Playing VCD's in a DVD player.

[deadletter22]

I am trying to save my home movies on CD's for play back in DVD players, via VCD method. I have no trouble capturing or creating VCD's. When I play them back on the computer they are ok but the problem is in the DVD play back. When played in the DVD the image jumps to "full-screen" and the resulting image is extremely "blocky" with very visible pixeling. How do I get a good quality play back on a DVD using VCD's? It must be a simple answer because I do not see anyone else asking about it so any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[Ego_Shredder]

Is your DVD player a standalone model or one for the PC?


If you view VCD's on a TV, it will look fairly good because a TV's resolution is not as high as a PC monitor.


I tend to capture at 720 x 576, 24Bit colour using PICVideo M-JPEG codec, quality set to 18, audio at 44.1kHz 16Bit and I use Virtual Dub to capture the video. After that I open the video files in TMPEGEnc and encode them using the VCD template in the wizard section. Finally I put them in Nero and burn them to disc as a VideoCD. If I am capturing more than 15mins of video, I end up with multiple files because Virtual Dub starts a new file every 2GB. I join them together using the merge/cut function in TMPEGEnc and maybe chop them up again if necessary, to how I want them (seperate songs etc). The quality is pretty good I think and if you have a DVD burner, you can simply make SVCD's and keep the high resolution etc to have superb quality.


If you capture at 352 x 288 etc, you will get a blocky looking video, but even then, it will still look better on a real TV. Also, never capture directly to MPEG-1 as the quality is crap and very blocky indeed. You could also try capturing to MPEG-2 and then re-encode to MPEG-1. This looks very good, but not as good as M-JPEG, but MPEG-2 is fiddly to work with due to having to seperate the audio while editing and then adding it back again when done etc.


Hope this helps,

Ego 8)

[deadletter22]

Thanks for the reply. Answer to your question is that my DVD I want to use is a stand-alone for the TV. The intent is to share these CD's with family.
I capture the video using Dazzle DVC II, at MPEG2, 720 x 480 and using their template for highest quality. Then, of course I need to change it to MPEG1. I have tried capture using MPEG1 with the same settings too. The result seems to be just a little better using MPEG2 first.
I also use TMPEGEnc to encode the video to VCD and I do use Nero also. So far our processes sound similar except I do not have an option for M-JPEG.
Up to this point my video is fine. The problem seems to be in the VCD 352 x 240 size. When placed in the stand-alone DVD the image expands to fill the entire screen, which is much larger than a monitor, and then becomes very blocked in appearance.
I have not tried the SCVD, will it run in a stand-alone DVD player?
I fell I must be close but there is just something not quite right in what I am doing.

[Ego_Shredder]

You could try capturing at the SVCD standard, which is 480 x 576 and this would look pretty good. I have done this and although M-JPEG still looks much better, I would be happy to use MPEG-2 to make SVCD's if I didn't have M-JPEG.


I find SVCD's look sharper and with more detail than VCD's, but you only get 35mins on a CD, compared to double that with VCD. Personally I would stick with VCD and go for the extra mins on a CD. The weird thing is, my VCD's look better on my cheap Napa player than they do on my mates Philips DVD standalone player!


VCD's are more compatible and also SVCD has to be encoded strictly to the standard or it might not play. Some players can manage higher quality SVCD's but not many.


Well I think it's up to you now on which format you prefer, but I like M-JPEG because it looks sharper, no blockiness, handles fast motion scenes better and uses very little CPU power. On my Celeron 1.2GHz it only consumes 17% when capturing at 720 x 576 etc!!


Cheers,

Ego

[Mirror_Image]

Does your Toshiba player have a model number? (You might want to add that to your "computer details", right after "Toshiba").