A couple of questions regarding TMPGEnc

[mikeweb]

I just go The Fast and the Furious avi today (about 700mb) and I want to make it into SVCD's. Ive played around with TMPGEnc a bit aswell as reading all the guides on the left. But I still have some questions, they are:

1) Ill be watching this on my TV (4:3) so what do I set the aspect ratio to? 1:1 VGA, 4:3 525 (NTSC), ect..

2) Should I use 2 pass VBR, (settings Avg, Max, Min), CBR, ect...

3) Should I use noise reduction

4) Should I soften block noise (found in Quantize Matrix tab)

5) 2 cd's or 3cd's?

Also if im forgeting anything please let me know since Im still a Newbie but not for long.

[bugster]

1) Source aspect ratio for a divx is ALWAYS 1:1

2) 2-pass vbr gives the best quality for the filesiz, but takes longer to encode than CBR or CQ. MAX 2520, min 200 AVG, use a bitrate calculator

3) Unless it is a VHS rip that is V. Noisy, no.

4) Up to you, I wouldn't unless the 1st encode looked very blocky, then I would re-encode with it on.

5) Up to you, depends on length of movie and what quality you will find acceptable. Higher (average) bitrate = higher quality

HTH

[mikeweb]

Is it best to have a lower min then a higher min? In other words should i put the min setting to 200 or for example 1200?

[bugster]

Yeh, set the min bitrate fairly low, 200 SHOULD be OK but I have read on these forums that a few players have problems with really low bitrates on SVCD's, so try one disk and see what happens. Otherwise a min of 500 should be fine.

[banjazzer]

1) Ill be watching this on my TV (4:3) so what do I set the aspect ratio to? 1:1 VGA, 4:3 525 (NTSC), ect..

Source aspect ratio 1:1(VGA). Leave the video settings alone, except motion search precision=high quality. Don't forget the Full screen (keep aspect ratio) setting.

2) Should I use 2 pass VBR, (settings Avg, Max, Min), CBR, ect...

2-pass VBR if you have the time. It is extremely slow, and the less specified your hardware, the longer the time! Good settings to start off with are min=1200 max=2496. Use a bitrate calculator (or TMPG's wizard) to calculate the average bitrate. You should aim to get no more than 50-60 minutes per 80 min CDR (<795MB)

CBR is much quicker, but you get about 40 minutes per disc.
Use CQ if you want quality in a short time, and are handy with a calculator and OK with basic maths.

3) Should I use noise reduction

No. If there are problems with the source, you are unlikely to be able to do much about it. Any filters will slow things down significantly.

4) Should I soften block noise (found in Quantize Matrix tab)

No. See above.

5) 2 cd's or 3cd's?

Make your decision from what I said above. CDRs are cheap, and your time should be valuable. 8)

[guv]

Are you not now using CCE John? Have to say I am suprised if you are not! For speed and quality it must be superior to TMPGEnc?

[banjazzer]

For mpeg2 I now use CCE, but I've spent more time with TMPG than CCE, and this is probably what most people are using.

CCE is certainly much faster than than TMPG, which is why I use it, but I don't think there is a great deal of difference in quality in everyday use. Obviously if you want to tweak the settings, which you can do in CCE, then you have the edge. However, it's a question of diminishing returns, and as it is, I don't find enough time to watch what I already encode and download.

And at the risk of starting off WW3, many think that TMPG's CQ mode is superior to TMPG's 2-pass VBR, and maybe on a par with CCE. 8)