backround video artifacts question

[dcapp1]

This is going to sound like a dumb question, but will you please help me. I have a couple of movies that Ive encoded with 2 pass vbr with an average of 3000, maximum of 5000, and minimum of 1150, and I get a file that will fit on the 80 minute cdr. The final product has a lot of backround artifacts, in fact the final product is almost worse than the source. Why is this? The source video is good, and I am not stretching the resolution. Thanks for all of your help.

Oh yeah, would using more passes such as 4 pass in CCE eliminate all of the backround artifacts?

[mats.hogberg]

in fact the final product is almost worse than the source

Of course it is. There's no way to encode to MPEG without getting a result that's slightly worse than the original, as MPEG is not a lossless encoding method.

/Mats

[dcapp1]

Thanks, now on to my next question. The movies that I am talking about are encoded with different codecs, but mostly divx low motion. However, I have other movies encoded to vcd and svcd that are almost perfect. My question is, what codecs should I look for when I load the movie into vdub? Are there codecs that are better than others? Thanks

[mats.hogberg]

When it comes to VCD, the only point that affects your output is the quality of your encoder (and TMPGEnc is considered one of the best) and the source material. DivX is not the best source there is - far from. Straight from DVD to VCD will give you the best possible VCD mpeg. For SVCD, there's much more to play with, loke different VBR settings and bitrates, but at a given bitrate, what affects the end result is mostly source material. Again, DVD is the best source to work from.

/Mats

[dcapp1]

Thank you. Now, I have encoded vcds and svcds with the source being a dvd rip. The source had a lot of backround artifacts from the compression, and the final product wasn't that great. My question: If it says dvd rip shouldn't it be a good quality source because there are some that don't look very good? Thanks

[mats.hogberg]

Yes, a DVD rips are usually of the highest quality, but regardless of source quality, a DivX can be anything from "unwatchable" to "indistinguishable from the original". As there is no DivX standard like VCD, it's up to the ripper to decide what bitrate and # of passes to use in the conversion. As with mpegs, low bitrates (often a DivX is made to fit on one CD, regardless of length) gives you low quality.

/Mats