SVCD or XVCD, and which people recommend?

[Trenton_Net]

Hi,

I have the choice to make ether XVCDs or SVCDs. SVCDs are great, but they are encoded in mpeg2. This means that when I try to convert my MPEG2 dat files, to say VCD later on, most programs don't even recognize it. Even for MPEG2 files not converted to DAT, it takes tmpgenc considerably longer to load than mpeg1.

If I make an XVCD with everything the same, but encode in MPEG1, loads of software will be able to read it for future conversion, but the CD as well as the dat file won't be standard and may not playback on hardware decoders correctly.

Which do you recommend I use? I think 480x480 mpeg1 XVCD is probably too unstandard for most anything to play so its not wise to move all CDs like this correct?

Thanks,

[arivan]

I use NTSC SVCD standard specs fro playing in my Pioneer DV-535 and using WinDVD 3.0 in my PC.
I am very satisfied with the results. If you watch the movies in 39" TV set or even in a Projection TV 50" sometimes you cannot tell if it is a DVD or SVCD!
If the movie is letterboxed you can put about 75min in a CDR80. If fullscreen about 55min.
Using CQ65 Audio 128k in TMPGEnc.

[]'s

[thebach]

If you want the best picture quality go with SVCD. If you want to encode faster and get a little more on a disk go with XVCD. Go with SVCD if your going from a good source like DVD. I don't see why you would ever re encode an SVCD to go back to VCD. That would be like trading in a Corvette for an old Volks Wagon. And yes a lot of players won't play XVCD's made with odd resolutions.

[homerpez]

I have a SERVERE problem now with VBR VCD's, either synch speedup/slowdown (TMPGEnc alone), or it's in synch but glitches in remultiplexed movies (TMPGEnc + bbMPEG remux). Someone said I should try MPEG-2, and things should be better.

Since I have an Apex, I went ahead and did an off-spec SVCD. It's 480x480, 128k audio, and an AVG bitrate of only 1080. I did 23.976 encode, then dragged the video to pulldown.exe. My 90 minute movie fit on only ONE CD. (Using CCE this time, 3-pass)

And, to my amazement, the quality was as good, if not better in some ways, than the VCD's I was doing at 352x240, same bitrate! The picture was a lot sharper in places, but never worse than my VCD encodes!

Now, teh only trouble is I'll bet bbMPEG will screw this one up (since I used it to multiplex it, and do the offsets). But hey, even so... 90 minute SVCD on one disc! Not Bad!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: homerpez on 2001-08-25 09:57:02 ]</font>

[John817]

Homeprez,

Did you start with an AVI or an Mpeg2 when converting with TMpeg? When I try it using an Mpeg2 the resulting sxvcd will not play in my apex 600a nor will it play using windvd on my computer.

Thanks,
Little John