bad xsvcd playback on dvd players

[Tolly]

i finally used ffmpegx to go from vob->xsvcd and it all worked perfectly. the final .mpg's play fine on my computer and everything looks great and runs well. but the problem occurs when i try to play it on my dvd players. on my Apex AD-1000, i get jitterly playback that ocassionally freezes and has slight sync issues. then on my Pionner DV-440, the sync is way off, and i get weird picture breaks and pixelation, while the playback seems jitterly and scratchy as well. the sound is fine besides when these skips and jitters occur, and the picture looks great when all is well. both these players are supposed to be able to play xsvcds. i would consider the Piooneer much of a higher end model than the Apex, but the Apex seems to play these svcds better. but watching it on the Apex is still hard and unsatisfactory. i was just wondering if anyone with one of these players has experienced sumthin like this, or if they know the cause of it. does anyone know if it was caused how i made the xsvcd? or what i can do to make it play right on my player? i just want to be able to play it correctly, but i dont know what the problem is- whether its the player or the disk, or how i encoded it, how i burned it, etc. if u have any help or feedback its greatly appreciated. thanks!

[SCB]

I have an Apex AD 1200. When I made an xsvcd, playback was also poor on my player. The kind of xsvcd I made was MPEG-1, not MPEG-2. What fixed my problem was to simply change the video size to 320 x 240 and author as VCD (bin./cue.). Basically I ended up with an xvcd. This should fix your problem if your making an xsvcd with MPEG-1 but I don't know about MPEG-2.

[Tolly]

ok thanks for the advice, that helps. but does anyone know a possbile way that i could keep it mpeg-2? lol im a picky guy when it comes to video quality. if not, ill have to use SCB's advice and just make a vcd. so please help me if u can. thanks!

[SCB]

Just to make sure, you are using the standard 480 x 480 resolution for your xsvcd, right? I know my player goes a bit crazy if I don't use the correct resolution.

[major]

If you're using the splitter, then it could be an issue with it. I hope 0.0.4e will feature a working splitter, which is not the case in 0.0.4d. Try to encode a small clip without splitting to see if it is the case.

Another possible reason is if you're creating xsvcd (mpg2) with a too high bitrate. Most players' maximum bitrate is 2500.

[Tolly]

ok, well what do u guys suggest i should do? wait for new ffmpegx, or burn an mpeg-1 xsvcd or an mpeg-2 xsvcd, or what? and can u help me on what possible presets to use, or what to change? like videosize or autosize, audio options- bit and samle rate, and whether to author it as vcd (bin/cue) or svcd (xa img), or other options that vary between mpg1-2? major u can proly help me and scb, u said u got it to play successfully on yer apex so maybe u can help me out, im still not totally sure what the best thing to do is. thanks for the all the feedback guys, im finally getting somewhere!

[major]

ok, well what do u guys suggest i should do? wait for new ffmpegx, or burn an mpeg-1 xsvcd or an mpeg-2 xsvcd, or what?

Take a one-minute clip, encode it both ways and decide from the result on your player which is best. Results may vary from player to player. You would go for mpeg-2 in general, but 2-pass mpeg-1 is also very good.

and can u help me on what possible presets to use, or what to change? like videosize or autosize, audio options- bit and samle rate,

First select a preset based on what you want to do, then you can just lower the video bitrate if you want to fit more video on a CD (if lowering bitrate with mpeg-2 then also select mpeg-2 profile to XSVCD). If encoding mpeg-1 you can also set the 2-pass option.

and whether to author it as vcd (bin/cue) or svcd (xa img), or other options that vary between mpg1-2?

You can author mpeg-1 or mpeg-2 both as vcd or as svcd, though mpeg-1 is normally meant for vcd and mpeg-2 for svcd, though some players not playing svcds can play mpeg-2 muxed as mpeg-1 and authored as vcd, and other players can play higher bitrate mpeg-1 better when authored as svcd than as vcd. Again you should test a small clip on your player and decide which is best for you.

[Krevinek]

Yeah, players are picky like that. I attempted to author a XSVCD at 512x384 and it worked great.... except for a blue border around the picture. It was actually seeming to expect a larger 7XX by 512 image such as that used on DVD.

Good news: I can author SVCDs for my player with high resolution.

Bad news: It is either DVD resolution or SVCD resolution. (And it mucks up on 16:9 anamorphic SVCD resolution encodes... haven't tried a 16:9 XSVCD anamorphic yet...)