero, period. Ntscfilm svcds are compliant as long as they have the 3:2 pulldown flag. Your svcd is fine.

[corwin1]

This is a bug in Nero, period. Ntscfilm svcds are compliant as long as they have the 3:2 pulldown flag. Your svcd is fine.

Wow, that was quick!. Okay, assuming you are correct (some differing opinions are always helpful) what then causes some standalone dvd players to recognize my SVCD's and some(most)don't? Aside from the blank media, I thought these players relied on the compliant standards in order to read the discs. For instance, when I took these SVCD's to a local retailer and played them on the then top of the line Pioneer DV-440, they would not play. Even though this model is listed as supporting CD-R and SVCD, it would not play them. I even tried two differnt types of CD-R and still nothing. On the other hand, the lower end model, Pioneer DV-343, played them all!!!
I have real concerns that I am encoding my movies only to find that down the road if my DV-343 bites the dust, I will not be able to find a compatible standalone DVD player for these types of SVCD!!!

[adam]

Just because a player is listed on the dvd player chart as being able to read cdr that doesnt mean it can read all brands of cdr. Every dvd player is different and some are more picky about media than others. If some dvd players play your svcd and some don't it is probably caused by your media, maybe something else non-standard about your SVCD but I can assure you that if you encode at 23.976 (ntscfilm) with the 3:2 pulldown then your SVCDS are compliant. Furthermore I do not think that there is even a single dvd player which cannot properly recognize and use the 3:2 pulldown flags in a SVCD, after all %99 of ntsc dvds are encoded in the exact same manner.

Your problem may be caused by Nero itself. I have never had any luck with burning svcds in Nero, even in the latest version. The SVCDS are either very hard for my Apex AD600a to read or they won't load at all.

Anyway, this ntscfilm bug in Nero is pretty well known, lots of people have reported it before. Trust me, its just a bug.

[kitty]

If you want some more test discs try burning a sample SVCD with CDRDAO, Ulead MovieFactory or other software. A god quality CDR for such test discs is a good thing too.

[corwin1]

Just because a player is listed on the dvd player chart as being able to read cdr that doesnt mean it can read all brands of cdr. Every dvd player is different and some are more picky about media than others. If some dvd players play your svcd and some don't it is probably caused by your media, maybe something else non-standard about your SVCD but I can assure you that if you encode at 23.976 (ntscfilm) with the 3:2 pulldown then your SVCDS are compliant. Furthermore I do not think that there is even a single dvd player which cannot properly recognize and use the 3:2 pulldown flags in a SVCD, after all %99 of ntsc dvds are encoded in the exact same manner.

Your problem may be caused by Nero itself. I have never had any luck with burning svcds in Nero, even in the latest version. The SVCDS are either very hard for my Apex AD600a to read or they won't load at all.

Anyway, this ntscfilm bug in Nero is pretty well known, lots of people have reported it before. Trust me, its just a bug.

So in essence, ignore the warning in Nero, tell it to "turn off standard compliance and continue" and burn the discs as I normally would. I have always disregarded the warning in Nero as I have always been successful in burning the CD's. Fortunately my DVD player takes everything I throw at it. Unfortunately being a lower end machine, I doubt it will last very long. I guess I wish that there was consistency among DVD player manufacturers so I would not have these concerns. Thanks anyway.

[adam]

Of course there is a consistency. Any svcd compatible dvd player must play your svcd if it is compliant, which your SVCDS are, at least as far as the framerate is concerned. It doesnt matter that you current dvd player is overly leniant about the SVCD standards, as long as you make sure your SVCDS are compliant then any dvd player you purchase later, even one that requires strict conformance, will still play your svcds. This is a bug in nero so just ignore it. 23.976fps with 3:2 pulldown is compliant to the svcd standards and all svcd compatible dvd players support it perfectly, period. By simply turning off standard compliance in Nero that does not mean your SVCD is therefore non-compliant. In this case your SVCD is still compliant, Nero just doesnt realize this. As I said before, I think it would be in your best interest to author your SVCDs in another program besides Nero.

If you are concerned about your SVCD's compliancy, as you should be, then I recommend you get Philips SVCD verifier. It will scan your mpg and tell you any and all compliancy issues you have. You should not use Nero to test SVCD compliancy, because in many cases it is flat out wrong.

