Question about quality loss

[Wicked-n-Twisted]

I authored a dvd from vcd using Ulead moviemaker.Everything turned out pretty good(thanks to baldricks great guide).The only thing I encountered was the video quality loss.I know that the framerate on dvd runs higher so Ulead had to re-encode the video resulting in the afformentioned quality loss.I have bits of the picture at times turning into unviewable blocks of various colors.My question is how can I minimize this loss in quality?If I use the lowest burning speed will that help out?I`m relatively new to this stuff so I`m not sure of exactly what I can do.I appreciate any info I can get on this. Thanks

[honorarybrutha]

use tmpgenc to encode, then ulead to author.

[macleod]

you WILL get quality loss going from DVD and VCD. DVD is 720x480 with bitrates > 5000. Your vcd is 352x480 with static bitrate of 1150. If you STILL want to make a VCD, my ONLY recommendation would be to decrease the video watcheable real estate (turn a full screen into a widescreen) There are a few guides that can show you how to do that.

Burning speed has nothing to do with the quality loss (other than a defect on the CD causing pixelation or something, but lets rule that out and talk about the textbook DVD to VCD). I would also recommend using a "real" encoder like TMPGENC, CCE, or main concept. I am saying this not to say that movie studio isnt a real encoder, but at least some people will agree that those 3 encoders are better than movie studio. Kinda like using nero to encode, generally, its a bad idea.

If you want to maximize your success, I would recommend getting an application called dvd2svcd, load the VCD template, download TMPGENC (I believe that the VCD version of TMPGENC is still free, but its been a long time since I have dealt with TMPGENC) and try that out.

[SaSi]

I authored a dvd from vcd using Ulead moviemaker.Everything turned out pretty good(thanks to baldricks great guide).The only thing I encountered was the video quality loss.I know that the framerate on dvd runs higher so Ulead had to re-encode the video resulting in the afformentioned quality loss.I have bits of the picture at times turning into unviewable blocks of various colors.My question is how can I minimize this loss in quality?If I use the lowest burning speed will that help out?I`m relatively new to this stuff so I`m not sure of exactly what I can do.I appreciate any info I can get on this. Thanks

I think that the other responses missed out the important issue in your question. You are trying to create a DVD from a VCD, i.e. create a high bitrate-high definition medium using material (video/audio) from a low bitrate-low definition source (VCD).
There is no way you can "improve" the quality of the VCD source. Re-encoding into DVD format means take the 1.5Mbps source and re-encode it into 5Mbps or more. Whatever encoder you use for that cannot generate a quality loss (well, almost).

I think that what you refer to as quality loss is the magnification of the pixels the VCD video is made of. As stated, VCD is 352 wide. DVD is 720 pixels wide. VCD (I understand) is 288 pixels high (or 240 for NTSC). DVD is again double that. This means that the DVD video created is made of pixels 4 times as large as the original (2x2), which probably is what you see as large blocks.

The best thing you can do is re-encode the VCD from MPEG-1 into DVD compliant MPEG-2 at 352 x 240/288. Use a VBR encoding method of 2.500kbps average with a 500kbps min and a 3.000kbps max. This will simply create a DVD compliant DVD video stream without altering the image size. The bitrate increase will ensure that the encoder will not fool around with actual image quality.

You should try Tmpgenc (use the guides on how to make DVD compliant video encoding) and a DVD authoring tool. Again, Tmpgenc's DVD authoring tool is free to try and looks quite good.

As you are new to this, get prepared for some frustration in the beginning, but insist and it will go away. In any case, post questions !