Upconverting Video CD?

[pekingpup]

Hi, I have a bunch of Video CDs from the Good Old Days. Their picture quality is, understandably, terrible. Unfortunately many of the movies/videos on them are not available on DVD or BD. Are there anything - software or hardware - that can upconvert the videos to close-to DVD quality? Thanks.

[yoda313]

No don't bother with anything software related.

If you have any upconverting dvd or bluray players that can actually play vcds (a more and more rare event as I understand it) you are better off doing it hardware wise.

Another option if you don't have any settop upconverting players that can play vcds is to reauthor to dvd. YOu can make the dvds without altering the video. The audio just needs to be mp2 or ac3 at the minimum. I believe most dvd authoring programs should do this automatically for you if you give it mpeg1 video. Just check the settings first to be sure its not reencoding the video.

Then you can get a dvd you can burn and pop in a upconverting dvd or bluray player. That would be your best bet. Plus you get the bonus of putting a few vcds on the dvd with the extra capacity dvds have.

Edit - and don't expect miracles either. This is sub dvd quality we are talking about here. So don't expect it to get the sparkle you can get with a good hardware upconverted dvd (a properly made mpeg2 dvd that is).

But given its low quality nature (even if professionally produced) I would not hassle with software converting. The authoring method I mentioned would not alter the video but let you create a playable disc.

[Slipster]

Are there anything - software or hardware - that can upconvert the videos to close-to DVD quality?

The short answer is no.

[Hoser Rob]

Sorry, but upconverting/upsampling them to higher res won't improve them. When they encoded them a lot of information was lost. It's not there anymore. You can't put it back. This reminds me of people buying a CD player with a 24 bit upsampling DAC and think they're getting 24 bit resolution from a 16 bit medium. Nonsense.

In fact, all encoding loses quality.

The best thing to do is use a software player with a good set of filters. SMplayer is my favorite program for video in windows and now ubuntu. It has the best and most intuitive set of filters I've ever used. Especially the dithering ("add noise") one. That may sound counterintuitive but dithering does wonders for low bit rate pixelated video. I've made a lot of cruddy quality video pretty much watchable with that and other filters.

But make 700Mb feature length films encoded in that old format close to dvd quality? No way.

[pekingpup]

Thanks Yoda313. Please clarify "Just check the settings first to be sure its not reencoding the video". Do you mean to just basically copy the VCD and not to convert the file format? Also you are saying that once burned onto a DVD, an upconverting DVD player can then upconvert the video quality to somewhat better?

Also I have Nero 9, Nero Multimedia Suite 10, ISO Bluster Pro, DVDneXtCOPY. Do they do the job of copying?

Thanks again for the prompt assistance. Thanks to you also Slipster.

Peter

[pekingpup]

Thanks Hoser. Is SMPlayer free?

[yoda313]

Thanks Yoda313. Please clarify "Just check the settings first to be sure its not reencoding the video". Do you mean to just basically copy the VCD and not to convert the file format? Also you are saying that once burned onto a DVD, an upconverting DVD player can then upconvert the video quality to somewhat better?

What I mean is you will get a video_ts folder from the inputted vcd file (though you need to extract it from the .dat file I believe to get the mpeg file - can't remember what you need to do that however - but chances are I think the dvd authoring programs will know how to get a videocd folder - pretty sure).

Somewhat better quality? Perhaps. I don't have any videocds anymore to test what a upconverted disc would look like. Way better? No way as mentioned - not a good source to work with.

The authoring program will rewrap the mpg1 video into the mpg2 vob structure and just change the audio to dvd specs. Its been awhile since I've done it but that is how its done. Try avstodvd and it will probably do this on its own - ie no extra fiddling. I"m trying to remember but I think tda 2.0 does this not sure about other versions.

But as mentioned you won't magically get dvd quality out of it. But if you just need a way to play it back if you don't have a hardware player that can play vcds anymore than it is worth the hassle to reauthor to dvd. At least you could play them again.

[pekingpup]

Thanks Yoda. I'll look for avstodvd to try it out.

[FulciLives]

VCD uses MPEG-1 compression at a low resolution. DVD supports MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 at various resolutions.

