PVR-250 - quality not so good for VCD, why?

[davy19]

When trying to capture from VHS, using VCD, if you play it at 352x240 it looks great, but if you enlarge or play full screen, thereare so many artifacts and pxielations. It is not worth using for VCD.

Anyway to fix that?


If I do MPEG2 12bit/sec (CBR), it runs awesome, and looks great, but for 20 minutes the file is 1.8 gb and I cannot fit it on one cd.

The tapes I have dont need to be super great quality, but when I convert them to VCD, they look much worse then on VHS, and I dont want that, i heard VCD can actually better then VHS

One last thing I notice if I play the mpeg in PowerDVD it looks much better then using Windows Media PLayer, why is that?


I lareayd have all the latest drivers ver 277.

Thanks

[kitty]

You might try to capture at higher bitrates and/or resolutions then reencode with TMPGenc or your favorite program and see if you get better quality.

see www.shspvr.com for good wintv pvr info

[davy19]

I was thinking of doing that, but the main reason I bought the PVR 250, was to avoid having to spend 4-6 hours using TMPG Enc, if that is the case then I may as well go back to the regular old Wintv, and jsut use virtualdub, then tmpgenc.

[davy19]

What bitrate or reosoultion do you recommnd?

[kitty]

I have one - apparently VCD is ok but the card really shines on SVCD or DVD.

You'll have to try some small clips yourself - maybe double VCD resolution.

[davy19]

What do you recommedn I should use for SVCD?

There are so many differnt type of MPEG 2 to pick from?

What bitrate? and what resolution?

[davy19]

Here are the different settings for mpeg 2 and svcd to pcik from in wintv200 with pvr 250


MPEG2 2.0Mbit/sec
MPEG2 2.0Mbit/sec(half d1)
MPEG2 12.0Mbit/sec
MPEG2 12.0Mbit/sec (CBR)
SVCD Extra Long play
SVCD Long PLay
SVCD Standard PLay

What are the differences? Which is the best overall for quality, and not a huge file?

[lpn1160]

unfortunetly most mpeg2 cards give pretty shitty results when capturing to mpeg1 vcd. once again for best possible quality, capture to full D1 704x480 mpeg2@6 or 8mbps and then re-encode.I know it's a pain but if you want "good" quality thats more or less your only alternative

[oldfart13]

A 12 MB/s Mpeg-2 cap is above DVD spec (9.8 MB/s) and sure it's going to look nice but it will be DVD spec, not VCD or even SVCD. If you're going to try to avoid encoding, then you must use the right equipment. The PVRs usually are good for Mpeg-2 encoding for making SVCDs and DVDs. You would need something else to cap in VCD Mpeg-1 spec (1.150 MB/s). That is probably going to look disappointing to you depending on your source and will be prone to artifacts (blocks and motion artifacts) but that's the breaks. VCD is actually lower quality than VHS, not the other way around. DVD rips done to VCD CAN look great but compared to SVCD rips or the original DVD, it's pretty low quality. Are you trying to save movies, TV shows or what? Sometimes it's best to go with the tried and true. For me that's capping in high Mpeg-2 or AVI spec and encoding with TMPGEnc or other encoder to my final spec. That's the only way I have found to not disappoint myself.

[davy19]

I am just trying to convert my old VHS tapes to CD Format, maybe I should just hold off until I can afford a DVD writer.

Personally I dont care if it is VCD or SVCD, but SVCD you can put less on a CD, but I can live with that especailly if it is better quality. I did not know VHS is better then VCD, good to know thanks.


Since it seems I will get better quality with MPEG2,

what settings should I use? Too many to choose from? CBR or VBR? What number? I keep seeing all different numbers being thrown around from 500 -2600. Which MPEG2 choice do I pick out of those listed above? I am really confused. I dont understand what the difference between SVCD STANDARD, and MPEG 2 2.0 Mbit? Arent SVCD Mpegs 2? There are also DVD options as well, but I did not list those since not doing DVD.

I dont care much about audio, I mean it is important to hear, but does not have to be the best quality.

