What's the difference in (S)VCD Stills from Vcdeasy & Ne

[mstevens372]

Hi Everyone,

I don't really post, but I have a couple of questions that have been bugging me a lot lately!

First, when making a CD of Stills, both Nero & VCDeasy allow you to choose if you want to burn those pictures on a VCD, or SVCD. What's the difference? I know that there's a huge difference in VIDEO quality when you have a MOVIE or something...but what about in Still Pictures? How can there be a difference in quality, if the picture has the EXACT same resolution in VCD or SVCD.

2nd. When using VCDeasy, it allows you to choose LOW quality (352x240) OR HIGH quality (704x480).

Nero, does NOT have the option to choose if you want high quality or low quality, but it doesn't resize the picture to a lower resolution. For example. I put a picture in Nero that had a resolution of 1024x768 and it did NOT resize it to a lower resolution. Does that mean that Nero is better than VCDeasy, and will allow my pictures to look better on a VCD?

[vitualis]

First, when making a CD of Stills, both Nero & VCDeasy allow you to choose if you want to burn those pictures on a VCD, or SVCD. What's the difference? I know that there's a huge difference in VIDEO quality when you have a MOVIE or something...but what about in Still Pictures? How can there be a difference in quality, if the picture has the EXACT same resolution in VCD or SVCD.

The difference is that VCDs need the still images in the VCD still image format (which happen to be encoded in MPEG-1) and SVCDs need the still images in the SVCD still image format (which are in MPEG-2).

The "resolution" of the actual still image are the same between VCD and SVCD and so the "quality" is the same.

VCD stills include both a high resolution and low resolution image in the same file though nothing will just use the "low resolution" image.

2nd. When using VCDeasy, it allows you to choose LOW quality (352x240) OR HIGH quality (704x480).

Nero, does NOT have the option to choose if you want high quality or low quality, but it doesn't resize the picture to a lower resolution. For example. I put a picture in Nero that had a resolution of 1024x768 and it did NOT resize it to a lower resolution. Does that mean that Nero is better than VCDeasy, and will allow my pictures to look better on a VCD?

VCDs support both low ONLY and high+low resolution stills (but WHY would you choose low! ).

Nero simply doesn't give you a choice and defaults to the standard high+low stills (i.e., both high and low res. still images are muxed together).

Also, VCD stills are always 704x480/576 for high res and 352x240/288 for low res. Nero resizes any source images you have to these dimensions. Thus, Nero images won't be any more "higher quality" than any other program that creates still images for VCDs.

Actually, as VCDEasy has a number of great options like the antiflicking option as well as it's excellent resizing routines, you are more likely to get high quality mpeg stills from it than any other program.

Regards.

[mats.hogberg]

On a (S)VCD, you can have mpeg stills in 704x576 or 352x288 (PAL) or 704x480 or 352x240 (NTSC) resolution. Not even Nero can change that . In other words, if you take a picture that's of another resolution than the allowed, Nero will resize it (as usual without telling you...).
So, for stills, there's no advantage for SVCD over VCD. There is, however, (as usual) an advantage for VCDEasy over Nero...

/Mats
P

[mats.hogberg]

When I open a mpeg still created by Nero, QuickTime says it's 704*388 px, and displays it horizontally stretched.

VCDEasy authored stills show 704*526 px but with the correct aspect ratio.

As you can see, even if the Nero version has the wrong proportions (don't know how it will look thru the DVD player) the image is crisper, even if the quality setting in VCDEasy when converting jpg to mpeg was highest. However, file size is 250 kB compared to Neros 341 kB.
The original looks like this, and is (in full) 640x480:

/Mats

[mstevens372]

Looking at those pictures you posted, it looks like the Nero picture is MUCH closer to the original in terms of quality. For instance, if you take a look at the guy's hair, in the Nero version, you can see more detail and clearer strands of hair on his head, but on the VCDeasy, it looks blurry, and with less detail. You can no longer see each individual strand of hair on his head.

You're right about the Nero version looking streched....I guess that could be one drawback, but with better quailty, I think I should stick to Nero.

[mats.hogberg]

To my big surprise, (as my opinion is that Nero is not much good for anything besides burn stuff to CD...) yes, Neros conversion looks much better. Maybe the settings in VCDEasy can be tweaked, but I left all settings at default, and the quality at Highest. Update: I found that the blurry VCDEasy image to a great extent depends on that the anti-flicker setting was at highest (1). When set to lowest, it comes near the image encoded by Nero, but not 100%... Updated the samples above.
However, the size reported bothers me a little - Could this be the explanation why my stand alone refuses to accept VCDs authored with Nero? (At least if I let Nero create some menu image...)

/Mats

[mstevens372]

DAMN! That made a HUGE difference in picture quality. So, at first it was set at 1, and you turned it down to 0, is that it? Damn, it looks better than the Nero version now, and it's not streched.

BTW....I just realized that nero doesn't create mpg pics...so how did you get that picture that you said nero created?

[mats.hogberg]

I burned to image with Nero, then opened the .nrg with IsoBuster and extracted the ITEMXXXX.DAT files. Then just renamed them to ITEMXXXX.mpg and opened with QuickTime and took a screen dump. Same procedure for VCDEasy .bin
That was yesterday.
Today, when I attemted the same thing, the screen dump turned out empty where the picture should be, but I found that ACDSee could read mpeg stills quite nicely.

/Mats

[vitualis]

The "deflickering" option basically works by removing some high contrast detail between adjacent horizontal lines -- basically "deinterlacing" the image. Depending on how much you do it, it will remove detail (but the image won't "flicker").

How much flickering you get does depend on your image... I find that natural images (e.g., photos) tend not to flicker much anyway so I don't normally use the deflicking option at all...

In its "raw" form, VCDEasy produces stunning quality MPEG stills.

Regards.