Tricks for high action scenes in SVCD low bitrate

[kamaji]

I am searching to encode SVCDs at max bitrate of 1400, as my DVD player will lock if bitrate is higher (Samsung 709.)

My idea is to prevent macroblocks in high action scenes : what would you advise, with, for instance :
> duplicate frames to reduce "apparent framerates" while making macroblocks disappear ?
> apply a "motion blur" filter in Vdub ou Avisynth to reduce macrobloks ?
> blending frames ?
> change resolution only for these scenes
> reduce sound bitrate during theses scenes ?

Thanks for you suggestions !

[oldfart13]

My suggestion would be to forget all the grief and get another cheap player like the Norcent DP-300 or DP-215 from Wal-Mart at $50US. Those players will play just about anything you put into them...

[DJRumpy]

Assuming you asked this because your too cheap to buy a new player , you should consider using CVD resolutions (352x480), instead of SVCD. It will produce a better image a lower bitrates that SVCD. If your player will play SVCD, it will play CVD. You should also use Multipass when encoding. It will allow better bitrate allocation to the busy scenes. You can expect reasonable output using multipass VBR, and CVD at that bitrate. It depends on the input. Other tricks you can do invovle letterboxing your input, so more image area is plain black. This is an extreme fix, as most people don't want to sacrifice image area for a busy scene or three.

[kamaji]

Thanx DJRumpy. I read somewhere that SVCD what visually (almost) same quality as DVD, whereas in CVD, the difference in resolution was clearly visible. What have you noticed ?

[DJRumpy]

There isn't that much of a difference between CVD, and SVCD. 128 Pixels in width to be exact, or about a 3rd of SVCD's width. Between SVCD, and DVD, there is almost twice the horizontal resolution of SVCD. The difference is that CVD will look the slightest bit softer, with the benefit of less compression artifacts (macroblocks). Done properly, they should appear to be just about identical to SVCD. If your not sure, just try a small clip. I'm would bet good money that the CVD clip will look better at 1400 kb/s than the SVCD will on high motion scenes.

An SVCD would require approximately a 11:1 compression ratio to produce an mpeg that was 1400 Kb/s. A CVD would only require a compression ratio of 8:1 to produce the same Kb/s.

A sizable difference (more compression = poor quality).