Downloaded Video's

[theraged]

Ok, I'm new to the whole "VCD" and "SVCD" scene, and I was hoping someone could clear up a few questions that I have. I have read alot of the tutorials, and manuals, and things are becoming clearer for me day by day, but I still have questions about somethings.

For one, I have alot music video's on my hard drive. Most of those I have downloaded, some I have recorded from my tv via my ATI card. Say I want to make a VCD or a SVCD with those music videos. Most of them are in ".mpg" format. From what I have read, that seems to be the correct format. Now, I want those to show up full screen on my tv when I use my dvd player, so what resolution do those need to be in? How can I tell the resolution/fps/bitrate/whether it is NTSC or PAL format/any other pertinet info that I need to know? I can figure out how to change it w/ all the manuals here and other places, so I dont need to know that.

Also, say I have some that are NTSC and some that are PAL. can I put those on the same disc, and they will play fine?

Again, the main thing for me is to have the videos playing full screen, and the highest possible quality I can get.

Also, would you recommend that I use VCD or SVCD? What about NTSC or PAL? which one is better (I know SVCD is better than VCD, and I know that there are differences between NTSC and PAL, I just dont understand what all the differences between NTSC and PAL mean)? What do most of you use? (You have to remember, these are music videos I have downloaded, so most of them aren't the highest quality video's around...)

Thanks for the help, I hope I dont come across as a complete dumbass, just a "n00b"

-rage

[Vejita-sama]

First, NTSC is the broadcast standard for the US, Canada and Japan. PAL is the standard in europe. You NTSC TV displays 720x480 @ 29.97fps, PAL at 720x576 @ 25fps. YOU CAN NOT play a PAL source on your NTSC TV, or vice verse.

VCD vs SVCD. Actually at the same resolution and bitrate MPEG1 and MPEG2 produce the same quaility. However, MPEG2 supports features that are lacking in MPEG1 (eg. interlacing, multiple audio tracks, multiple angles, etc).

VCD standard is 352x240, video=150kbit/s & audio=224kbit/s.
SVCD standard is 480x480, video=2520kbit/s & audio=224kbit/s

To check on the properties of the MPEGs on your HD use 'MPEG Properties' (look under Tools to the left) this will tell you the MPEG's: frame rate, resolution, bitrate, etc. To determine if it's MPEG1 or MPEG2 can be tricky. What I normally do is run TMPGEnc, choose File | MPEG tools, then demux. If the video reads m1v=mpeg1, m2v=mpeg2.

If your MPEGs are at 29.97fps (or 23.976fps) you should be ok. As for non-standard resolutions? That depends on how they were encoded. But normally is ok if they resolution can be divied by 16 (eg, 320x240, 352x240, 352x480, 480x480, etc).

[theraged]

ah..much thanks

-rage

[Bardock]

<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 2001-09-26 13:31:20, Vejita-sama wrote:
YOU CAN NOT play a PAL source on your NTSC TV, or vice verse.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

You Lie!!!! or most likely was just mis informed, you can't play a PAL mpeg on your tv, but if you dvd can play it then your fine cuz what come out of your dvd will be diff then what went in, but i think newer tvs like mine can play pal and nstc fine, but everything else you said was fine. Easy way to turn those vids u have into vcd is VcdImager(Easy)/Nero/Ect.
Good luck

[Vejita-sama]

Bardock - a NTSC TV can't play a PAL source. HOWVEVER, a lot of PAL TVs, VCRS, etc. will play both PAL and NTSC (this is because a lot of movies are never released in Europe and/or people want it). For example, a lot of DVD players in Europe have been modded to be region free so they can buy US DVDs. If you buy a US NTSC DVD you'll need a TV that can play it. However, no one in the US really cares about Europen movies (hey I'm sorry), so most US TVs, VCRs, etc. only play NTSC.

If you try to play a NTSC/PAL disc on the wrong format you'll get a range of problems from:

The screen really jumps, the audio/video are out of sync, etc. etc. Prehaps I shouldn't say 'can not' but should say 'unwatchable, jumpy mess'

[AntnyMD]

I've purchased a handful of PAL VCDs from Eurekamovies.com to play back in my NTSC DVD player on my NTSC television, and there is no jumpiness, color problems or other imbalance.

To say an NTSC television cannot play a PAL source is completely incorrect. To say an NTSC television may have problems displaying a PAL source would be more correct. However, even that is for a small number of televisions. DVD players make adjustments for NTSC/PAL sources to eliminate the problems you noted.