BEST VCD capture Settings

[Piper]

I have spent far more than my fair share of time experimenting with increasing the quality of my VCD's. I'm here to tell you that now, after so long I've finally nailed down the best capture settings I've ever come across. It's so amazingly simple I'm almost ashamed I didn't come across it before.

What it all comes down to is the compression chosen when capturing. For the longest time I thought Huffyuv was the only way to go. Afterall, it's lossless right? The problem with that is, whe you have a full frame 720x480 capture with a lossless codec like Huffyuv, all that "losslessness" which includes all the noise that comes with it is also passed down to TMPGEnc. When you look at the end result, there's simply too much data for the bitrate and the VCD looks terrible.

I've of course experimented with all sorts of noise reduction schemes including applying them at capture, after capture in VirtualDub, in TMPGEnc etc etc. Nothing gave satisfying results. The end result always blurs the final product, something that MPEG-1 does quite well on it's own.

I tried the MainConcept DV codec but in the end, it produced the same headaches with trying to get a nice crisp VCD as did Huffyuv.

This is when I came across PICVideo MJPEG. I'd used this before, but I always figured that if my PC had enough go, I'd crank up the quality settings to 19 or 20. By doing this, you get much the same result as with MainConcept or Huffyuv. It wasn't until a co-worker with a "lesser" PC had showed what he was able to achieve with MJPEG at 18 setting did I realize what he'd stumbled across.

MJPEG at 18 quality is lossy, but when creating VCD's, this can be a very good thing! TMPGEnc seems to have a far easier time compressing MJPEG at this setting than virtually any other compression scheme I've come across and the end result is nothing short of fantastic.

Here's my settings:
Virtualdub
Audio: PCM 44Khz, 172K/s

Video: Format 720x480 UYVY
Compression MJPEG Quality 18

That's IT! Do not be tempted to apply additional filters just because your CPU usage is so low with MJPEG.

TMPGENC:
Motion Search Precision: Highest Quality (very slow)
Sharpen Edge: 127 both horizontal & vertical. Keep field base UNCHECKED.
Use Floating Point DCT. Do not use soften block noise or No motion search.

Not only is this setup very easy with very few settings, but it's also quite quick. Try this with noise reduction filter and see what I mean!

I've been experimenting using multiple sources, VHS, live cable etc and this simple setup has consistantly proven itself. I invite everyone to give this a try and see what you come up with. I bet you won't be dissapointed!

Happy capturing!

[Macros746]

It's funny Piper, I use almost exactly the same settings. I use a bit less on the sharpen filter but everything else is an exact match. I saw a frameshot by frameshot comparison of the MJEG codec at the different quality settings and it basically said, for the space, 18 was the best because anything north of that you might as well be using Huffy. I have recently been experimenting with attempting to fit two 1 hour episodes (about 90 minutes of show) onto 1 CD.....Sefy's Sevcd template does that rather handily...but I want to do it using CBR.......

Macros

[Piper]

That's good to know. There was a time where I was about to give up on the VCD format. Now I use it almost exclusively since discovering these settings.

What suprises me though is that almost all VCD guide recommend using Huffyuv first then MJPEG if your PC isn't up to it. I've yet to come across a guide which uses MJPEG, quality 18 as their furst recommendation.

-Piper

[Macros746]

One thing that I would like to discuss is loss of color saturation in VCD. It isn't a BIG issue....my discs look great. But this morning I finished a SVCD of the Patriot and there was a scene where he mounted a hill with a cobalt background behind him...and I just thought 'wow, you can't get that in VCD' Actually, I am sure you CAN....I just haven't figured out how yet. I suspect it is similar to the blurriness loss of detail that can be combated with the sharpness filter. There has to be a way to tweak it back to the vividness of the original.

Macros

p.s. You are right...everyone insists that Huffy is the best....I see it as overkill. I feel that performance wise and quality wise MJEG at 18 is a worthy opponent or alternative to Huffy. I cap. at 352 x 480 and it really couldn't look better.

p.p.s. I'm not dissing your capture resolution...I just believe it's overkill. I read some great articles on caping that suggested that since the maximum resolution of broadcast TV is 352 x 480 anything above is over kill and takes more time in TMPGenc.....But then there are many who swear that 640 x 480 gives you the best details....etc...I suppose it is all a matter of taste.

[Piper]

I've used every capture resolution possible. I only settled on 720x480 because I can with only about 35% CPU utilization. At compression ratios at about 11:1 or so, there's no real compellnig reason not to capture at a lower resolution, so I figure if I can grab as much detail as possible, why not? It probably is overkill though...

I've also used 352x480 capture quite a bit too, and to be honest I really don't see much different capturing with that than at 720x480. One benefit of capturing at a higher resolution is if your destination format ends up being something other than VCD. If I decided to encode my source into DivX rather than VCD, DivX handles higher resolutions much better than it does lower, esp 352x240 where (IMHO) looks horrible.

I agree about the vividness of VCD's colour as compared with other formats. DivX seems to have an edge here, but to be honest, the VCD's vividness never really bothered me as I didn't find it much worse. What really DID bother me is when I did some experiments with WMV. If found the colours washed out and that was enough for me to abandon it.

-Piper