Disguised SVCD's

[jvolino]

Over in the DVD player reports on the Sony DVP-NS300, a method is described that "forges" SVCDs in a VCD wrapper so that the Sony (and other players not explicitly supporting SVCD) will play a MPEG movie encoded with SVCD parameters (see quote below because I don't know how to link to that exact post)

My question is: While the player certainly recognizes the (S)VCD I created this way and plays it, I have a hard time seeing much quality improvement. Does anyone know if the player can really display the additional detail or does it just downsample back to VCD quality? (If you have experience doing this with other players, such as Panasonic, I am interested in your response too.)

Technique:

SVCD work !!! Yippe But obviously you have to discguise them so that the player thinks its a VCD ....all CDR-w's work and A brand called vivatron from Argos in the uk work(spindle) very cheap and all ...here how to do it:
Here is a workaround on how to make any DVD player that is capable of playing XVCD's to play SVCD's(for a full list of dvd players that do play vcds/x-vcds/scvd's & x-svcds's etc go to www.vcdhelper.com.)

The Software you probably need:

(i)TMPGenc
(ii)Nero(if necessary)

-extract the mpg file from the bin and cue (isobuster works great for this)
-Using TMPGenc, do the following:
1 goto file/MPEG tools

2 select 'simple multiplex'

3 select type 'MPEG-1 Video-CD'

4 video input 'YOUR MPEG FILE'

5 output 'DESTINATION FOR YOUR FINISHED FILE'

6 run note: make sure that when you insert your file into the 'video input' that the select type option doesn't spring to 'MPEG2 program'. If it does then click 'MPEG-1 Video-CD'
again.

Next step:
Start NERO
using template Video-cd (you need to turn off the standard compliant option,
but as all your files have now a VCD header they should be able to fool NERO into
thinking they are really VCD files), add files and then burn.

This method has been tested by some people and it works great SO what are you waiting for??!!!

Enjoy!!

[devinemi83]

Alot of people are on each side. Some say you can see the difference while other say no way. I have made both and they look the same to my eyes. I took a very very high quality trailer and encoded it to VCD and SVCD standard and burned and played in my APEX AD-660 and they look the same to me. SVCD has better audio quality. But not that much, VCD's 224kbps is pretty high quality. Much better than what you get from VHS or regular boardcast tv. In my opinion SVCD is better on computers because it has a larger screen size. But on a tv which shows all content at the same resolution, I see no advantage.

[vhelp]

jvolino,

Yes, SVCD will look better than VCD, and always does, provided:
* source is greater than 352x240, ie, 352x480 or 480x480 or 720x480, etc.
* and source is clean, etc. ie, DVD source.

Ok, VCDs can look pretty good, and even close to SVCD too, if properly
encoded from start to finish. But don't missunderstand me. I didn't say
it will be as sharp as SVCD.
When making VCDs from a DVD source, the VCD will look fairly sharp as a
SVCD.

We are talking about viewing on TV, not pc monitor. viewing on a pc monitor
is streating the 352x240 resolution to your 1024x768 resolution. If your
VCD encoding process is not up to par, you'll definately see macro blocks and
or some form of artifacts on your pc monitor stretch the full screen.

I have plenty of VCD samples I've done via DVD source and I don't see much
macro blocks, etc. in them. Even from some of my Satalite captures, the VCDs
are pretty much clean and minimal macro blocks.

When making VCDs from a VHS source, the results can be the same as above stats,
no or minimal macro blocks, even when played on pc monitor, stretched to full
screen. VHS source doesn't have any macro blocks (from what I understand)
since they are not produced like DVDs, hence you don't see blocks in them.
As a result, Standard VCD creation can be achieved w/ almost no macro blocks
becuase there aren't any macro blocks in/on the VHS tape to begin with
Still, VHS makes a good alternative to DVD ripping. At least it's cheaper to
buy the tapes, he, he... ie, I just picked up the movie, "The Beach" for $5.99
I'll be (w/ a little luck) encoding this VHS to a VCD this weekend, and watch
it (the VCD) too, when I'm done. I know I can make a good VCD from a VHS
source, cause I've ben doing it for some time now. And, watching these VCDs
are quite pleasing (at least to me) when I think, for ie, "The Beach" is
selling for $19 on DVD. I did a few movies already. "Blue Steal" and
"Tomb Raider" Both came out great! It sure beats puping in a VHS tape for
sure.

