No SVCD support. How to improve VCD quality ?

[Douglesh]

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On 2001-10-18 07:19:33, T 3 X wrote:
Geeks! Geeks!

C'mon on now... lets put our highly sharpened HB pencils back in our top pockets and calm down.

You make it sound like this issue is up there with world famine.

T 3 X

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what was the point of your post? was it to show us all how much of a dickhead you are?

[Kdiddy]

"OK, say you want to fit a movie in VCD format on 2 CDR's. If you were to do the same thing with an SVCD the SVCD would like much better, ive done it many times, anywayz, SVCD is very good, they can look almost as good as the original DVD, which is why i stay away from 352x240, while it might not be ugly, 352x240 at its best, is absolutely no where near 480x480 at its best, dont try to argue with that one."

First realizing what we are discussing and what it is you are saying....we are discussing VCD ONLY, why is that everyone wants to stray off the topic...so in discussing VCD we mean MPEG1, which algorithms were design to perform better at bitrates around 1.15 mpbs at 352x240 period, that is white book standard....SVCD, is not only MPEG2, but its algorithms were designed to perform better at bitrates around 2.5 mpbs 480x480....do you see the difference!?! you are trying to compare apples to oranges.....now there is a gray area but thats whole another different post.

what we are saying, ONLY mpeg1, because of the way it is design, than a mpeg1 @ 1150 w/ 352x240 will have an better perceptual quality than mpeg1 @ 1150 w/ 480x480, hands down, I suggest you test that out yourself and then come back here.

now if you want to jump to an mpeg2 480x480 discussion then fine, but that same statement is true....but you have to keep in mind for what mpeg2 designed, while yes at a 2.5 mbps,there is a higher ratio of bits/pixel in 352x240 than 480x480 which in theory provides better quality...but again, because how the algorithms work, it provides a better percpetual quality at 480x480....again that returns to my previous statement, words like "perceptual" & "ugly" are all dependant upon the user.

[KoalaBear]

Er, kdiddy...

You do realize Yeshi and Douglesh are the same person, yes?

Lula2001 --

There are plenty of ways to increase VCD quality, but we need to know more specifically what kind of source you're working with. DVD rips? Captures from TV or VHS? Downloaded DivX files?

[CrazyMike]

Great discussion
By the way I know that this is way off topic but if I place a new topic probably nobody would answer to it. So here it goes. I have a denver 311 dvd player that plays SVCD, VCD, XVCD, XSVCD and Mp3. And I wanted to fit a 2 hour movie, from dvd PAL, into 2 cd's. Wich is the best PAL resolution, and settings for TMGenc 12. I've tryed with CCE but it frezees on the 3 pass. Should I still use CCE ? Anybody has a template that can send me ? Or for CCE or for Tmpgenc. Thanks. By the way I tested the XSVCD and XVCD samples they have here and the XVCD semeed a little better.

[brianrous]

I must admit I'm in the "352x240 video at 1150 kbit/s will look MUCH better than 480x480 video at 1150 kbit/s with MPEG-1" camp. However, as far as I can see the only way to settle the argument is for Yeshi to post his encoded files as he offered to do originally (if he can spare the time) - then we can all see the results and judge for ourselves.

[vitualis]

Yes, I too would like Yeshi to post his clips. However, anybody can confirm in their own minds that 352x240 at 1150 kbit/s looks perceptually better than 480x480 at 1150 kbit/s with CBR MPEG-1 by encoding a short clip of both during their next DVD rip. Choose a section with some action and you will see how MPEG-1 trips over its own feet at such a low bitrate at a framesize of 480x480 -- even with the best encoders.

There is an obvious reason why people don't encode XVCDs at 480x480 or SVCDs at CBR 1150 kbit/s.

As for the retort that Yeshi or Douglesh made that 480x480 SVCDs look better than the best VCDs, I don't think that this was ever in dispute. Rather it was the rather extravagent (and wrong) claim that at a bitrate of 1150, a framesize of 480x480 would look superior.

Furthermore, a resolution of 352x240 does not look "ugly" on most TVs. This resolution is already higher than that available to standard VHS. Poor perceptual quality in VCDs come from other factors.

Regards.

[hTK]

Everyone is going APESHIT here, LOVE IT.

Anyway.... I do a lot of converting and in my experience i have found that 352x240 with bitrate of 1150 looks better than a 480x480 with equal bitrate in MPEG1 stream.