[corwin1]

Of course there is a consistency. Any svcd compatible dvd player must play your svcd if it is compliant, which your SVCDS are, at least as far as the framerate is concerned. It doesnt matter that you current dvd player is overly leniant about the SVCD standards, as long as you make sure your SVCDS are compliant then any dvd player you purchase later, even one that requires strict conformance, will still play your svcds. This is a bug in nero so just ignore it. 23.976fps with 3:2 pulldown is compliant to the svcd standards and all svcd compatible dvd players support it perfectly, period. By simply turning off standard compliance in Nero that does not mean your SVCD is therefore non-compliant. In this case your SVCD is still compliant, Nero just doesnt realize this. As I said before, I think it would be in your best interest to author your SVCDs in another program besides Nero.

If you are concerned about your SVCD's compliancy, as you should be, then I recommend you get Philips SVCD verifier. It will scan your mpg and tell you any and all compliancy issues you have. You should not use Nero to test SVCD compliancy, because in many cases it is flat out wrong.

This Phillips checker, is it software or hardware? where can I find it? which program other than Nero do you recommend for burning SVCD's converted with TMPGenc?
So then why the difference between 23.976 and 29.97. Someone told me the 23.976 fps was DVD

[adam]

Philips SVCD Verifier is software and you can find it for download on Philip's home page. Or just do a web search for it, its not hard to find.

Last I heard Philips lifted the licence on all its svcd authoring tools, yet on their homepage it appears they still request payment to use the program. Maybe e-mail them and see what they have to say about it.

If you need free software to author svcds then use vcdimager, and one of its gui's if you don't want to learn how to script xml. With the gui its at least as simple to author as nero and more importantly, you can actually have some assurance that your svcds will be compliant.

If you can get a hold of it I-Author deluxe is probably the most powerful SVCD authoring software package there is. If you don't need menu's it may be a little bit overkill, but again you can be absolutely assured that your svcds will be authored correctly.

23.976fps is referred to as ntscfilm, and 29.97fps is ntsc. Since the ntsc standard requires 29.97fps anything that is played back on an ntsc tv must be displayed at this framerate. Film starts out at 24fps and it is telecined to ntsc by splitting the frames into fields and repeating certain fields. This physically creates new frames, %20 more to be exact, and this means that you now have %20 more frames to encode yet still have the same amount of bitrate. The result is that your quailty decreases by
%20.

With the advent of digital video it became possible to do soft telecines rather than hard telecines. Instead of actually converting the film to 29.97fps and losing all that quality, the original framerate is preserved in the ntscfilm framerate and flags are added to the stream so that when you play the movie on your dvd player it does a soft telecine, it converts to 29.97fps in real time. The result is that you had to encode %20 less frames, thus effectively increasing your quality by %20, yet it still gets played back at the 29.97fps that the ntsc standard requires.

Nearly all ntsc dvds are encoded and played like this since it is an extremely efficient way to author ntsc material. The alternative is an utter waste of bitrate. Dvds use what is called an RFF/TFF flag to instruct the dvd player to do the telecine.

SVCDS are done the exact same way. They use what is called a 3:2 pulldown flag to instruct the dvd player.

VCDS actually support the ntscfilm framerate. If you encode at 23.976fps the dvd player is supposed to auto telecine it to 29.97fps. Most dvd players do not have any problem doing this but apparantly some do, though this is never a problem for svcds or dvds.

[corwin1]

Philips SVCD Verifier is software and you can find it for download on Philip's home page. Or just do a web search for it, its not hard to find.

Last I heard Philips lifted the licence on all its svcd authoring tools, yet on their homepage it appears they still request payment to use the program. Maybe e-mail them and see what they have to say about it.

If you need free software to author svcds then use vcdimager, and one of its gui's if you don't want to learn how to script xml. With the gui its at least as simple to author as nero and more importantly, you can actually have some assurance that your svcds will be compliant.

If you can get a hold of it I-Author deluxe is probably the most powerful SVCD authoring software package there is. If you don't need menu's it may be a little bit overkill, but again you can be absolutely assured that your svcds will be authored correctly.

23.976fps is referred to as ntscfilm, and 29.97fps is ntsc. Since the ntsc standard requires 29.97fps anything that is played back on an ntsc tv must be displayed at this framerate. Film starts out at 24fps and it is telecined to ntsc by splitting the frames into fields and repeating certain fields. This physically creates new frames, %20 more to be exact, and this means that you now have %20 more frames to encode yet still have the same amount of bitrate. The result is that your quailty decreases by
%20.

