help a newbie: divx to mpeg problems

[tweeter77]

Hi,
I am trying to encode a 320x240 29.751 fps avi using the vcd ntsc template in Tmpgenc and am getting really poor results. This VCD is for a friend to play in his home DVD player. I encode about 30 seconds of the clip (which is 28min), then I abort and watch it in PowerDvd. The image quality has degraded alot: there is an orange tint to the picture, there is a significant amount of noise introduced, there is blockiness, and it seems there may be some stray pixels (particularly noticeable with shots of peoples faces).

Some things I have done to try to fix the problem:

1. Read and followed all VCD guides on this site.
2. Scanned the video for errors with Virualdub.
3. Tried bitrates from 1150 to 2200, both variable and constant (Tmpgenc).
4. Applied filters with a variety of different settings and combinations (soften block noise, sharpen edge, noise reduction in Tmpgenc)
5. Tried all motion search settings (Tmpgenc)
6. Used gspot to determine if I had any missing codecs (none) and d/led nimo and installed the lite version.

My computer: Athlon 1.4, 512MB RAM, 64MB Nvidia Geforce2 Ultra(latest drivers), and no apps running in background during conversion.

The problem is definately in the encoding, as the clip looks great when I preview it or watch it in PowerDvD before conversion. I have used VCDEasy to create .bin file then I burned w/ Nero at 2x, and I get the same result on a home DVD player (not that the problem is a burning issue anyway). I have spent hours on this problem. Can anyone help? Let me know if you need more info from me.

Thanks,
Aaron

[crahak]

I have yet to see a VCD that looks really good... You _might_ have some problems with your settings, or maybe it's just that you're not a VCD person?...

[tenders]

if your friends player supports svcd's, you can try this: http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=119210

[secretagent]

the problem is your source is 320x240 and you are forcing it to be 352x240. if you want to retain the original quality in tmpeg, under the advanced setting for your video choose center/keep aspect ratio. instead of full screen. then your original will not be reencoded rather a small box will be put around the picture but it will have no degrading