So basically speaking the video on a VCD is within the spec of acceptable parameters for a DVD. It is far from the parameters of a commercially made DVD which uses the highest resolution that the DVD format offers (as well as using MPEG-2 which is better than MPEG-1 etc.) but they allowed in the DVD spec for both MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 at various resolutions. So yes the video can be put on a DVD without re-encoding.

The audio on a VCD is not compatible with the DVD audio parameters so you have to re-encode the audio.

There are ways of doing this wrong and right but the right way will use the video 'as is' from the VCD and just re-encode the audio to fit the DVD specifications (or parameters as I've been using that word).

I'd try the programs that yoda313 mentioned. Also there might be a guide or two on here for doing this since people did ... at one time ... actually do this (although hardly anybody bothers these days since VCD is such shit quality but I am aware there are a few rare films that can only be had in this format).

[Hoser Rob]

Thanks Hoser. Is SMPlayer free?

Yes indeed. No way in hell I'd pay for a media player.

[gregalan]

Guides:

https://www.videohelp.com/guides?tools=&madeby=&formatconversionselect=VCD%20to%20DVD&o...BList%2BGuides

[Noahtuck]

I would find them on VHS or LD and make new transfers to DVDR, the quality would be way better than anything you could ever do with VCD's.

[MilesAhead]

You may want to take a look at this forum:
https://forum.videohelp.com/forums/36-SVCD2DVD-VOB2MPG

I bought SVCD2DVD years ago when I had many SVCD from Hong Kong, which, as you say, were not available on DVD. It does not encode the video. It encodes the audio and makes some authoring modifications to produce a standard VIDEO_TS folder for burning as a DVD. The DVD should play on any standard player.

Ask your questions there since the forum owner is the author of SVCD2DVD.

[jman98]

SVCD2DVD produces DVDs which are strictly speaking out of compliance with DVD standards as SVCD resolutions are not part of the DVD standard. The DVDs that it produces PROBABLY will work on MOST standalone DVD players, but I'm not willing to go far as to guarantee that there isn't some incredibly fussy player out there somewhere that won't touch such discs since they are out of spec.

I find the suggestion by Noahtuck to be well meaning but of dubious value. I've been doing some VHS transfers for the first time in years and I'm only now beginning to understand what an absolute POS format VHS tape was with its many color issues inherent in the format. You might find with VHS copies that the source is free of macroblocks but the colors and brightness are really off and resistant to completely fixing. The laserdisc suggestion is a good one, but only if you can find a laserdisc that was taken care of.

We don't know what pekingpup's VCDs are, but I can say that if they are Hong Kong movies that only a very few Hong Kong movies have still not been released on DVD. If you're dealing with Asian films, I'd forget trying to find them on LD or VHS. VHS copies of Hong Kong movies in particular (may apply to other countries too) were rather infamous for being severely edited. It could be very hard to find LD copies of older Asian movies, maybe even impossible. pekingpub might want to check out http://www.yesasia.com to see if any of his VCDs were released on DVD. I've been buying from Yes Asia for years and they are reliable. A lot of companies like Fortune Star eventually get to just about everything in their back catalog and put it out on DVD.

[manono]

I've done quite a lot of work converting VCD to DVD. Yes, you can't create detail where none existed, but you can still make them look a helluva lot better than the source VCD. It requires AviSynth knowledge and the use of a good MPEG-2 encoder, and none of the programs pekingpup listed.

You have to get rid of the blockiness all VCDs have (Deblock_QED), do a proper upscale (nnedi3_rpow2), apply some sharpening (LSF or others), and maybe some fix-up work on the colors or luma. And, of course, the audio has to be resampled and converted to AC3.

Here's a YouTube example of one such upconversion which is, of course, much better looking as a DVD:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3vwX4W_Fqw

[FulciLives]

That clip doesn't look all that great BUT knowing it was sourced from a VCD ... then yeah ... it looks freakin' amazing.

[manono]

That clip doesn't look all that great BUT knowing it was sourced from a VCD ... then yeah ... it looks freakin' amazing.

Yeah, I don't make any claims that it can stand along side of a properly made DVD, but since most classic Indian films on NTSC DVD are sourced from PAL VHS tapes (!), and are field-blended to boot, then it's better than a lot of stuff they put out on DVD. At least their VCDs are also PAL, so no field-blending (usually).

