How many CD's are you willing to use to get perfect xSVCD's?

[tito13kfm]

Ok.. so I have a 3 hour movie that I want to be PERFECT. The source video is over 6 gigs in size, almost perfect quality. I have been screwing around with 2-pass VBR in TMPGEnc, and am quite dissapointed with the results. I always get times where it seems to misappropriate bits and get blocky.

So I decided to go with a CBR of 3275 to fit about 30 minutes per CD. I just want to know, am I insane, is this TOO much, has anybody else resorted to using 2 cd's per hour to get perfect quality xSVCD's? Should I just break down and get a DVD burner? Do i need the help of a 12 step program?

Ops: delete this post if you feel it is off topic

[drewson99]

if you are the user it is up to you. use 20 discs if you don't mind getting up all the time.

[energy80s]

Use one disc for every 30 mins of video. Use a variable bitrate of 4000 max and 2000 min and CQ of around 95. As long as the source is letteboxed, this should give file sizes of around 790Mb. Better still, use 352x480(576) and have a DVD compliant file.

[dbecker]

you are wasting your time if you are expecting it to play in your dvd player. A typical dvd player will except up to 2500 kps (which if you put it on a 80 minute cd would fit just under 40 minutes of svcd). Now if your dvd player will play xsvcd than you can go up in kps, but check it out on this site how far you can go. I have found that a svcd at 2500kps is a good compromise between quality and size . Remember a typical dvd is 6000+ kps and the audio is 448.

[energy80s]

you are wasting your time if you are expecting it to play in your dvd player. A typical dvd player will except up to 2500 kps (which if you put it on a 80 minute cd would fit just under 40 minutes of svcd). Now if your dvd player will play xsvcd than you can go up in kps, but check it out on this site how far you can go. I have found that a svcd at 2500kps is a good compromise between quality and size . Remember a typical dvd is 6000+ kps and the audio is 448.

Most standalone DVD players support bitrates much higher than 2500. But check out your players manual to see the maximum it will support.

[Gazorgan]

My cheapo APEX will take bitrates up to 4000 (that's where I stopped testing). I run SVCD with a min of 500, max of 3500, and an average dependent upon the movie. 2 Pass VBR in TMPG, I can't afford CCE, and at least I know TMPG.

That is some older movies are poorly mastered from film, so a little blockiness isn't apparent. Where as attack of the clones is a true digital master, so it's a tough call. I typically shoot for 3-4 CD's. I have one movie that's 5, but it's 3 hours long. Some 90-120 minute 3 CD movies are 'perfect', same for the 4 CD 2 1/2 hour movies.

I've tried to go the other way as well, putting 2 hour movies on 2 CD's. It can be done, especially if it's letterboxed. On my 25" TV, sitting on the couch, I can't really tell unless I look for it, the difference between a 2 CD and a 3 CD version. It shows up in backgrounds and slow pans. it doesn't 'showup' in action scenes, because it's hard to see block when the scenes change so rapidly.