Oh, yes, back to SVCD vs. VCD.
Ah, it's cheap enough to just go out and buy a new dvd player for $69 - end
all your VCD/SVCD problems.
Other than the above, their must be something you left out, cause I just
don't understand how you are seeing the same quality in your svcd vs. vcd,
unless, maybe during the tmpg trick tech. you're using, the resolution in
your svcd is being changed to vcd resolution (352x24)
...or, you're encoding svcds effectively, or something other.

-vhelp

[Plant_Guy]

OK everyone, after reading your posts, I have to ask this question. Don't you think that VCD's are a little soft? I capture at 352x240, uncompressed AVI, and then use TMPGEnc to compress to VCD format. The picture is decent, and I see no blockiness, but the picture looks as if someone turned the 'sharpness' setting down. Even when I check the edge sharpening option, it is still not sharp enough. Since I am not able to get 480x480 to work yet, I can't comment on it, but I suspect that it looks much better.

Plant_Guy

[DVWannaB]

Have you guys tried a 352x480 VCD. Give it a go. I think it is a lot better than 352x240. Naturally you get double the pixel resolution, which makes it better to watch. Try KWAG's template in the tools area (left side of your screen). Test it and see for yourself.

[vhelp]

plant_guy,

Ok, assuming we all mean Standard VCD, and NOT xVCD here, as I was
also assuming in my above post. . .

yes, VCDs do look a little fuzzy or soft, but that all depends on
other factors before final judgement.
Ok,
* for one, it highly depends on your source, ie, cable vs. satalite
vs. DVD. Nothing will be a DVD source, period!
* also, the QUALITY of the source material, AND, the color space
used in the source materials has some play in final quality. ie,
DV output source to AVI (via firewire) vs. Analog output source to
AVI (via analog capture card) DV color space is way off, and will
effect your final VCD quality, while, Analog capture to AVI, VCD
quality is much better. I can say this without hesitation or fear
that I'd be corrected from this fact, as I have experience Analog
AVI capture vs. DV firewire transfer IS (yields) better quality, especialy
when doing VCD (standard VCD)
* and two, again i say, the encoding method used to make your final
VCD, from START to FINISH!!

However, plant_guy, I believe your prev. statement on the VCD softness is
in error. You did say you cap at 352x240. That's the reason for most of
your soft looking VCDs right there! 352x240 capturing is throwing out
a field. When you capture at 480 vs. 240, you have the extra field, hence
the extra sharpness. As I've posted many, many times, that 352x480 is about
the best capture you can make for your final encodes, be it VCD or SVCD.
So, when you make a VCD from a captured 352x480 resolution (again, assuming
that you dvd player can ONLY play Standard VCDs) you wont lose too much
sharpness. However, if your dvd player can handle beyond VCD spec, hence
xVCD, then if you're NOT concirned w/ space per CD, then you can up your
VCD resolution, hence again, your now xVCD to 352x480 resolution and gain
a great deal more detail or sharpness!! Well, sometimes, a VCD vs. an
SVCD can look almost the same quality. It all depends on the SOURCE's
quality, and then some. So, sometimes, this is true, and other times,
it is not.

plant_guy, also, you didn't say what your capture SOURCE materials are.
* VHS/Cable/Sat/DVD, and 29fps vs. 24fps vs. final encoding method, etc.
As all this will play a roll in your final VCD quality.

But, in your case, the softness seems to be due to your 352x240 capture
resolution. I hope that you can fix or figure out how to capture at a
higher resolution so that you can get that extra ummfff of quality from
your VCDs.

-vhelp

[mojo]

I have to agree that VCDs are a bit soft - they are close to VHS quality, but VHS is noticably sharper.

I did a test in which I ripped a scene from a DVD and encoded a VCD with TMPGenc. I'm sure everyone would agree this would make a perfect VCD.

I then copied the same scene from the DVD to a VHS tape and played the tape and the VCD at the same time, switching between them.

You don't even have to look twice to see the difference - VHS is sharper.

And I don't care what settings you use or what equipment you play it all back on - all of these parameters make only minimal differences.

The bottom line is, when most people start out (as did I) making VCDs, everywhere we go people keep saying they are VHS quality and they talk about how good their discs look - but when you get into it yourself and do a lot of tests, you'll realize that a VCD is just never going to look as good.

(There is a thread called "The Mojo Challenge" look it up and read more about this).

SVCD, on the other hand, looks great. I just downloaded an SVCD image of the X-Files finale and I still can't get over how good it looked. Whoever capped it must have had a C-Band dish since the source was SO clean - not a hint of the MPG artifacts most digital satellite systems are rife with. Combined with an excellent encode, the results look nearly like DVD.


