VideoHelp Forum




+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 8 of 8
  1. I am new to this and am really aving pretty good luck thus far. I am using the following software.
    CladDVD Xp (uses DVD2AVI automatically)
    TMPGenc 2.57

    I ripped We Were Soldiers into VCD (NTSC). The process went good. I played the disc back on my Pioneer DV-250. The audio was synchronized great through out the movie. The problems I have is that the video is blotchy and or pixelated especially during a dark area pf the screen. It appears like a picture blown up to large when you can see the individual pixes. The video during the day or on light colors seem to be better because it is not as visible as dark colors. Also the text on screen appears blotchy and distorted around the text.

    Is there something I am doing wrong? Help. I have sen other VCD's without this problem but they had audio sync problems.

    HELP PLEASE!!!!!
    Quote Quote  
  2. Dayta23,

    I don't think many would agree with me, but I've found that the key to making a really nice VCD with TMPGEnc is to first create a DivX file. Download Vidomi (www.vidomi.com) and use it to make your DivX. If you experience audio sync problems in the resulting DivX, rip the audio separately. Remember to set the absolute size of the DivX to 1950MB, as Windows can't have files over 2GB. Also use the "DivX Networks" codec, and select "2-pass, first pass". See vidomi.com for more details, and a guide if you want help.

    Once you have created your DivX, and perhaps your separate audio file, feed them into TMPGEnc. Select "Noise reduction" and when the dialogue box opens, select "High quality mode". In "Other Settings", under "Advanced" tab, select source aspect to be "1:1 VGA", and "Full screen (Keep aspect ratio 2)". I also find my VCDs are encoded very dark, so double click "Simple colour correction" and set brightness to 10 and gamma to 20.

    I have also found that using TMPGEnc to make a big MPG file then using it's splitter to make two VCD-sized files leads to audio sync problems. Instead, I use the "Source range" option to create the two smaller files right away. I haven't suffered problems since!

    I know that this process takes a long time, but I have always found it works extremely well for me. I can't understand why creating a DivX, then turning it to VCD makes for such high quality - I would have thought that this would simply introduce more errors through double compression than simply feeding the original files from the DVD into TMPGEnc via a .d2v file etc. If anyone can shed light on this, I would be most interested (or perhaps I am just the odd one out!).

    I hope this helps, and if anyone has anything to add that I've missed, or a simpler solution, then please do correct me!

    CobraDMX
    Quote Quote  
  3. Dayta23: How many CD's are you putting th movie onto? You better not say 1 Are you making a standard VCD (ie. 1150 kbps) or an XVCD? We were soldiers has a lot of action scenes so you are going to want to use at least 2 CD's for it. The pixelation you are describing sounds like a bit shortage problem, if you can trying increasing the bitrate. Also if you haven't done so already setting TMPGEnc to use a higher quality motion precision search also helps for action scenes. For your info I was able to put We Were Soliders onto 3 CD's (SVCD) using a 4 pass VBR min. 300 avg. 1800 max. 2530 and it looked good, no pixelation at all.

    CobraDMX: The phenomona you're describing isn't really new. What's happened is when you encode to DiVX first it's basically like put the source through another filter. The DiVX conversion will remove some of the detail since it's a lossy compression, so when TMPG goes to encode the source is easier to compress (less detail, smoother picture). This isn't really a problem since you're making (S)VCD since the resolution is lower then the DVD source so you're going to lose detail anyways during the resizing (VCD's has about 25% of the resolution of DVD). Instead of converting to DiVX first you can get pretty much the same effect if you frameserve to TMPG and turn on some sort of temporal smoother filter... which would probably be quicker.

    -LeeBear
    Quote Quote  
  4. LeeBear,

    Thanks for the reply. When I made a VCD (standard, 1150kbps PAL) using a d2v (that's a frameserver, isn't it?) I not only got lots of noise around edges etc. but I got a lot of crap all over the screen too. It really wasn't nice. But, when I make it into an SVCD the quality is fantastic. Weird! I'm going to try making an XSVCD, running VCD resolutions at VCD bitrates and see what happens.

    You mentioned using a frameserver to TMPGEnc (is D2V ok?), and a temporal smoother filter - where do I get one of those?

    Thanks,

    CobraDMX
    Quote Quote  
  5. Thanks for the replys. I am using two CD's and also using TMPGEnc for the cutting as well. I will go ahead and use the suggestions LeeBear suggested first then CobraDMXs' next if no success. I was thinking of it being a bitrate prtoblem beacuse the video looked like it was blown up like a picture that is zoomed into.

    Thanks Again

    Dayta
    Quote Quote  
  6. Originally Posted by LeeBear
    if you can trying increasing the bitrate. Also if you haven't done so already setting TMPGEnc to use a higher quality motion precision search also helps for action scenes. For your info I was able to put We Were Soliders onto 3 CD's (SVCD) using a 4 pass VBR min. 300 avg. 1800 max. 2530 and it looked good, no pixelation at all.

    -LeeBear
    Could you please explain how to do this in TMPGEnc

    Thanks Again
    Quote Quote  
  7. LeeBear

    Is the 2530 you speak of the actual bitrate I need to set. I also don't see a 4 pass Rate Control Mode Setting.
    Quote Quote  
  8. Dayta23: TMPG only has a 2-pass VBR, CCE has up to 9. The more passes basically allows the encoder to distribute the bits more efficiently, but 2 is still better then nothing The settings in TMPG can be found under the "rate control mode" then in the "setting" button. The 2530 isn't the actual bitrate it's the "maximum" bitrate. There's 2 other setting's the "average" and the "minimum". What VBR encoding does is allow the encoder to use more bits for complex scenes and less bits for easy to encode scenes. Since most movies consists of action scenes and talking scenes this is more effecient then using a constant bitrate.

    CobraDMX: AVISynth has a temporal smoother filter in it. You can get it in the tools section.

    -LeeBear
    Quote Quote  



Similar Threads

Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!