What can I do better? (VCD)

[biggantdogg]

Hello all. This is my first post. Can anybody tell me what I can do better to get the best achieveable image quality on a 2-disk VCD? Currently I am encoding with 2-pass vbr, avg 2000kbps, max 2500, standard video-cd format, 128 sound - 44100hz, high quality motion search precision. My files usually come out at around 800mb per disc, which allows me to do movies just over 2hrs.

Any suggestions?

1.7ghz pentium 4
256mb ram
64 mb Geforce 2 ultra

[Mirror_Image]

"Standard VideoCD" is 1150/224 audio/video CBR, 352x240 (or 352x288 for PAL) MPEG-1:

Video CD standard

Are you talking about SVCD? Two very different animals.

[biggantdogg]

What I meant was that it's not a "NON-STANDARD video cd" on the last or second to last tab of TMPGEnc

I just adjusted the options to my liking. Nero doesn't have a problem with it, and neither does my Panasonic SC-HT75.
The video is still 352X240 though.

[Mirror_Image]

What are the specs of your source video? (resolution, bitrate, codec) Is it a DVD rip you did on your own machine, or a downloaded DivX movie from the net, etc? If downloaded, does the source video look noticeably better than the encoded end product?

[biggantdogg]

8) All of them are DVD rips using Smart Ripper.

[wulf109]

Since your using 2-pass VBR I would increase the frame size to 720 x 480. It will not increase the file size and resolution will improve greatly. I do all my DVD rips this way. One thing if your using 2000bits how are you getting 60 minutes on one CDR?

[biggantdogg]

Wulf, I'm trying to see what I can do better as far as creating 2-disk VCD's. I was just replying about what file type I was encoding which is DVD-rips, not downloaded files etc.
Also, I still manage somehow to get an hour on each CD @ 2000kbps.
Maybe it's because I put the sound down to 44100hz and 128bit.
Resolution used is 352X240.

Anymore suggestions? Please refer to beginning of this post for my question. Thanks everyone.

[wulf109]

I assumed you were talking about DVD rips. Believe me 720 x 480 will greatly improve the resolution. The file will not be any larger because vcd/svcd is time dependand. I assume your frame serving with DVD2AVI. Try ripping the dvd as one large file. Then use mpeg tools in Tmpeg to create an mpg of the vob. Tmpeb can ecode from that mpg and the results will be better than frame serving. VBR is very good at eliminating macroblocking and motion artifacts. When I use 2000 bits the most I get is 51 min. I'm using 128 for audio. The standard fast motion search in Tmpeg is all you really need.

[biggantdogg]

Will 720 x 480 still play as a VCD? I'm not sure what you mean by increasing the frame rate. Last time I tried that, the file size increased greatly.

[Digifreak]

If your player will play XVCD, then it should play any resolution XVCD. The problem with 720x480 is you will only be able to fit about 15 minutes at the same avg. bitrate, and the only way to fit 1 hour at this resolution would be to cut the bitrate down to about 500, which most players would puke on let alone the fact that the quality would look like garbage even if it did play properly. For better quality go with SVCD (480x480) because this will give you decent quality at way better resolution and can still fit an hour on a disc. If your player only plays (X)VCD, try the demux/remux trick with the MPEG-2 SVCD using TMPGEnc tools with the type set to MPEG-1 VideoCD.

[biggantdogg]

Thanks digifreak. Can you explain the demux / remux trick in detail for me? I'd like to try that. I don't think my player will accept SVCD's.

[caish5]

Digifreak.....
Increasing the resolution to 720x480 will NOT increase the filesize. The filesize will only get bigger if you increase the bitrate or the length of movie. 720x480 would look pretty crappy at 2000kbps anyway.
I'd try 352x480 CVD resolution.
Andy

[biggantdogg]

Caish5..
Will 352x480 still play as a VCD or XVCD? That is what I'm trying to accomplish, but with better quality picture than what I'm currently getting.

[caish5]

That all depends on your DVD player. Mine does.
I've had excellent results with 352x576 (I use PAL) with a max bitrate of 2520 a min bitrate of zero and average around 1600. I used two pass VBR to encode to MPEG2, but the same applies to MPEG1. I've tried one disc with MPEG1 and it worked. Especially if your player wont do SVCD. Your best bet is to make a few samples on Rewriteable CDs.
Andy

[neomaine]

biggantdogg,

Although the idea wulf109 has on creating one vob and using TMPGenc has me thinking otherwise, ie. I'll test it tonight...

I gave up on xvcd a long time ago. Not worth the trouble of testing. If using dvd rips and are from north america, then more than likely your dvd is in NTSC-film at 16:9. NTSC-film is at 23.97 versus 29.97 for regular VCD. Already a free 20% or so less the the 1150 bitrate has to worry about. Add another 20-30% for the empty space (black bars) in a widescreen display and your talking an 'effective' bitrate of 1800 or so. Or, look at it as having 40-50% less area that your 1150 bitrate has to work with.

