Choppy problems encoding to SVCD

[BallMak]

I'm trying to rip Die Hard 2. I use Smart Ripper to rip. I then use DVD2AVI to create the files for TMPGEnc v12j. I've encoded using various settings. I've tried constant, auto, manual and 2 pass with max bitrate=2520 using highest quality motion setting but no matter what I do when I playback on my dvd player it's choppy/jumpy when there's action in the movie. Makes me feel like I'm going to have a seizure when I watch it. Does anyone know of any better settings or any better programs or a different method to encode that would solve this? Any help is much appreciated!!!

[Mordant]

Try changing the interlace setting. That worked for me. I changed both source and output to interlaced.

[BallMak]

The weird thing is it plays fine on my computer through PowerDVD. Maybe it's something to do with my dvd player?

[Kdiddy]

Sounds like the bitrate is too high, you sure you DVD player supports SVCD..try lowering the bitrate to about 2200 and see what happens.

[adam]

It might be a media problem. Try burning on cdrw to test. If it plays ok you need to find a different brand of cdr.

Explain the choppiness a little more. Do you get green blocks? If so its probably your media.

Does the film play a few frames, jump back some frames, then continue. Or does it seem to freeze on frames longer than it should? If so this is probably a problem with your framerate. Remember if you encode to 23.976 you must insert the pulldown or it wont play right.

[BallMak]

As far as I know yes my player supports SVCD. I have a Pioneer 525.
The choppiness doesn't include any blocks showing. It looks like it's skipping some frames. Very jumpy. Kind of seems to me like there isn't a smooth transition between frames or something. I tried to play with the "Force picture type" setting thinking that may help the transition but either I'm not doing it right or it doesn't fix my problem. I guess I'll try to reduce the bitrate.

[Roginator]

I also experience occasional jumpiness when playing back MPEG-1 files on a 1.4GHz Athlon with GeForce2 card. If I play the same section again, the jumpiness won't be there the second time. I'm not sure just what part of my computer I'm stressing to make this happen. It's bearable, but I sure would like to figure out a way around it. RealPlayer may be a tad worse than MediaPlayer.

Here's what I'm doing: 640x480 NTSC captures off cable using AVI_IO at 29.97 fps and HuffyUV codec. Remove commercials, deinterlace, brighten and increase saturation using VirtualDub. Frameserve to TMPGEnc 2 at around 2000 kbps either CBR or 0k/2k/3k VBR using high or highest quality. This is for playback on a laptop rather than to a TV. I'd just use DivX except the laptop can't handle DivX files as well as MPEG-1 files.

Picture quality using a STB PCTV card is not spectacular at this resolution, but is bearable -- perhaps approaching VCR quality. It looks better when played back on a TV than it does on the computer (if I don't brighten and change saturation).

I haven't experimented much with MPEG-2 files, but perhaps the DVD players would be optimized better for handling them?

[stanwebber]

the dead-basic troubleshooting step for the situation you describe is to check for the correct field order. have you tried that yet? software dvdplayers will filter out more of the jerkiness than your set-top box can

[adam]

Yes, if its jumping around skipping frames then its almost definitely because you have the wrong field order set.

[Mordant]

I'm having some trouble with this as well. I ripped an NTSC DVD of Six String Samurai. When I encoded it to svcd using the standard template I ended up with an mpeg that would put black lines across action scenes and cause an almost strobe like effect. When I encoded it a second time I played around with the de-interlace filter settings and was able to get a smooth movie. Now I'm trying the same thing with another NTSC movie (Five Venoms) and I can't get rid of the jumpiness no matter what filter I try...and I've tried changing the A/B setting as well.

Could someone run through the settings they've used for a DVD to SVCD encode? Because I'm starting to get lost... Thanks

[adam]

It sounds like those dvds are interlaced.

First off load them in dvd2avi and preview them. Wait til it gets past the opening credits and into the movie, look at where it says film. If it stays at %95 film or higher than enable force film and in TMPGenc encode to 23.976fps and check 3:2 pulldown during playback. This will solve your problem. In the future always do this if possible.

Now if it doesnt stay at %95 film or higher then uncheck force film. In TMPGenc you have two options. The easy route is to set source and output to interlaced and to encode to 29.97fps. The preferred, although longer method, is to do an inverse telecine. Look in the advanced tab. You will want to set it to 24fps, and hit autosetting and enable while encoding. Again encode to 23.976 and 3:2 pulldown while encoding. This will yeild significantly higher quality and will make your film progressive, which will effectively illiminate those black lines your seeing.

Now I'm not familiar with those movies but they sound like they may be anime? If so I don't envy you. Anime is very difficult to inverse telecine and to encode in general. You might be better off just leaving it interlaced, (source and output set to interlaced, 29.97fps.)