XVCD = VCD with higher bit rate?

[vice86]

Hello all...I knew about Divx and VCDs a while ago but just started messing with this whole process this weekend. Burned my first VCD...Beverly Hills Ninja. I didn't know what to expect with the quality but was quite impressed when I stuck it in my DVD player. Only thing I noticed was the little bit of artifacting around type on the screen and during fast shots or certain distance shots. The mpg file itself was 850MB and I used a bitrate of 920.

Now I'm reading about XVCD. Is this the same as VCD just with a higher bitrate...say 1800 instead of the 920 I used for Beverly Hills Ninja?...the whole process of encoding is the same?

Am I better off using the bbMPEG option in Flask or would using the Panasonic MPEG encoder do a better job?

Using Flask...is it better to rip to AVI first for a (X)VCD movie then converting to MPEG or just use the Panasonic/bbMPEG output to go straight to MPEG?

Is it worth getting a SVCD compatible DVD player or should I be good with XVCD?

Sorry for all the questions...just want to get input from you guys that have a lot of knowledge about VCD and such.

[Vejita-sama]

The VCD standard calls for MPEG1 encoded video at 352zx240 w/ video=1150kbit/s and audio=224kbit/s. Change ANY of these settings and you've made a non-standard VCD, aka xVCD. xVCD isn't better just non-standard. If you used 920kbit/s as your bitrate then that's an xVCD.

xVCD can be better of worst than VCD depending on the settings you use.

But yes, the higher the bitrate the better the encode.

[Dhruv]

that movie rocks!

[Yeshi]

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On 2001-10-14 20:04:37, vice86 wrote:
Hello all...I knew about Divx and VCDs a while ago but just started messing with this whole process this weekend. Burned my first VCD...Beverly Hills Ninja. I didn't know what to expect with the quality but was quite impressed when I stuck it in my DVD player. Only thing I noticed was the little bit of artifacting around type on the screen and during fast shots or certain distance shots. The mpg file itself was 850MB and I used a bitrate of 920.

Now I'm reading about XVCD. Is this the same as VCD just with a higher bitrate...say 1800 instead of the 920 I used for Beverly Hills Ninja?...the whole process of encoding is the same?

Am I better off using the bbMPEG option in Flask or would using the Panasonic MPEG encoder do a better job?

Using Flask...is it better to rip to AVI first for a (X)VCD movie then converting to MPEG or just use the Panasonic/bbMPEG output to go straight to MPEG?

Is it worth getting a SVCD compatible DVD player or should I be good with XVCD?

Sorry for all the questions...just want to get input from you guys that have a lot of knowledge about VCD and such.
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You ask if it is worth getting an SVCD compatible DVD player. This should depend on what your source material is. If you are using high quality source such as DVD rip's then definetaly, get an SVCD player. as for XVCD, it is a video stream authored as MPEG-1. It can be any bitrate or resolution, other than the standard, which is 1150. This is what i understand from truman. So you can encode a movie in MPEG-1 stream at 2520 bitrate and 480x480 res, but it will classify as an xVCD not an SVCD

[thxkid]

I encode ALL my VCD's at 2520 bitrate with great results, but remember with higher bitrate results you will get less time on a XVCD, at 2520 you will roughly 40min. on a 80min. CD-R. or 49 1/2 min. on a 99min. CD-R.
I since all my DVD players will play VCD or SVCD I capture now only in the SVCD format because you do get a slightly sharper image over VCD.
SVCD - 350 lines Res.
VCD - 250 Lines Res.

[Kdiddy]

Truly, if you are satisfied with the XVCD that you are making..stick with it, dont waste money on another player UNLESS it is DVD-R & DVD-RW compatible as well as being able to read SVCD format disk....because soon DVD recorders & media will be much cheaper, and it would make more sense to move to making DVD format backups and forgetting about VCD/SVCD altogether.

[vice86]

Thanks for the replies. I can live with the quality of XVCD...I just did Hollow Man at 1350 video bitrate and 192 audio bitrate...I would do higher video bitrates, but I want to keep it to a 2 cd maximum.

[getsome4u]

My question is, using the lower bitrate, are you getting the whole movie on 1 cdr? If so, did you download it as an divx avi file? or just an avi? I sure would love to know how your're getting the movies on 1 cdr if thats what you are doing. I've been trying to do this and keep ending up with coasters.

[vice86]

Well when I did Beverly Hills Ninja I didnt know to much about the setting and stuff. I used a bitrate calculator and it told me to set the bitrate at 918 (I didnt know 1150 was standard video bitrate then) I ripped it from a DVD...I didn't download it. The encoded mpeg was about 850MB and like 90 minutes so I had to spread it on 2 disks. Never said I put it on one...I would have had to set the bit rate to like 750 if I wanted it to fit on one disk and that would be pretty lousy quality. I'd rather swap one or two disks then try to get a movie on one CD.