With that being said, I'd say with the results I get at 23.97/1150/352x240 for NTSC-film VCD is quite excellent with smartripper, dvd2avi, and TMPGenc. I have to watch my movie frame by frame to even find a macroblock let alone notice one when the watching the movie. And, you can get 80 minutes of a movie per 80min cdr. That's 2 hours and 20 minutes of movie on two discs, 3 hours w/ 90min discs.

I know I posted this before and others use pretty much the same for (x)vcd and others have their favorite ways of doing things. Anyway, this is what I do for VCD compliant movies:

-Smartripper to hd, individual vob's. (gotta try that one big one...)
-DVD2AVI to create *.d2v and demux/decode to *.wav
-TMPGenc using default VCD NTSC-Film template, use 'highest quality' (I notice a difference in fewer AND noticable macroblocks), simple color correction, sharpen edge, 16:9 display input, full screen - keep aspect ratio for output.

All nice and simple.

If you want better with MPEG1, then you'll have to go non-compliant. Or, go MPEG2 with SVCD. In either case, for me, its just not worth the time and/or effort.

[biggantdogg]

Thanks for all the input Neomaine, but being that my stand alone won't play SVCD's, I want to tweak out my VCD's to the best possible output, so I'm willing to experiment.

Yes they are NTSC 29.97 north american

[wulf109]

I encode at 720 x 480 all the time using 2-pass VBR. StarTrek-TOS episodes at 2000 and TNG episodes at 2250. these run 45 and 50 minutes,so length is not a problem. The 2250's are almost indistinguishable from the original DVD. I've done A\B comparision of the DVD and the SVCD and you can barely tell which one your looking at. There are legal resolutions for VCD\SVCD-352x240,352x480,704x480,and 720x480. Any other will not play on a standalone DVD. Resolution doses not effect file size in VCR or CBR. In CQ it will. Not frame serving is better. You'll get no macroblocking and no motion artifacts. I used DVD2AVI and my SVCD's always stuttered and had other motion side effects. When I stopped frame serving all those problems went away. I'm convinced that the problems blamed on Tmpeg are in fact caused by DVD2AVI.

[biggantdogg]

Wulf...can you explain to me again how to complete the encoding process without using DVD2AVI?
Do I also rip to 1 big file?

[wulf109]

Rip the DVD as one large file,most rippers offer this option. Open Tmpeg and go to mpeg tools. Click simple demux,open the VOB you ripped,you will have to change to all files to see the VOB. Click run,Tmpeg will create an mpg with full DVD resolution. That mpg can be opened in Tmpeg and encoded with any template. Tmpeg can open VOB files directly but most VOB's conatain "Program Time Stamps" which fool Tmpeg into thinking the file has ended long before it has.

[biggantdogg]

What would/could i do if I ran across the "Program Time Stamps" problem? Is that good or bad?

[wulf109]

That's why you remux the vob in mpeg tools. That gets rid of all the vob "extras" in the stream and makes it possible for Tmpeg to encode the complete file from the mpg.

[biggantdogg]

Thanks for all the help wulf109.

Also big thanks to everyone elses ideas. (Neomaine,Caish5,digifreak)

I will give everyone's approach a shot, and see which one fits my ideals best. Thanks for all the quick replies!!! :P 8)

[vitualis]

There are legal resolutions for VCD\SVCD-352x240,352x480,704x480,and 720x480. Any other will not play on a standalone DVD.

If you don't know something, don't make it up. The only video resolutions that are in specification for VCD are 352x240/288 and for SVCD 480x480/576. High resolution stills are at 704x480/576.

ANYTHING ELSE is not in specification. Some resolutions are more likely to play in DVD players than others since there is some flexibility with the resolutions sizes on a DVD player. However, even weird resolutions can play on some players.

Furthermore, a resolution of 720x480/576 within SVCD bitrates will look pretty bad for most material. TOS material may work for you because it is relatively low detail and has been digitally filtered on the DVD. This is not the case generally however.

Also, frameserving does not affect quality if you it properly. All it does is to take a frame from the source and then passes it on the the encoder -- fooling the encoder that there is a real single file when there may not be one or the video may be spread over several locations.

Regards.

[wulf109]

I didn't say they were within "specification". Lighten --up,this is only a hobby.

[biggantdogg]

Hey Wulf...
I tried the one large file, mpeg tools, and simple demux, and Tmpge would not open the file..?!
Was it supposed to be a ".M2V" file?

[Truman]

...Resolution doses not effect file size in VCR or CBR. In CQ it will.

Sorry, this is not true. There is no noticable de/increase of the filesize when you change the resolution, no matter whether you use CBR, 1pass or multipassVBR.

[wulf109]

Truman

You should read,I said there is no effect on file in CBR or VBR.

[wulf109]

biggantdogg

You did a simple demux that created an m2v and ac3 file. Then do a simple remux of the m2v and ac3,that will create the mpg file.
Is that what you did?

[Executioner]

I'm going to have to try wulf109 idea about not using DVD2AVI for framing serving.

One more thing if others want to try this: make sure your partition on the hard drive is NTSF not FAT32, as the file will more than likely be larger than 4 gigs.

Question for wulf109: can you give me an approximation on how long this takes in TMPGEnc to demux the VOB?

[biggantdogg]

I missed that final step Wulf....thanks!