encoding TV captures - MPEG1 is looking nicer than MP2

[scottb721]

Local TV station is re-running all Dr Who episodes.
I'm capturing them as AVI with VirtualVCR using Huffy/MJPEG codecs.
720x576 cap res with no dropped frames, not even 1. Other than interlacing the AVIs look great.

I'm encoding with TMPGE and I tried 1250 VBR for 3 episodes to a disc but I was kidding myself. It looked terrible.
I even tried 1800VBR but it's still not as nice to look at as the mpeg1 encode of the same footage.

Is this to be expected ?

I tried playing the MPEG1 file on a non-compliant SVCD but my standalone didn't like it.

Is there a way to get SVCD style functionality, menus etc, with mpeg1 files?
Reverse header trick on each mpeg file perhaps!

Thanks

[teegee420]

I'm encoding with TMPGE and I tried 1250 VBR for 3 episodes to a disc but I was kidding myself. It looked terrible.
I even tried 1800VBR but it's still not as nice to look at as the mpeg1 encode of the same footage.

Is this to be expected ?

Absolutely. I never encode as SVCD if my bitrate must be below 1900kbps for the reasons you experienced. Anything lower than that will simply look better as mpeg-1. Better to go with VCD or XVCD.

I tried playing the MPEG1 file on a non-compliant SVCD but my standalone didn't like it.

That's the chance you take when using non-standard specs. Is there a reason why you changed the header to SVCD as opposed to VCD non-standard? Does your player not accept VCD's?

Is there a way to get SVCD style functionality, menus etc, with mpeg1 files?
Reverse header trick on each mpeg file perhaps!

Using the header trick on the actual mpegs wouldn't be a bad idea if you're having trouble playing them on your DVD player but I don't see what that has to do with menu functionality. Author the menus as normal with Nero or VCDEasy.

[scottb721]

Thanks teegee
I didn't realise I could author VCD2.0 the same way I could with a SVCD so all is sweet.