With the advent of digital video it became possible to do soft telecines rather than hard telecines. Instead of actually converting the film to 29.97fps and losing all that quality, the original framerate is preserved in the ntscfilm framerate and flags are added to the stream so that when you play the movie on your dvd player it does a soft telecine, it converts to 29.97fps in real time. The result is that you had to encode %20 less frames, thus effectively increasing your quality by %20, yet it still gets played back at the 29.97fps that the ntsc standard requires.

Nearly all ntsc dvds are encoded and played like this since it is an extremely efficient way to author ntsc material. The alternative is an utter waste of bitrate. Dvds use what is called an RFF/TFF flag to instruct the dvd player to do the telecine.

SVCDS are done the exact same way. They use what is called a 3:2 pulldown flag to instruct the dvd player.

VCDS actually support the ntscfilm framerate. If you encode at 23.976fps the dvd player is supposed to auto telecine it to 29.97fps. Most dvd players do not have any problem doing this but apparantly some do, though this is never a problem for svcds or dvds.

Wow. Thanks for the info! Unfortunately most of it was over my head. I guess that means realistically that Pioneer has some issues with its firmware. Like I mentioned, the same SVCD's that I brought to sample on some DVD players in-store, would all play on the low end model DV-343, but not on the high end model DV-440. Ironically they are supposed to share the same capabilities (eg. can play CD-R, CD-RW, all layers, VCD,SVCD, Mini-CD etc.) yet clearly they don't, as I used the same SVCD's on both players.
Alas, I really haven't the time to start mucking around with several different software programs to assume that what I am creating will play on my next DVD player when my DV-343 bails on me. I can only hope that I can find a quality high end DVD player down the road that will play all these movies I have burned to disc.
Thanks for your help.

[corwin1]

Philips SVCD Verifier is software and you can find it for download on Philip's home page. Or just do a web search for it, its not hard to find.

Last I heard Philips lifted the licence on all its svcd authoring tools, yet on their homepage it appears they still request payment to use the program. Maybe e-mail them and see what they have to say about it.

If you need free software to author svcds then use vcdimager, and one of its gui's if you don't want to learn how to script xml. With the gui its at least as simple to author as nero and more importantly, you can actually have some assurance that your svcds will be compliant.

If you can get a hold of it I-Author deluxe is probably the most powerful SVCD authoring software package there is. If you don't need menu's it may be a little bit overkill, but again you can be absolutely assured that your svcds will be authored correctly.

23.976fps is referred to as ntscfilm, and 29.97fps is ntsc. Since the ntsc standard requires 29.97fps anything that is played back on an ntsc tv must be displayed at this framerate. Film starts out at 24fps and it is telecined to ntsc by splitting the frames into fields and repeating certain fields. This physically creates new frames, %20 more to be exact, and this means that you now have %20 more frames to encode yet still have the same amount of bitrate. The result is that your quailty decreases by
%20.

With the advent of digital video it became possible to do soft telecines rather than hard telecines. Instead of actually converting the film to 29.97fps and losing all that quality, the original framerate is preserved in the ntscfilm framerate and flags are added to the stream so that when you play the movie on your dvd player it does a soft telecine, it converts to 29.97fps in real time. The result is that you had to encode %20 less frames, thus effectively increasing your quality by %20, yet it still gets played back at the 29.97fps that the ntsc standard requires.

Nearly all ntsc dvds are encoded and played like this since it is an extremely efficient way to author ntsc material. The alternative is an utter waste of bitrate. Dvds use what is called an RFF/TFF flag to instruct the dvd player to do the telecine.

SVCDS are done the exact same way. They use what is called a 3:2 pulldown flag to instruct the dvd player.

VCDS actually support the ntscfilm framerate. If you encode at 23.976fps the dvd player is supposed to auto telecine it to 29.97fps. Most dvd players do not have any problem doing this but apparantly some do, though this is never a problem for svcds or dvds.

I also see how it could be a bug in Nero. I just encoded a movie that I downloaded. the original source file was a DVD rip that was ripped at the 29.97 fps. When I loaded it in TMPGenc, I used the Kal-El template NTSC (29.97) the same as the source file. Once it was done, I loaded it in Nero and got the same warning, even though it had been encoded at 29.97fps. It still said the stream was invalid 29.97fps