The logic is there, more bits are needed to fill the screen at a highter resolution that is why as a rule of thumb they say dont go below a bitrate of 1500 for SVCD's or else the quality is not worth it.

Anyway to answer the original question !!!

- Select the HIGHEST QUALITY option in the first TAB.
- Try changing the GOP structure to 1,1,1,0
- Change Quantize matrix to MPEG standard
- Check 'Use floating point DCT'
- Uncheck 'No Motion Search...'
- Check Soften Block Noise as 40,35

This i found a suitable setting in the simplest form without playing with the resolution and bitrates.

This VCD will be compliant to the v2.0 standard.



-

[Lula2001]

First of all I would like to thank everyone that replied.
I must confess, after reading all the replies, I am somewhat confused.
Many different opinions and suggestions.
And I am an expert on this subject.
I will try to clarify my goal.

MY SOURCE VIDEO FILE :
It comes from a TV advertisements producer.
He shoots with professional cameras and gets Beta digital tapes.
Then goes into AVID (Macintosh), and uses Adobe Premiere.
Output is quicktime (mov) file, compressor Photo-Jpeg , quality High (4).
Resolution can be whatever I ask him : 320 x 240 , 640 x 480 , 720 x 540 .
By the way, file size is pretty big (dependant on resolution).

MY GOAL :
To have these videos burned on a CD-R that is playable on as many standalone DVD
players as possible with the most quality possible.
Since the videos are always small duration, and encoded Mpeg file size is small,
compression is not an important factor.
QUALITY is the most important factor, together with COMPATIBILITY with
standalone DVD players on the market.

I tried encoding with TMPG with VCD (NTSC) specs. Quality was a little under VHS.
I won't discuss quality issues, because I do not have knowledge to do it. But
they ( the producers) were not satisfied, and of course they know what they are
talking about ( they are on the business for 15 years ) . The quality of the original
quicktime file is pretty good.

TMPG has many settings to deal with. I have read the tutorials on this site and
also all the replies from you guys.

So, to finalize, as long as the final MPEG has good quality and is compatible with
most DVD players, and having in mind that in my case, file size is not an issue, nor is
the encoding time, I will go with whatever is best in terms of :
-resolution
-video bitrate
-audio bitrate
-MPEG1 or MPEG2
-VCD or X(S)VCD

and all other TMPG settings under :
-Video TAB : stream type, aspect ratio, rate control, bitrate, motion search
-Advanced TAB : Video source, Field Order, Source Asp. Ratio, Video arrange method, ...
-GOP structure TAB : ....
-Quantize matrix TAB : ...
-Audio TAB : ....
-System TAB: stream type ...

Let me say that there's no problem for me to do as many tests as need, but there are
really many parameters and settings to modify , so suggestions would be much welcome.

I never tried CCE as one of you guys suggested, but if that's the way, I will try it also.

Thank's very much for everyone that tried to help and I appologise if my post may have
lead into discussions, but that was never the meaning of it.

[Lula2001]

SORRY guys, where it reads "and I am an expert on this subject "
should read "and I am NOT an expert on this subject", by no chance.
Thank's again .

[DVD Master]

There is an "Excellent" article about this matter in other forum. I try it and I am very satisfy with results.

http://rilanparty.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7291

[KoalaBear]

Lula2001, would you happen to have a copy of Premiere on your side? If you do, the process could be vastly simplified.

Panasonic makes an MPEG encoder that works as a plug-in to Premiere. It produces top-quality output (arguably superior to TMPGenc) and shields you from having to perform a series of complex conversion between QuickTime and AVI.

If this is out of the question there are other ways to go about the problem, but they take longer and are much more difficult.

[Lula2001]

Hi,
Can anyone else help ?

[kidkurrupt]

Lula2001, so did you try the xVCD at 480x480 w/2500 cbr?
I am in the same situation with you with my dvd player, since i THINK it can't view 480x480 (because when i put an xvcd with 480x480 it just showed a screenful of garbage).

Is there any way to get around this to fool the player into thinking itz a lower resolution? What are some other resolutions i can try (a little lower than 480x480 maybe)?

[DVD Master]

There is an "Excellent" article about this matter in other forum. I try it and I am very satisfy with results.

http://rilanparty.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7291

My DVD player is a Sony that doesn,t read SVCD, but can read this XVCD and it looks very cool.