[MilesAhead]

SVCD2DVD produces DVDs which are strictly speaking out of compliance with DVD standards as SVCD resolutions are not part of the DVD standard. The DVDs that it produces PROBABLY will work on MOST standalone DVD players, but I'm not willing to go far as to guarantee that there isn't some incredibly fussy player out there somewhere that won't touch such discs since they are out of spec.

The statement is silly as nobody can guarantee any burned DVD will play on all players no matter what is on it. All I can tell you is I've played the resulting burned DVDs on 3 different models of Phillips DVD player and one model of Oppo player. (IOW, all the DVD players I've ever owned and it worked on all of them.) If you look around you can probably still find a complicated guide how to do it for free using VCDGear(which is used by SVDD2DVD.) I tried it. The aggravation wasn't worth it. I paid for SVCD2DVD and it just worked. Unlike regular DVD authoring it's a no brainer. I could then reauthor using DVD Shrik to put several titles on one disc.

edit: Note to OP. Download the free version with the watermarks to test your players will work.

[FulciLives]

Actually jman98 makes a good point.

Many people have found that a lot of DVD players out there will play a DVD that uses the SVCD resolution of 480x480 (NTSC) or 480x576 (PAL) but that resolution is NOT officially supported by the DVD Video format.

So don't be surprised if you find DVD players that will NOT play your DVD Video that you've created in a non-spec manner.

Having said that we are talking about VCD and MPEG-1 (which VCD uses) at VCD resolution is part of the DVD Video specification. Although I have no idea what SVCD2DVD does but if it just copies the VCD video without changing it then it should be fine.

[Cornucopia]

The last number of posts have been filled with bits of good wisdom intermixed with bits of outdated info, FUD and outright BS.

It's 2012.

VCD was never all that great, but IF YOU HAD A GREAT SOURCE AND ENCODED CORRECTLY, you could create a VCD that was a better looking experience than VHS (stated resolution, colorspace & framerate notwithstanding). I did professional VCD encoding/authoring for ~10 years (1996-2006) in addition to DVD/BD and other multimedia authoring - not as a "hobby" or just re-transferring from some SHIT source. I have (had?) A/B tests to prove it (those people who say VCD was shit must never have made/seen good VCD encodes). And people here on this site know me to be quite knowledgeable when it comes to this area.

However, all that is water under the bridge. Like I said, it's 2012 now. Even DVDs are old hat. Encoding has advanced at least 3 generations.

VCDs could still be compatible in some circles, and depending on the source and the encoding, could be quite acceptable. But is it worth the effort?
I say this because even though it would be technologically trivial to include support for VCD or SVCD in DVD or BD or general Media players, what you are witnessing is the continued further obsolesence of those formats, mainly because: #1, they were never big commercially to begin with, and #2, CE companies don't want to pay the necessary Sony/Philips licenses. Philips themselves still seems to include support, but even some/most new Sony models do not.

And if direct VCD/SVCD support isn't there, everyone is relying on DVD or BD support. This entails massaging the Audio & Video streams into compliance for authoring AS a DVD. Video for a VCD is fine as is, even if it doesn't make the BEST use of possible bitrates. SVCD video was ALWAYS a hack which sometimes worked and sometimes not. 480 x 480/576 is NOT a compatible framesize, but SVCD2DVD's changing the AR & SequenceDisplayExtension without reencoding to fool the player into believing it was the correct size was novel and inventive and luckily worked for some players. But are you willing to keep relying on that luck (especially when the app is no longer actively supported)? And we all know the audio was never in compliance (44.1kHz mp2 doesn't fit into ANY of the later specs).

Now, all video could be becoming out of compliance. Mpeg1 that exists on VCD may be reauthored into DVD, but it isn't directly supported as part of BD or AVCHD (which only accepts Mpeg2 not Mpeg1), just within DVD. And if there are already players that have dropped VCD support, there may come a day soon where BD/Media players drop DVD support...

So now it is truly beginning to finally make sense to re-encode ALL the VCD/SVCD assets (both audio & video) in order for them to be future-proof. If you can swing it, it's best to go back to the drawing board and re-encode your source footage to MPEG2/DVD or to MPEG4/DivX/Xvid or to h.264/BD/AVCHD (my preference).
If you can't do that for whatever reason, I agree with Manono's AVISynth processing suggestions, though I wouldn't upsize much - just let it stay "soft" and let the player upsize.

