Question regarding converting a DVD 2 SVCD

[noaht1980]

ok im gonna convert a dvd2svcd and the movie is

Christmas Vacation http://us.imdb.com/Title?0097958

the movie is 97 minutes and its fullscreen

im gonna be using TMPGEnc and using a CQ template i got from jakes website
vcdhelp.us and i was wondering to get 2 full 800mb cd's what CQ # should i
use

70,80,90,100


Also what should i use for min bitrate and max bitrate?

I have the video file and audio file ready to put into TMPGEnc so any help on the above would be appreciated

[poopyhead]

use CQ 70....anything above that is overkill.....

if you use above that CQ, you basically will be encoding as if you're using CBR...(i.e. rather than having VBR allocate the necessary bitrate for each scene, you're just gonna tell the encoder to give every scene the same, or nearly the same, bitrate....) a high CQ will do that...resulting in a slow scene (i.e. end credits) getting more bitrate than it needs, which means that those bitrate are wasted because they could've been given to a high, action scene that needs higher bitrate...

[noaht1980]

use CQ 70....anything above that is overkill.....

if you use above that CQ, you basically will be encoding as if you're using CBR...(i.e. rather than having VBR allocate the necessary bitrate for each scene, you're just gonna tell the encoder to give every scene the same, or nearly the same, bitrate....) a high CQ will do that...resulting in a slow scene (i.e. end credits) getting more bitrate than it needs, which means that those bitrate are wasted because they could've been given to a high, action scene that needs higher bitrate...

ok so i will use a CQ of 70 but what should i use for min bitrate and max bitrate?

Right now the settings in TMPGEnc are

Min bitrate = 900
Max bitrate = 2520

is CQ70 and
Min bitrate = 900
Max bitrate = 2520

Will these make a good 1600mb file for this 97 minute fullscreen movie?

[poopyhead]

first of all, you need to know that CQ isn't very good w/ predictable filesizes...as it's purpose is to maintain constant quality...hence CQ, it's still VBR because the same quality for 1 scene may require less (or more) bitrate than another scene....however, it's file output size is not that predictable....

if you want predictable filesize (and also higher quality than CQ), then i suggest you go with 2 pass VBR and using a bitrate calculator to determine the avg. bitrate you should use to fit on a certain number of CD-Rs....however, this will double the encode time, so unless you have a pretty fast comp, this option may not be right for you.

in either cases, your max bitrate is good..however, trying setting your min bitrate to 200. this will allow the encoder to assign low bitrates to really slow scenes (i.e. end credits) that don't need very much bitrate....with the current min bitrate you have of 900, you will be forcing the encoder to give even slow scenes that bitrate, even though they may not require so much....you should have a wider range for your min/max bitrates (w/o going out of standard specs, of course)

btw, i've only been able to fit max of 795.61 MB / SVCD disc using nero, so don't aim on being able to fit a full 800 MB / SVCD .... there's some overhead that you need to account for....unless you overburn, but that's a risk only you can decide

[noaht1980]

first of all, you need to know that CQ isn't very good w/ predictable filesizes...as it's purpose is to maintain constant quality...hence CQ, it's still VBR because the same quality for 1 scene may require less (or more) bitrate than another scene....however, it's file output size is not that predictable....

if you want predictable filesize (and also higher quality than CQ), then i suggest you go with 2 pass VBR and using a bitrate calculator to determine the avg. bitrate you should use to fit on a certain number of CD-Rs....however, this will double the encode time, so unless you have a pretty fast comp, this option may not be right for you.

in either cases, your max bitrate is good..however, trying setting your min bitrate to 200. this will allow the encoder to assign low bitrates to really slow scenes (i.e. end credits) that don't need very much bitrate....with the current min bitrate you have of 900, you will be forcing the encoder to give even slow scenes that bitrate, even though they may not require so much....you should have a wider range for your min/max bitrates (w/o going out of standard specs, of course)

btw, i've only been able to fit max of 795.61 MB / SVCD disc using nero, so don't aim on being able to fit a full 800 MB / SVCD .... there's some overhead that you need to account for....unless you overburn, but that's a risk only you can decide

I just use CQ cause i have a 600mhz pc so with CQ70 its gonna take me 16 hours so if i were to use 2 pass VBR that would cause a 32 hour encode wich to gain a little on quality isnt worth the extra 16 hours to me

so far i have encodec 3 minutes and my filesize so far is 38.8MB so 97mins devided by 3 = apprx 32 so 32x38.8 = 1216MB wich seems really low maybe i should higher my CQ#? or do you think it will be ok since there isnt much action in this movie

[ZippyP.]

so far i have encodec 3 minutes and my filesize so far is 38.8MB so 97mins devided by 3 = apprx 32 so 32x38.8 = 1216MB wich seems really low maybe i should higher my CQ#?

You can't take a 3 minute clip and extrapolate that for the whole movie. High action scenes will use a higher bitrate and low action will use lower rate. Final file size depends on the amount of action in the entire movie, don't think a random 3 minute clip will represent the whole thing.

Edit: If you think that the whole movie is low action then you can try a higher # but there is some risk, your choice.

[noaht1980]

so far i have encodec 3 minutes and my filesize so far is 38.8MB so 97mins devided by 3 = apprx 32 so 32x38.8 = 1216MB wich seems really low maybe i should higher my CQ#?

You can't take a 3 minute clip and extrapolate that for the whole movie. High action scenes will use a higher bitrate and low action will use lower rate. Final file size depends on the amount of action in the entire movie, don't think a random 3 minute clip will represent the whole thing.

Edit: If you think that the whole movie is low action then you can try a higher # but there is some risk, your choice.

Yeah considering there is no action at all in the 1st 3 minutes of the movie you know with credits and then like 1 minute of the movie so im just gonna let it keep encoding at CQ 70 so far its 6 minutes into the movie and so thats 1/16 the total movie and a filesize of 76MB so 76mb x16 = 1216MB so far after 3 minutes and after 6 minutes the filesize times how much encoding i have done is 100% same outcome 1216mb but there is some more extensive scenes later in the movie so im sure it wioll end up more then 1216mb

[gmatov]

Noah,
Why don't you just let it run, go to bed, check it after work tomorrow and see if you like the outcome? You might just like a disk and a half of good q convert. When you don't watch, they run like hell, 'specially if you're sleeping.
I have copies I told DVD2SVCD to make into 2 800 meg disks which came out 2 1/2, some, 1 1/2, or thereabouts. The disks play well and look good.
I am not using separate audio/video streams. Mine are straight rips of my DVDs, vob, ts, etc.