Mojo

[jvolino]

Well, the thread drifted a bit from what I was really interested in knowing-- I understand that whether VCD or SVCD or VHS or kinetoscope or whatever is best looking will always be subjective...what I wanted to know specifically is a technical question:

When a player that does not explicitly support SVCD is given an SVCD-quality (higher resolution-- i.e. 480 X 480) video stream, does it actually display the additional detail or does reduce it to standard VCD resolution (352 x 240) for display?

Thanks,
Judd

[Feuerwehr]

I have burned "disguised" SVCD's on an older Sony player that supports VCD only. The quality is much better than a standard VCD viewed on my 61" Sony, and equal to a standard SVCD played on my Malata DVD player which does support SVCD format. Naturally your video scource must be equal to or better than 480 x 480. If you are recording standard VHS you probably won't notice a difference.
Jim

[mojo]

If a player doesn't support SVCD, it won't play the disc at all.

It will either play exactly as you encoded it, or you won't see anything.

[Plant_Guy]

Sorry about the drift jvolino, but I am curious about all the posts. At the risk of being flamed, I've taken a brand new TDK studio master tape out of the box, put it in my audiophile Sony VCR set to two hour SP mode, and I can honestly say that it really blows away my attempts at making a VCD! Now before someone lets loose, let me tell you what I did over the weekend to improve the quality! I captured at 352x240 (I know vhelp, but until I get my copy of PowerVCR, I am stuck with this b/c vdub does not support my card, or I do not know how to set it up correctly for x480). I set the bitrate to 7x the 1152k rate for VCD. After the capture (from my Cable TV source), I ran TMPGEnc with the noise filtering and sharpness filters on. The sharpness filter was at the default, so I don't know if sharper results can be obtained without too much noise. Anyway, the resultant output was pretty good (with 2.25 hours of processing), but still falls short of the VCR, and also, one of my captures failed on a TV show b/c WinXP crashed during capture! So far, I have never had a VCR's firmware crash on me Just out of curiosity, can vhelp tell me what the post processing filters he used to get a final VCD from the 352x480 capture? Despite my VCR rantings, I still like a challenge, so I will continue to twiddle with my PC until I get the best image I can

TomG. - aka Plant_Guy

[mojo]

Tom:

You've learned what I've been saying - VHS is better than even the best VCD. XVCD or SVCD is another matter, of course.

To improve your VCD, I suggest NOT using sharpening. In reality, all sharpening does is actually add noise to your image to give the appearence of sharpening. All good videophiles avoid this tool and, in fact, if you adjust the sharpness of your TV to a minimum (say 25%) you will notice that it actually IMPROVES the picture quality (the noise created by high sharpness actually blocks out fine details).

As far as the noise reduction in TMPG, it really depends on how noise your original is.

One trick I came up with is to use negative values for the sharpening tool in TMPG. This slightly softens the image, but it helps remove grain and noise. This means fewer bits are used to account for image imperfections and you can get a noticably better picture (at none of the time it takes to use the noise reduction filter).


Mojo

[Fishboy]

I have a sony player S525D (Australian). and I have managed to get vcd's to work quite well. Svcd will not work, however Xvcd WILL work with resolutions of upto 720 *528 @ 2500 bitrate.

There is a very noticable difference between the vcd and the xvcd, and the xvcd while not perfect is very close to dvd quality in picture. I assume this has something to do with the good sony decode chip. I encoded some of the warcraft 3 trailers as they were in a high res and they look amazing on the big screen.

So i believe that higher res do look a lot better even on a vcd format.

Only if they would play SVCD and mini DVD..but that is another story.

Fishboy

[thxkid]

Tried all the setting you have mentioned the best, if your player canhandle it is 704x480 at 6000 bitrate, from dvd there is no visible difference, this while using a$89 Daewoo 5800 DVD Player, it will play without studdering upto 7000 bitrate at 704x480 using my MPEG2 Happauge PVR capture card.
Yes 480x480 will look a much better than 352x240, just got a DVD rip from the net of Monsters Inc, which was 480x304 I incoded the 352x240 to 2000 bitrate and the 480x480 at 2800 bitrate and the finished (X)SVCD was so much sharper than the(X)VCD.

