Quality of VCD

[ScottR]

Hello,
I'm new to this technology and am looking for some opinions. After ripping my first dvd and converting it to vcd I have found that the quality is pretty bad. Much blurrying and you can see many of the tiny squares that make up the video ( pixels ?). To rip I'm using "Smartripper", to convert "DVDx", and "EasyCD creator" to burn. Are there better free software programs available ? What step is the most crucial that determines the quality of the output ? Any help would be appreciated. Emails welcome. Thanks in advance. Scott

[wolleric]

I don't know about the quality of MPEG video produced by DVDx, but VCDs aren't very good anyway. Download a VCD sample from VCDHelp and check in your DVD player. If the picture is much better then check your DVDx settings. Smartripper has no influence on your video quality. If it's about the same, use SVCD from now on. It gives you much more options to optimize the picture.

[Cole]

but VCDs aren't very good anyway...If it's about the same, use SVCD from now on

I would beg to differ there wolleric, with the settings that can be played around with on TMPGEnc for example, some very good quality VCDs can be produced - obviously never as good as a DVD, but I wouldn't call them bad. For something that is fairly static, a VCD is good enough to use, but for a more action orientated film or programme, I use an XVCD and the results are quite superb at around 2000Kbs on a (compatible) stand alone DVD player, which deals with the blockyness. Plus encoding to MPEG1 with TMPGEnc is free!

[Laddydaddy]

DVDx is not a very good encoder. It is better used as a frameserver. To get better quality vcds us TMPG. You can use the sharpening filter in it to get a crisper picture. Snag a copy of TMPG and use one of the guides on this site. Just remember to use the filters in TPMG or virtual dub if you choose that as your frame server. They really work. 8)