simply recording MPEG1?

[tokyotony]

Many of the VCD files that I am getting from alt.binaries are of really good quality. However, when I try to make a VCD file from my firewire video camera, I cannot get the same quality. Since I am using a Mac, I first bring in the video as a DV file and then convert it to MPEG1. I am guessing that the coversion process is where the quality issue is.

Is it possible to bring in video from a firewire video camera directly as an MPEG1 file on Windows, or are you guys doing the same basic process that I am doing on my Mac (bring in as a dv file, then convert)?

Thanks.

[negon]

Too bad ya don't use windows...I know of a million methods. As for a mac, i'm sure it's possible, maybe tgpo would know.

[tgpo]

What are you using to convert your video?? What are you capturing with??

Plus I'm moving this to Mac forum.

[galactica]

One thing to keep in mind is that you will ALWAYS have loss in video quality when going from DV to anything. The large size of a DV (ie 30 seconds being close to 500megs) is what makes DV look soooo NICE.

MPEG1 would be the lowest mpeg quality. So its typical to loose quality in this respect. The question is what are you encoding it with/at as far as k/sec of video. Low k/sec means really bad quality.

MPEG2 instead woudl look nicer, but again same thing higher k/sec means higher quality which means higher file size also.

so its really what you want to make.

if its VCDs you have to stick with mpeg1. If you wanted to do SVCD you could use mpeg2. DVD you would use mpeg2 and so on.
I think of it like this.... MPEG1(VCD) will look like VHS (not so good)
mpeg2 (svcd) looks better than mpeg1(VCD) but worse than DVD which looks better than SVCD but can (depending on your rate) still look worse than DV.

make since?

[AntnyMD]

I think what tokyotony is trying to get at is how can he get great quality VCD encoding on a Mac, quality comparable to the stuff he's finding in the newsgroups.

Up until last week, the biggest disadvantage to encoding MPEG-1 material on a Mac was that you couldn't fiddle with quantizer matrices. The new ffmpegX release will let you use Kwag's templates from kvcd.net. In my previous life as a PC user, the best quality VCDs I've ever made were using kvcd templates with TMPEGEnc. So my suggestion is to take your DV material, and try out some short clips in the new ffmpegX and see if it compares in quality with the newsgroup stuff.

[BernieR]

. In my previous life as a PC user,.

This is the first step to recovery!
next step.....

......Uh, hello I'm Antny.......
(EVERYBODY, "Hello Antny")




Bernie

[galactica]

Actually, AntnyMD knows quite a bit about video/macintosh/etc
so id say he's more around step 9....

Step 9: Getting a mac "apple" tatoo on your eyelids so when you close your eyes people REALLY see you are a macintosh user!

[tokyotony]

Thanks everyone for all the advice. I find that I continue to get educated more and more about this stuff each time. So, AntnyMD, are you saying I should use the kcvd preset in ffmegX? I will give it a try.

Also, speaking of newsgroups, it seems that any videos that I am downloading in parts (filenames are like blahblahVCD.mpg.000, blahblahVCDlmpg.001, etc.) with Thoth and then joining them with Rosetta have no "mpeg info". So, when I go to find out how the files where encoded using either the Info function in ffmegX or MPEG Info, nothing comes up.

Am I doing something wrong here? I can still play the files in QT and on my DVD player, though.

[pixeljammedia]

Try demuxing and remuxing the joined mpg. Using BBDMux might be necessary if ffmpegx isn't showing any file info. When joining files, I like to use Split&Concat. D'L it here: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13072 I've found it to be a little less finicky than Rosetta when joining files. Also if you are burning with the Toast VCD option, you may run into problems with non-standard mpeg1 files. (This applies to pre 6 Toast since I don't own a copy of 6 yet) I like to build a VCD xml file in GNUVCDTools, make XA img's and burn them in multitrack XA mode in Toast. It stops all the mpeg compatibility issues.

-Ry

[AntnyMD]

So, AntnyMD, are you saying I should use the kcvd preset in ffmegX? I will give it a try.

I'm recommending you give it a try, yes. I haven't used the new feature yet .. because I've run out of internal and external hard drive space from capturing stuff off digital cable. As soon as I can get down to burning some discs, I'll free up enough space to check out this new feature.

Do a couple of short clips first, one with a lot of movement, and another with normal motion. MPEG-1 seems to perform best on movies where the people just sit around and talk (think Merchant Ivory pictures, not Jackie Chan).

[tokyotony]

I'm trying to convert my dv clips with ffmegX in kvcd and ksvcd and am having problems. I am discussing this in the ffmegX forum.

In the meantime, thanks for the advice on switching the Split&Concat. I am now able to see the MPEG info using the MPEG Info program, (and I find Split&Concat a lot more convenient to use).

I noticed that it is saying that the MPEG1 files that I am downloading are using a bitrate of 104.86 Mbps. Is this possible? Can this be done with kvcd? It seems like creating a file using that high of a bitrate would create a very large file compared to the 1.15 Mbps that my VCD files use.