Thanks

[vhelp]

davy19,

Just saying OLD isn't enough. What are the contents on your VHS tapes??

* HOW old are these tapes
* what was your source quality, ie Attenna, Cable??
* OLD tv shows
* tv movies
* camcorders recorded (transfered) to VHS tapes

All the above makes a difference in your final quality, and may be the
reason why you are not satisfied w/ your VCDs from the PVR-250, hence
that it may not be the PVR-250's fault, but rather the source quality (given
the above) and then sume - of course.

The above is something to think about.

A taste of transcoding. . .

Here's some more, well, things to try, while you play w/ your PVR-250.
* set your unit to capture at 720x480 and 8000 bitrate MPEG-2
* do like a few minutes of your favorite tv show
* then, once you have an MPEG-2 file (as seen in your exporer as an
.. *.mpeg, *.mpg or *.mpv file.
* now, open up DVD2AVI v1.76 (is the best one w/ very little trouble)
* drag your MPEG-2 file (NOT MPEG-1) into its window
* make sure that under the Video menu, you select NONE
* and YUV selected or checked
* click on File and Save Project and give it a simple name
.. to remember like 1.d2v and wait till it's finished
* once finished, bring that 1.d2v file into TMPG and proceed to encode to
.. an SVCD, by clicking on the LOAD button, and selecting SVCD or is it
.. SuperVideoCD (NTSC).mcf or something like that proceed to encode.
.. You'll be making an SVCD. Now, view the results and see if it's more
.. satisfactory or not. If so, or if you feel like playing around some more,
.. then proceed to LOAD the unload.mcf file (to unlock the ability to
.. revise the SVCD a bit. You can change the bitrate, colors, etc.
.. Colors may need to be adjusted when you transcode. ie, may look a little
.. on the bright side. In TMPG, under Advance tab, go to filter section
.. down below and [x] the Simple Color Correction and adjust the
.. brightness by -/+ 10 points and no more.

The above is what people do when they met their match (not satisified) w/
VCDs.

Play around w/ this new video endeavor for a while. This will keep you
pretty busy. Don't forget to do plenty of searches on this FORUM for
ideas and tips and what-nots.

Have fun.

-vhelp

[davy19]

Mostly TV shows from Cable TV.

Some store bought VHS tapes.

Anywhere from as old as a few months up to 5 years or so.


I guess the reason I am dissatisfed, is I use to have a plain old WinTVGo card, and have made VCD before capturing as an AVI, then encode using TMPGENC, and foud that to be a lot better, probalme is was taking so long to encode especailly on my P3 866, was hoping the PVR 250 would save me a lot more time while stil having good qaulity

[davy19]

Ok I picked this format:

SVCD Standard PLay


And it seems to look much better. Going to stick with this one.

Only downside is supposedly can only store about 35 minutes onone CD, but I can live with that.


a question though, when I am recording and capturing with PVR-250 wih Wintv2000, how do I know when my mepg file is too big to fit one one cd? If it is too big, how do I split it up to multiple cd's? What is the best way to do that? Thanks

[oldfart13]

For an 80 min. CDR I usually try to keep the video file size under 830 Megabytes which translates into Nero as about 695 Meg. Using a custom CQ template, I can usually fit 45 minutes to a single 80 min. CDR which is great for most TV shows without commercials. You might have to take some test samples of your Mpeg-2 first at your final spec (say, 1 minute) and then extrapolate to your final time/file size. That's for CQ. For VBR, you might try programs like FitCD...

[davy19]

Stupid question but what is CQ? I am using Ulead DVD Moviefactory since that came with the PVR-250


I guess my big problem is when I am recording, how do I know how big my mepg is at so far?

When I look at it through windows explorer, it just shows 0 size until winTV2000 is closed down?


Is there something else I am missing?

Is it possible to lets say take 1.5 hour movie which I know will not fit into one SVCD, just capture the entire movie making a huge mpeg file, and then somehow have a program smart enough to split it onto multiple cd's?