VCD vs SVCD 1600

[PlaiBoi]

I was wondering...which produces better quality results? A standard VCD (1150 CBR 352x240) or a SVCD with 1600 avg. 700 min. and 2520 max? I'm trying to get the best quality possible while fitting 120 min. onto 2 CD-R's. With VCD 120 min. will leave the 2nd CD only about half full...so i was thinking about SVCD at 1600, which will fil up the CD completely. Which gives better quality? Or, should I just increase the bitrate of the VCD to about 1500 and make it an XVCD? Any info would be appreciated..thanx.

P.S. I encoded a VCD and a SVCD 1600 and am comparing them at the moment...just looking for some other opinions/tips also.

[bugster]

IMHO, there is no correct answer to this question. Quality is a very subjective matter and it is really up to the individual which is preferred. My suggestion would be to encode the same (short) clip 3 times using each of the described settings, burn each one to a CDRW (so as not to waste a disk) and watch them one after the other on your DVD player & TV and decide for yourself which is best.

[PlaiBoi]

I did the samples right now...and noticed that the SVCD at 1600 avg. did look the best out all of them...the XVCD second...and the VCD last (of course)...but they all looked GOOD. The VCD did not look horrible...the others just looked better. I was thinking of using the XVCD, but ive decided not to, because I dont want to have trouble playing it on relatives and friends dvd players later on. If i KNEW that VCD at 1600 cbr was VERY compatible, then I would probably use it...but i dont know that...does anyone else know? What majority of players do you think will play this xvcd? The XVCD sounds better because I dont like the long encoding times of 2-pass VBR. I have a Duron 850 and it takes me about 18-20 hours to encode a 2-hour movie. I would much rather cut that in half and use CBR.

[paulgab]

You can also try CVD 352x480. They say that it will produce same quality with SVCD using lower average rate because of the reduced hrizontal. You might want also to lower your min rate into 300~500kbps for a better quality result. BTW if you are concerned about the long encoding time using 2-pass vbr, try CQ (single pass).

[PlaiBoi]

I'll give CVD a shot..the only problem is compatibility again...CVD is not required to be compatible on R1 players...so alot of my friends/families players may not play it. I use a min. of 600 right now...is that too high? I've thought of using CQ, but, I dont know what to set the quality at...and its unpredictable...is there anyway that i can know approximately what settings to use for CQ to make sure it fits on 2 CD's?

P.S. Im in the middle of a 2-pass encode right now. SVCD 1680 avg. 600 min. 2530 max. and lowered the audio to 160. If this looks ok...i might stick to this. But..if CVD will give me same results at lets say 1600, then ill be happy...so i can increase my audio back to 224.

[paulgab]

If your player can play SVCD, there should not be any problem playing the CVD. There is an article on this forum that says CVD came first and the SVCD standards known today were "tailored" to be compatible to that of the CVDs.

I've done several encodes of CVDs already and so far result is ok. No noticeable difference, compared to SVCD, even if encoded at a slightly lower ave. rate.

Re min rate, again from this forum, ideal value is 0 but then not all decoders can take this low, might pose a problem during playback. recommended is 300~500kbps.

[PlaiBoi]

Do you fit your movies onto 2 CD's or do you go for three? What avg. min. max do u use? Audio? thanx

[tenders]

try this: http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=119210&highlight=

[PlaiBoi]

wut does that have to do with my VCD vs SVCD 1600 question?

Your posts are really starting to bug the shit outta me. Anytime i see you post something, its you advertising that damn guide. Stop it already!, damn!

[energy80s]

The simple answer is that MPEG2 looks shite below 2Mbps. So if you want to run at 1.6Mbps use MPEG1.

Next ...

[SatStorm]

Not neccessary, if you use VBR. That way, some scenes may have more than 2000kb/s and the static scenes gonna have the lowest bitrate you set . Don't talk for CQ modes here (which I don't like them)

The lowest bitrate which can support correct a still picture, is about 1000kb/s for CVDs.
So, a interlaced mpeg 2 with 1000 minimum, 1600 average 2200 maximum gonna look OK I believe for a typical 16:9 movie, compared a typical VCD or an mpeg 1 xVCD with the same vbr/bitrate combo.
For most 16:9 movies, those settings are ok, and if you manually riseze to 320 X 544 (kill the overscan area that way), you have excellent picture even on lower bitrates
I was able to do CVDs with an average of 1100kb/s (shrek, Matrix, Highlander 4, Metropolis, Final fantasy, Cats and Dogs, etc) that way and they really look excellent!

For 4:3 home movies, it is impossible to have a good picture with those bitrates. You go vcd/xvcd/xsvcd (like sefy's SxVCD) or you go about 2800kb average CVD for good results (3500kb average some times are neccessary)

Overall, it is strongly depends of the nature of the source.

[paulgab]

I also did some comparison between XVCD@1700 and CVD@1700 2P-VBR and I give XVCD a notch. In my case, I agree to this

@energy80s

The simple answer is that MPEG2 looks shite below 2Mbps. So if you want to run at 1.6Mbps use MPEG1.

I was trying to convert my Star Wars I VHS into VCD, finally decided to go XVCD and the result was great! Cant go CVD/SVCD coz It wont fit on a 2CD if quality is taken into consideration

[energy80s]

Yes, xVCD is the way to go with low bitrates. Even 2496kbps (the standard SVCD/CVD bitrate) isn't wonderful with MPEG2. I currently use 2000 min and 4000 max with CQ100 mode in TMPGenc at 352x576 (CVD res). This gives about 30 mins on a standard 80 min CD-R and the pics are superb. Again this is viewed on a TV screen. On a monitor you need the 704 horizontal resolution to get a crisp picture. Unfortunately this also means upping the bitrate to virtually full DVD standards (well over 8000kbps anyway). With TMPG the VBR mode doesn't give great results, so I would go with the CQ mode there. In CCE use VBR only.

[DJRumpy]

There is little technical difference between the compression and encoding methods of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. MPEG-2 supports additional features, but the actual guts of the thing are the same. Two MPEG's, encoded at the same resolution, and the same bitrate, should produce the same quality (this of course, assumes the encoder produces the same quality..it's known that CCE has problems with MPEG1..looks like crap).

That said, SVCD has over twice the bitrate of VCD, with less than twice the resolution, meaning more bitrate for your buck. If your choosing between the two, go with SVCD.

If CVD is an option (most new players support CVD as the buying community gets more savy on formats). CVD allows even more bitrate for video, since your using less resolution than SVCD, while retaining it's max bitrate.

[SatStorm]

Just to add that mpeg 1 and mpeg 2 looks the same with the same bitrate/framesize if the source is progressive.
Interlace needs in praxis a little bit more bitrate for the same framesize

[DJRumpy]

As someone was nice enough to correct me (thanks hwoodwar: ), SVCD IS more than twice the resolution of VCD. I should be more careful. Lets try this again.

That should read that "CVD has more than twice the bitrate of VCD, with less than twice the resolution ..."

(okay, okay..now I'm confusing myself...nevermind... )

[PlaiBoi]

hmm....sounds interesting. I compared some clips and the SVCD and XVCD looked pretty similar to me. The only reason i chose to use SVCD was because of compatibility (and a little cuz i liked the quality more). With SVCD i was still staying in standards, but with the XVCD i was not. So i might have problems playing on friends dvd players, etc.

@energy8s,

ur pretty crazy man. were not talkin about super duper quality here, its like your trying to reproduce dvd quality. 30 min. on one cd is SHIT! 4 CD's for a 2-hour movie...HELL NO!