Quality of SVCD

[Maverlck32]

I've been making 1900kb/s svcds with a minimum of 150. I've noticed that when theres shadows, dark walls, or smoke during the movie, I can see blocks. I'm wondering if raising the minimum bitrate will change that? If so, how high should I raise it to? Thanks in Advance...

[wulf109]

I guess your using VBR encodeing. The blocking is caused by motion and raising the minimum will have no effect. You might try raising your maximum rate. I usually make my maximum double my averge,try setting your maximum to 4000.

[Anonymoususer]

Im kinda getting the same problem...the 4000 rate your talking about is it the bitrate..? I usually convert a 60 minute movie at around 1603 and audio at 160. Im burning on an 80 Minute CD ....

Also my friend got some encoder called

"Cinema Craft Encoder " and was wondering if I wanted it or not...I was wondering if I should get it ? If so why ?? and is it better than TMPGEnc that i currently use...?

[snowmoon]

CCE's encoding is much faster. I pefer to use 3 pass VBR ( would be the same as 4 pass in tmpgenc since CCE does not could the first pass ) encoding and it's not that much slower than TMPGenc's 2 pass encoding.

I've used 3-pass encoding with average bitrates as low as 1500 with SVCD ( comedy routine ) and it came out excellent.

CCE costs like $2500 though..... so you will have to find a copy if you don't have that much cash

[Anonymoususer]

ARE YOU SERIOUS !!!!..Well DAMN Im gonna go to my friends house tommorrow and get it !!..HEeeheee...

But what;s the solution for the blocky picture...I encode around 1603 and it's an animated movie and is very noticable around black and dark areas...

[LeeBear]

Animated movies are much harder to encode well compare to regular movies. From my experience you should use an average bitrate of at least 2000 kb/s for animated stuff for it too look good. For normal movies you can get away with 1600-1800 kb/s. Also if your source is film you should encode at 23.976 fps and use a 3:2 pulldown to make it 29.97 fps. That'll give you about 20% more bits per frame since there's less frames to encode. Raising the maximum bitrate helps quality too like wulf109 has said, but don't set it higher then your player can handle. Most players only read CD's at 2x speed so your max is usually limited to around 2500-2700, but it's best to make a test CD (on a rewritable of course) and see what your player can handle.

-LeeBear

[El Torro]

Why care that much about Bitrate? I always select the CONSTANT quality, and you don't have to care about the bitrate!

[snowmoon]

CQ is fine if your video in not too demanding, but once you start lowering the bitrate you really need to use 2-pass or higher to better allocate the bits.

[banjazzer]

I've been making 1900kb/s svcds with a minimum of 150. I've noticed that when theres shadows, dark walls, or smoke during the movie, I can see blocks.

I think your minimum is the reason for your blocks. I set max=2520 and min=300 (enable padding ticked) and never see any blocks.

If you are using 2-pass VBR, aim for 50-60 minutes per 80 min CD. Or preferably use CQ between 75 and 85, and use a calculator and some basic maths!

[Anonymoususer]

Yes the movie Im making is an Anime called Akira. Ok If I change the Audio to lets say 48KHZ, and...128KB/s dual channel..thus increasing the video bitrate from 1603 to 1694, would the audio get worse ?



Also where is the enable padding option in TMPGEnc

[banjazzer]

I would not drop the audio below 160 kbps. Anime should be easy to compress, so I don't see a problem provided you don't want to fit much more than 60 minutes per 80 minute CD.

[C-Dub]

what is the source of the file your encoding

[DJRumpy]

Not to detract from everything that's been said here, but the problem being described sounds like the luminance scale is wrong. A TV can reproduce less shades of gray than PC. When your capturing from your source, makes sure you squash the luminance range from 0 to 255 (PC) down to 15 to 235 (TV). Those dark area's should show up as black on a tv, or a uniform color. When these are captured to PC, the PC can "see" more shades of gray in those dark areas, and you get the blocks.

A PC can produce from 1 to 255 shades of gray. A TV can only produce from 15 to 235.

A good way to test is to find a relatively still frame that is exhibiting the problem. The blocks will sort of "sparkle", turning on and off, even though the background color isn't changing, and there isn't a lot of motion.

Bitrate noise, associated with blocks, tends to show up in high motion scenes, where there isn't enough bitrate to produce the desired output quality.

Virtual dub has an option to squash the luminance range to the TV standard. It also has filters to simply filter anything outside of the TV's range right out of your file.

I don't know that this is your problem. Just thought I'd throw it out there as a possibility.

[Anonymous65]

Here are some tricks to reducing block noise. Also, make the SVCD at 2520 Kb/sec CBR mode, not VBR mode. It will give you the highest quality SVCD you can make and stay within the SVCD standard.

http://steve.kittelsen.com/vcd/

[Anonymoususer]

It is a DVD Rip

[Anonymoususer]

Ok I cannot convert at 2520 KB/s because I have an 80 Minute CD that can fit the max of 800MB;s..do the math...

but thanks for the information..just finished converting the movie at 1694KB/s and audio at 128KB/s Dual Channel 48KHZ..gonna burnit and see how it turns out..Then I will try these options...if necessary...

