XSVCD...How do I do it right?...

[Moby Ball]

If anyone has been down to www.whatisthematrix.com lately they might have come across their excellent (1000 x 540) MPEG4 *.mov of the MATRIX RELOADED FINAL TRAILER. I have. I would like to encode it to MPEG2 as a high bitrate XSVCD. I've checked out the guides. I've tried things out. I can't seem to get the damn thing to work.

Allegedly my DVD player (RCA RC5240P) can play XSVCD with bitrates as high as 6000-8000kps. Myself, I've never been able to get it to play anything over 2500kps (XVCD or (X)SVCD). I use TMPEGEnc to do the code. I use VCDEasy and Fireburner to do the burn.

What could I be messing up? Can I retain the high quality of the source with a lower (svcd compliant) bitrate? The burns I've made of a 4500kps XSVCD recode have the most astounding picture quality (sound quality is iffy due to my lack of audio engine on TMPGEnc) BUT...they jump!!!

MY TMPGEnc RECODE SETTINGS

VIDEO STREAM -

Stream Type: Mpeg2
Size: 720 x 480
A/R: 16:9 Display
Frame Rate: 24fps (Internally30fps)
Rate Control Mode: 2 Pass VBR
Bitrate: Avg - 4500kps, Peak - 6000kps, Low - 2500kps
Profile & Level: MP@ML
Vid Format: NTSC
Encode Mode: 3:2 pulldown (playback)
YUV: 4:2:0
DC Comp: 10bits

VIDEO SOURCE SETTING -

Video Source: Non-Interlace(progressive)
Field Order: Bottom First (B)
Source A/R: 1:1 VGA
Video Arrange: Custom Centre (720 x 384)

Other than that, I performed a very slight colour correct, and that's it.

I'm not a total idiot, but I don't cap, and therefore I don't do this sort of stuff every day. I've fussed with it but I just can't seem to get this right.

Do I have to use the Inverse Telecine feature? (I hope not) The source is 24fps, so I thought I wouldn't, but I wouldn't know; I've never needed to use it in the past.

Please Help me,

- BriX

[Poplar]

"Allegedly" is the keyword. I heard people say their players can play 720x480(576) XSVCD at 4-7Mbits/s all the time. But my player began to stutter at only 2900kbps, with only 480x480! I am highly suspicious of such claims. Can you read CDRs at 4-5Mbits/s? I don't know.

So you need to find out what the real maximum bitrates for your player is.

The only problem I can see with your encoding settings is that your field order might be wrong. For film sources, it usually is top field first.