Scott

[Slipster]

VCD was never all that great, but IF YOU HAD A GREAT SOURCE AND ENCODED CORRECTLY, you could create a VCD that was a better looking experience than VHS (stated resolution, colorspace & framerate notwithstanding).

I'd have to agree 100% here. In an amateur capacity, I made upwards of 100 VCD encodes 'back in the day', and they were superior in some ways to any commercially produced VHS material I could buy at the time. The VCDs certainly looked far cleaner to my eyes with no tape drop-outs (obviously ), their relative lack of noise, a stable timebase, stable luminance and colour throughout, and no drop in performance on repeated plays.

All of my home encodes have now been binned due to lack of space, plus the replacement of nearly all of the material on DVD as the years have gone by, but there is still one professionally produced VCD sitting in a drawer for safe keeping, one of the early Star Trek movies, so I may dig that out and have a play over the next few weeks. It'll be interesting to see what kind of a conversion can be made from one of the cleanest VCDs I've ever seen.

Everything needs to be viewed in relative terms, and I think that anyone who complains about how awful a good VCD looks forgets just how awful VHS could be by comparison at the time.

[FulciLives]

Reminds me of before I could afford a DVD burner, when they were way over $200 USD (I finally bought one when the price point hit $200 but they were over that for a long while). Anyway I used to do Half D1 on a CD-R which was out-of-spec (not VCD resolution and not SVCD resolution) but it worked with many stand alone DVD players and I knew it was an OK resolution to use on DVD so I figured maybe eventually I would copy that stuff over and make a DVD Video once I got a burner.

Most of that stuff were TV captures and over the years I lost interest since most of it eventually came out on DVD and I just bought it or rented it or got it anyway possible (whistles innocently). Obviously any official DVD release would look better than anything I could do from VHS or Cable TV and using Half D1 resolution.

Ahhhh the old days. Remember when a 10 pack of DVD-R discs were like $35 for a name brand? LOL

[MilesAhead]

Rather that be "surprised" if I was the OP I would download the free version of SVCD2DVD and convert a few samples. See how the quality is. See if they play. See how long it takes. If the quality sucks then saving the video content will require encoding anyway. In that case SVCD2DVD is not a good option. I got the app originally due to the cost of DVD burners, as noted above. I almost never have occasion to use it now. It may be an option for quickly putting the video content on DVD discs. But I think the OP should be capable, having at least average intelligence, of figuring it out.

Since the author is easily accessible right on this board I don't see where "surprise" would be an issue except for the rash.

[pekingpup]

Thanks to everyone who so kindly offered me his/her suggestions and ideas. I extracted the .DAT files from the folder that contains them, and renamed them with the .AVI extension. Afterwards I followed Milesahead's advice, used svcd2dvd trial version to convert them, then burned onto a DVD-R with ImgBurn. The process took quite a long time (about 40 minutes worth of video) but it worked out good. The end product of course has the svcd2dvd trial version of watermark and no chaptering, fast forwarding, reversing etc. I then remembered that I had previously installed a disc authoring program (don't remember the name, but it put a shortcut showing 4 stacked cubes on the desktop. One cube for Disc Copy, one cube for Make Audio Disc, one cube for Make DVD, don't remember the 4th one). I thought I'd try it. I dragged the 3 .AVI files onto the Make DVD cube, and it did everything - converting the files plus burning it onto a DVD. This one is a full program, and put on chapters, allowing fast forward, reverse, etc. I am so happy! Thought I'd share this with you and others who may be looking for the same thing as I was.

jman98, you were right that most if not all of my VCDs are Chinese movies/videos. You are also right that many of them have since been re-released on DVDs. Unfortunately some of them are not. For example the particular one I am referring to in this case is one of Shu Qi's, done in nude when she was still a model and before becoming famous. I had searched high and low for it on DVD format (that is, much better video quality) but failed. I guess the VCD publisher (or the person who owns the rights to the videos) does not realize how many DVDs they can sell.....

Thanks to all you guys again! It's great to have helpful experts around. By the way, does anyone recognize what the program is from the 4-cube symbol? It does not show a status screen when I clicked on it (both left and right buttons). It just goes to work showing a percent of completion on the cube. When it finishes, it ejects the disc. That's all.