For best results What format SVCD or DVD

[TimACK]

Although comfortable with film editing I'm somewhat new to digital. I'm trying to make a series of instructional videos using a sony DV camera and Vegas Video. (I've used the sonic foundry stuff). The original footage is fine but I rendered a test project in VCD format and was not happy with the resolution. So I burned an MPEG2 VCD from Vegas although I knew it might not play in my DVD player and the resolution was great but the playback was very choppy(as expected). For the best end product to master should I just bite the bullet and buy a dvd burner or can SVCD format give me the resoution with my CDRW for a master file? And what would be the best program to create the file (either dvd or Svcd in since Vegas can't do SVCD? ( I blew my tmpenc 30 days for mpeg2 use before I figured this stuff out and I tried the panasonic encoder but it didn't play back in my panasonic cv52 dvd player) Sorry for the lengthy question and thanks in advance to those who respond.
Tim Parsons

[geek rock]

well, it depends how much quality you want. you say you're encoding from DV files, so I imagine these are pretty high quality. how long is your average file?

SVCD is, by all means, a fantastic method of video disc playback if you can't afford a DVD burner. you're only really limited by the 35-40 mins you can fit on a disc, though. aside from that, you're getting near-dvd quality on a very cheap medium (30 cents a CDR)..

on the other hand DVD burners are coming down in price pretty much daily. Plus as you're encoding from DV your resulting DVD's will look very good.

what i'd suggest.. try making a couple of encodes in SVCD format and play them back on your TV in a compatible SVCD player. if you're happy with the quality, fine.. if not, think about upgrading to a DVD burner.

also a good tip, if you have the hard drive space for it, is to encode DVD resolution files as well as SVCD ones so you have them for easy reference. that way if you decide to upgrade to a DVD burner, you can just take the mpeg's straight off your hard drive and burn instead of re-importing and encoding again.

as for the TMPG plug-in, i'm sure that you can find a way round that.. ask around on these boards

-Mark

[reeljim]

I too have found the same problem with svcd's...I was producing to mpeg2 format and burning with the high resolution. The playback was choppy on my dvd player but the resolution looked as good as the original AVI. I took the same AVI file, produced to mpeg2, and ran through the nero mpeg encoder - the svcd played smoothly, but the resolution was bad! Any thoughts? I just ordered Vegas Video 3.0 hoping I could fix the problem!

[TimACK]

ReelJim - Vegas 3.0 cannot create a SVCD format disc so I am also struggling with what program to use that can take the mpeg2 file from Vegas (which looks great) and turn it into a SVCD file I can play on my DVD player. (obviously I shouldn't waste my time with Nero?)

[reeljim]

The problem that I am finding (and someone correct me if I'm wrong) is that when we produce the AVI file to mpeg2 the resolution is saved as 720 X 480 (same as the original AVI file). When burning a SVCD, you must take the 720 X 480 (mpeg2) and convert to 480 X 480(mpeg2) becase that's all that is capable on SVCD - no matter what program you convert with...which is why we are losing resolution. Looks to me like we need to bite the bullet and ask Santa for a new DVD burner for Christmas!

[yg1968]

Ulead DVD Movie Factory can burn to SVCD. A new version (2.0) is coming out in a week or so (early December 2002).