Premiere>TMPG>SVCD bad quality?

[mbkoks]

Hi,

I use premiere 6 to capture and edit movies, and export them as AVI. Then i use TMPG to create MPEg files. I burn them with Nero.

With VCD i get an acceptable result (VCD acceptable quality) but when i create an SVCD it looks horrible. Worse then VCD even...

For both;
I export from premiere using microsoft DV AVI. Good or bad?
I use the default settings in TMPG.

somewhere in this forum people talk about the fact that premiere avi's are giving problems with creating SVCD's, but i can't find the whole story.
Can anyone tell me what the problems are?

I would appreciate the help.

Thnx,
Marcel (From Holland).

[Betamax]

Ref. : http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=106622

Hi,

I know your problem, I've got them too (or better, I had them).
I'm using Premiere and the avi's are in DV.
VCD is very good (even better than the original VHS it seems sometimes..), but SVCD is somehow problematic.

Pls. see my former posts/replys in the refering link (above) for more info.

My sollution : if you can export the AVI completely in Premiere, then you're a lucky guy (while I can't).
If you can, do so into a new location - otherwise see the reference above on how I've solved it for me.
Use TMPGenc directly (instead as an export from Premiere).
You properely must enter the avi and wave seperately for either the video/audio sources.
To encode the audio, you should consider to use "SCMPx" while it gives a better quality than the default audio-encoder in TMPGenc (toolAme is also good, but not advisable while it can 'crash' with some audio samples).

Be sure to use the SVCD-template of TMPGenc (ntsc or pal). Select "Slow (higher quality)" and "encode using floating point".
Be sure you verify the interlaced settings.
DV always is interlaced, so if your capture-settings in Premiere says to capture using "top first" or "bottom first" interlacing, you must set these settings in TMPGenc too.
It seems TMPGenc cannot autodetect the interlace-mode (it does detect whether the source is interlaced of not (not = "progressive"), but it always says the source is "field B first = even = bottom first".
My DV-source is "top first" so I've to change that.
See for yourself what it is with you and set the appropriate setting in TMPGenc.

I use CBR encoding, while it doesn't matter for the quality when I use VBR encoding (mostly I would use '2-pass') - it does for non-interlaced video but apparently not for DV. CBR is also the fastest method (SVCD of 45minutes takes about 2½hours at an Athlon 1.2Ghz).
Only be sure the using bitrate is as high as possible (higher than 2100kbps) but don't go beyond the maximum of 2520kbps.

If all of these are set, you should end up with an accepteble svcd.
Naturely, you must be sure the source is 'real' DV, so the resolution must be for PAL '720x576' or for NTSC '720x480', otherwise you could endup with worse quality...

good luck.