[pacoreguenga]

Long ago, I remeber people complained and complained about vcd image quality. ..."sure, CD quality audio is great for my music videos, but the image looks like shit"... ok, they were right, in part. They were right 'cause they were capturing from crappy VHS tapes recorded from MTV. And to make it worst they were capturing at EP or SLP to have more material recorded. By now you know this degrades picture quality, so you all record in SP mode, don't you? Now, when someone complains about his VCD / SVCD / DVD made from a "Wonderful DIVX rip from the NET" they should realize DIVX compression really degrates image quality in order to fit a full movie at such filesizes. ASF does the same, as they employ normally the MPG4 compression scheme. In fact, ASF lets you use different codecs, not just MPG4. But that's another story.
Same applies to cheap video capture cards. As their capture resolution often is 352 x 240, its quality is not meant for DVD authoring, not even for SVCD compression. VCDs made this way have a decent look, but it's still soft.
Now, if you capture at 720 x 480 with a MJPEG card, or better yet from a DV source, things start looking better. And if you do it from a High Quality source it will be even better. At home I capture from DVCAM using my PC's built-in Fireware port, or from Betacam SP using my old Iomega BUZ MJPEG card. At work I'm able to capture straight from D1, D2, D3, D9 and Digital Betacam masters made from material originated on 35mm film.
And you can actually NOTICE the difference to my home capture setup.
Even I once was surprised by the quality I could get onto a VCD made from Digital Betacam.

Why am I telling you this?

Because we all have to realize that, as I've said many times, you can polish shit, but It will always be shit.

Always start with the best material you can get. And you will never complain again.

[vhelp]

Evening all.

I've spent 2 days trying to make a MTV video (EMinEM) to look great
in standard VCD format - was messing around. Anyways...

I just couldn't get over the blocks in the scene where he's getting
is azz fliped over in the chineese restaurant. anyways, to make things
short here... I said to myself, why don't ahve have a closer look at
the actual captured AVI video in vdub, and magnify it so I can get a
better picture of the noise. Well... it wasn't the noise that was
causing the blocks in that scene, it was actually the blocks, LOL in
the captured clip, that caused the SAME blocks in my standard VCD
encodes, LOL, he, he... I alwas check this in vdub, but for some
reason, I didn't, and I waisted so much time. I could kick myself.
It just goes to show you, you MUST check your source material(s)
FIRST, before you begin your encode, to rule out any blocks (or as
much of it) as possible, to reduce your debuggin of those pesky
blocks. That scene had tons of blocks in it. But, the rest of the
scenes had none. I guess that it couldn't handle the comletexity of
the checkered windows, and the RED in EMimEM's robe, and that cause
too many blocks, even for DirecTV's source.

So, check your source first, or after your first encode, when you see
blocks in them. chances are, your source material has them, and if
they do, then your encode of these scenes, and not matter how high
you turn up the bitrate, you'll have those blocks no matter what.

From my perspective of VCD creation via any source, I consider DVD
to be the best source, because I don't hvae access to the actuall
video materials, be it beta or whatever they call it. So, I see
DVD as the best quality source material availalbe, and based on this,
standard VCD creation is at it's best from such. But, theres a catch
on this too. Not every DVD is created equal. So, waik up and smell
the coffee. Just because a movie on DVD 1, produced excellent VCD
results, doesn't mean that DVD 2, should be the same! Chances are,
it wont! So many variables.

For those VHS source, those that capture from it (including myself)
The one tip I can give you on BEST capture/encoding is this. . .
* buy the best standalone VHS player you can find. I belive that
the Sharp model AC450 (if memory serves me well) at CircuitCity is
one of the best, since it has the SharpEnhanced feature, though my
Sony has excellect picture quality vs. my JVC SVHS model. my JVC
really sucks for VHS captures. I'm talking about store bought movies
that I capture. ie, i did a cap of TombRaider on both my Sony and
my JVC and the Sony won hands-down!! So, your end result of your
VCD creation will also depend on the quality of the VCR you have!!
I'm thinking of posting a sample clip of a recent VHS capture I did
w/ my Sony VCR. well, you know where my clips are, look for
VHELPs Sample... in the subject line in the search. I always update
just about every day w/ a new clip or two.
Now, of course we all know that VHS to VCD is not the same quality
as DVD to VCD. Just thought I'd mention that, he, he...
Well, this is all based on my experience!

-vhelp

[Plant_Guy]

Vhelp,

What does your experience tell you about capturing a show from cable? What resolution to capture at? What resolution to convert to? How about filters? What happens if the signal is noisy? Is is acceptable to capture using mpeg1 at a high bitrate if we don't have enough disk space to capture uncompressed, or will the final image be seriously degraded? Lots of questions, I know, but your input should prove interesting .

TomG. - aka Plant_Guy