Need HELP with SVCD Format

[djboricua]

I'm trying to create some SVCD from old home movies, but I'm a little confused with what format should I use. For what I understand, I have to capture the home movies to AVI format (I'm using PICVideo MJPEG codec) at 480x480. Then, when I convert the AVI to MPEG2, should I keep it at 480x480, or should I change it to 352x480? And what about interlace and de-interlace? Which way should I capture, and then encode to MPEG2? Oh, and more more question? What about bit rate? When I encode to MPEG2, should I keep it around 2,500, or should I increase it to about 5,000 or 6,000?
I know I have many questions, but at this point, I figure I better ask for some help, before I continue to get more and more confused. Hope someone can help me.

Here are some of the system specs:

EPOX 8K7A+
AMD Athlon XP 1600+
Windows XP Pro
512 MB RAM
ATI Radeon 64MB DDR (ViVo)
SB Live!

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

[bpjenn]

I would suggest you capture at 320/352x240 to avoid the interlace problem-the quality in my opinion is just as good and your file size is much smaller. If you plan to only playback video on computer then encode to 720/352x480 at 4000kbps (20-25 minutes on a CD and over 2 hours on a DVD) which will make the MPEG2s ready for miniDVD or DVD. Forget about SVCD unless you plan on playback on a standalone DVD player.

[LeeBear]

Nothing against bpjenn but your advice is confusing and makes no sense. Why would you capture at 320/352x240 only to resize it back up to 720/352x480. You might as well just keep the lower resolution and make a VCD instead which will look like a** compare to a SVCD.

djborciua: If you are going to make a SVCD your capture setting of 480x480 is fine although sometimes you can get better quality by capturing at 704/720x480 and then resizing down to 480x480 when you do the encode. If you want to make a SVCD then you should use 480x480 resolution when you encode since if you use a 352x480 resolution you will be making a CVD instead of a SVCD. Most players that can play SVCD should also play CVD so either resolution should be fine. The benefits of SVCD is that it provides a sharper image then CVD, the advantage of CVD is that each frame has less to encode so you'll get less pixelation and artifact noises then SVCD at the same bitrate. Since your source is of old home movies I'll assume it's from VHS or camcorder so it's most likely going to be interlaced material at 29.97 fps. Since you're encoding with MPEG-2 it's best to encode it as interlace instead of de-interlacing, which will make things look blurry. The drawback is that interlace material is harder to encode then progressive so if you are going to keep your bitrate in SVCD specifications (2520 kb/s) you might get pixelation during fast movement scenes, that's why you may want to make a CVD instead. The next question you ask is regarding bitrate. If you want to keep withing specs you have to keep your bitrate 2520 kb/s or under, if you go higher like 5,000 or 6,000 your player or other players may not be able to play it since its out of specs. Most drives on DVD players only read CD's at 2x speed which means they won't be able to handle bitrates that are above the specs. If your player can handle the higher bitrates then you can use it to get better quality but you will be giving up compatibility.

So to summarize my recommendation would be for you to make a CVD, with a resolution of 352x480, MPEG-2, interlaced, with a CBR of 2520 kb/s, or if you need to put more then 35 minutes on a disc then use a multipass (2 or more passes) VBR with a min of 300 kb/s, average of 1800-2000 kb/s, and a max of 2520 kb/s. I also suggest you use some denoise filters and maybe a sharpen filter as well, it can make your old home movies look better. There's a rule with encoding, there is never any 'best' setting so it's best to experiment different material requires different settings. I suggest you take a short 2 minute clip and do some test encodes with different settings (especially the filters) and see what works best for you before encoding the entire thing. Goodluck.

-LeeBear

[djboricua]

Thanks for the help bpjenn and LeeBear. LeeBear I must admit that your reply to my questions really clear my head. Thanks again for such a reply and for how easy it was to understand. When it comes to making VCD, SVCD, DVD, etc..., what works well for someone doesn't necessarily works for others. There are a lot of factors to consider, like hardware and software to name a few. So, I will try different settings, formats, and filters until I'm satisfied with the results. The difference now is that I have a better understanding of what I'm doing, thanks again to LeeBear!

LeeBear keep up the good work.

ps-> Any other comments or suggestions from anyone are welcome!