jerky vcd

[86peaches]

i downloaded an episode of buffy and set about converting it to VCD.

the file was 41 minutes long, 352*240, 29.97fps. i'm not sure about the video bitrate.

in windows media player it said 70kbps(?) but if i opened the file in virtualdub and selected Video --> Compression --> DivX (4.12) it says 700 and something. anyway.

i used virtualdub, full processing mode with picvideo codec, the quality set to the max and therefore minimum conmpression, and ran the resize filter to change the res to 352*288 (using precise bicubic a=1.00 (?), i'm not sure if that's the one i should use....).

i then encoded to mpeg using TMPGEnc and the vcd pal template. i then used vcdeasy to create the .cue and .bin files.

finally, i used fireburner (1.0.6.) to load the .cue and then burn the vcd. all went well. i placed it in my dvd player and hit play. it worked!!

But although the sound and the picture itself is fine, the video itself isn't too smooth at all. seems quite jerky and very annoying.

at first i thought i had done something wrong, repeated the whole process and burned again to a different disc - but the same problem.

i thought it might have been because of a low video bitrate but i don't know and even if it is, how do i fix it?

any help please.

[vitualis]

The reason it looks jerky is because you used TMPGEnc to do a simple framerate conversion (i.e., from 29.97 --> 25 fps). What TMPGEnc does is simply cut out 1 in 6 frames --> jerky motion.

If you live in a PAL country, you most probably have equipment that is multisystems (can handle both PAL and NTSC) or can play PAL 60. Thus, I suggest that from an NTSC oriented source (i.e., 352x240 @ 29.97 fps -- the framerate is the most important consideration), you simply encode and make an NTSC VCD.

It will more than likely play properly on your equipment.

BTW, if you need to encode any video where you need to change the framesize, you absolutely do not need to take the step with converting it to MJPEG first with VirtualDub. TMPGEnc can deal with the framesize on the fly while converting to MPEG.

Regards.

[Craig Tucker]

i used virtualdub, full processing mode with picvideo codec, the quality set to the max and therefore minimum conmpression, and ran the resize filter to change the res to 352*288 (using precise bicubic a=1.00 (?), i'm not sure if that's the one i should use....).

Why did you do this ?

When you encode using TMPGEnc and a VCD template the video is resized to VCD specs anyway. Each encoding process introduces a quality loss.

Craig

[Craig Tucker]

BTW, if you need to encode any video where you need to change the framesize, you absolutely do not need to take the step with converting it to MJPEG first with VirtualDub. TMPGEnc can deal with the framesize on the fly while converting to MPEG.

Regards.

Michael

You were obviously writing this at the same time as me.

Craig

[86peaches]

the reason i used virtualdub was because i wasn't sure if TMPGEnc would be as good for resizing, i will not use it in future though. so i shall now try and create a NTSC VCD. but if that doesn't work is there a way i can change the framerate without causing the jerky playback or am i stcuk with it?