[Anonymoususer]

DAMN IT ! I accidentally converted the fuckin movie in fullscreen when it was suppossed to be in Widescreen...it's gonna take another day to encode 30 Minutes of the fuckin movie...and yes I know how to make it widescreen..I just apparently forgot ....will keep posted about the conversion and the blocks problem....

[Anonymoususer]

Well...after waiting for another day.. I finally encoded the movie at 1692KB/s and the audio at 48KHZ, Dual Channel, 128KB/s...The blocks that I was getting were greatly reduced BUT !...the DAMN file was supposed to come out around 400MB;s but when I burned it with NERO it only showed it taking up 350+ but -400MB's..SOOO NOW Im gonna encode the movie at 1700KB/s, 30FPS, VBR BUFFER 48, AUDIO is the same...the movie I encoded was a little jerky but I think it was because of the Bitrate value...so I increased the FPS value to 30FPS...hopefully it should work...Will keep posted on this if anyone cares...blocks ARE being reduced....Creating a Non Standard Mpeg - 1 file....

(I sound like such a professional)

[LeeBear]

DivXerouS: Have you tried encoding to MPEG2 instead of MPEG1? At the average bitrate you're using you should be able to get SVCD resolution. Recently I was encoding some Robotech Episodes from DVD. The quality on the DVD wasn't that great since it's a fairly old cartoon series so I figure I'd just make an XVCD, MPEG1, 352x240, 2-pass VBR with an average of 1500 kb/s using TMPG. To my surprise the quality wasn't as good as I expected lots of pixelation. Then I thought what the heck let's try to make it a SVCD instead and see what happens. Using the same bitrate, MPEG2, 480x480, CCE to encode. To my surprise there were barely any pixelation even using the same bitrate and higher resolution and the picture was sharper. You should give that a try. Oh yeah I also set DVD2AVI to do an IVTC to bring it to 23.97 fps... that helps to get about 20% more bits per frame. I also use a temporal smoother filter to clean up some of the grainyness of the DVD picture.

-LeeBear

[Anonymoususer]

You know you are right and YES I have made the file into an Mpeg 2 it came out pretty hot...but the thing is that I want to make a NON Standard Mpeg 2 but so far I have not found anyway or heard about it....so I was like hey what the hell..keep trying but I am considering just making the damn thing in Mpeg 2...but if I use the same settings Im using right now for the Mpeg 1 Non Standard which are encoding the movie at 1700KB/s..wouldn't the mpeg 2 come out higher than expected ????

[Anonymoususer]

Well after wasting another day....Im deciding tomake the fukin movie in Mpeg 2 format....I downloaded one of the KVCD Mpeg 2 converting templates the movie I encoded was at 1700KB/s but there was very slight improvement..so the hell with it...SVCD im gonna make..

[DJRumpy]

Why can't you make a non-standard MPEG-2? Just use TMPGenc, and change the settings.

You can crack the program wide open if you use the LOAD button, go to the EXTRAS folder, and open the unlock.mcf template. The program already gives you access to most of these settings. Opening that template will make pretty much everything available for tweaking.

[Nelson37]

There is no such thing as a non-standard MPG1 or MPG2, unless your encoder is broken. There IS non-standard VCD and/or SVCD, although contrary to what was mentioned earlier, SVCD supports VBR and bitrates lower than 2500.

Your problem is most likely in your low minimum ans also possibly the luminance range.

For Anime, try experimenting with fairly settings on TMPgenc's noise filter.
High noise settings can create a posterization effect, animation is SUPPOSED to look that way!

[Anonymoususer]

I converted it to Mpeg 2 it came out pretty hot like I expected.....how do I make a NON Standard SVCD/Mpeg 2 using TMPGEnc and can you make an 800MB Mpeg 2 file and burn like you would with an Mpeg 1 ? Ok I select Mpeg 2 from the Video Settings and in the System settings what do I choose..because if you make an mpeg 1you can choose NON Standard in the System settings....
Want to make an 800MB Mpeg 2 file and burn it safely....

[Nelson37]

Mode 2 burning is Mode 2 burning, regardless of what type or standard of file you burn.

A non-standard SVCD means ANY change to the standard template, typically higher bitrate, lower audio rate, diferrent resolution, etc.

[Anonymoususer]

JUST MADE MY FIRST NON STANDARD SVCD> IT SOO COOL...Topic Locked.
Thanks to everyone who posted some information on this topic. YAAAY !...Now I am a professional encoder...THANKS TO Everyone for the help !

THE HELL WITH Mpeg 1's...MPEG 2 is the FUTUUUURE !