[vcd4u]

Hi there, since your player doesn't support SVCD as you said before and you're looking for help how to improve VCD quality.
1. First you should have a source with good quality like DVD Rip DVIX files or DVD2AVI files.
2. Used XVCD templates in TMPGEnc like Video CD 1246kbps.mcf
3. Load unlock.mcf if you want to adjust the bitrate settings
4. Use filter functions (it would take long time but produces good quality) and don't forget to set the high quality setting

I hope this would help
Cheer up life is too short!!

[bbb]

Lula,

You never explained what you meant by "VCD template ... does not yield good quality." Do you mean the video wasn't color saturated enough? Has jagged edges? Has blockiness throughout? Blockiness in fast motion scenes only? Is unsharp and blurry? The motion stutters? As such you caused quite a commotion due to your vagueness.

Angry Helpers,

You never bothered to ask Lula about the specific problem and tried to give her seemingly conflicting. Soon, strong personalities (internet anonimity) led to bickering and denounciations, with further escalations to come (actual violence?). Instead, we should ask Lula about the specifics regarding the video problem, contemplate and handout possible solutions, and thank each other for such good advice.

[mh2360]

Hello,

The reason the VCD format died was because the quality didn't justify people replacing their (then expensive) VCRs, the quality was about the same. What i'm try to say is: don't expect miracles from VCD, the people at the Philips labs twenty years ago probably spent a lot more time brainstorming over qualtiy than you have.

[kidkurrupt]

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On 2001-10-21 10:13:09, DVD Master wrote:
There is an "Excellent" article about this matter in other forum. I try it and I am very satisfy with results.

http://rilanparty.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7291

My DVD player is a Sony that doesn,t read SVCD, but can read this XVCD and it looks very cool.
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So basically the article says to use MPEG2 video at 480x480 resolution. Isn't that the same as SVCD's specs? If I can't even view svcd's on my dvd player, how am i supposed to view this?
xVCD's are still supposed to be in mpeg1.

[DVD Master]

What I see is that the author of this post made a trick to allow a DVD player (that is not suppose to decode an mpeg with SVCD resolution) to play this file as a VCD. This is the case of my Sony DVD player. I try it and is really better.

[kidkurrupt]

Yeah, I tried it as well, but there were some settings I was unsure about. In the Setting tab (in the template settings) it says something about Stream Type, what should I set that to?

Better yet, could you please save the template you use when you do this and send it to me? baudoman@yahoo.com

I was also curious on what he meant by setting the Soften Block Noise=100, do I put 100 in "intra block" or "non-intra block" or both ?

Thanx


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kidkurrupt on 2001-10-22 18:40:51 ]</font>

[logar77]

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On 2001-10-19 16:22:59, DVD Master wrote:
There is an "Excellent" article about this matter in other forum. I try it and I am very satisfy with results.

http://rilanparty.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7291
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It does work...took one of the svcd last night and ran it throught the simple mulitplex with vcd setting and it played fine on the dvd player. Looked really nice too.

[Jason A]

Ya know Kdiddy..... you are proving yourself to be an idiot when it comes to your MPEG2 knowledge....

First, you make the statment.."mpeg2 was designed to work better at 2.5 mbps for SVCD"

Well moron...think about this...and got to the MPEG ISO Consortium website and learn a bit....

MPEG-2's original specs were designed back in '89 and finalized in '91....as a broadcast compression technology to be be used in the new upcoming DBS systems...EchoStar (Dish TV) was the first to use MPEG2 in their ECHOSTAR 1 sat. launched in '94......

The DVD format was to be annouced in '95 with April '97 being the finalized date for DVD and players soon followed..

XVCD or SVCD is not even a USA reconized format, however a cheaper China, and Asia alternative so movies could be made cheaper on regular CD's.

Some DVD players have this compatability, most seem not to...it's hit and miss..

So you saying that MPEG-2 is designed for 2.5 480x480 is F'ing stupid....

From what I've read...you're just saying what everybody else is saying with no real input or knowledge to your statments...

Let the people who have done this talk....and keep your Simpleton statements off of here.

Jason

[Antonio S.]

Jason A:
I just have to "REGISTER" to post this. I think that this guy is full of ...., or maybe it is a newbie. Just go to my post in dooms http://rilanparty.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7291
and see all the garbage that he post.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Antonio S. on 2001-10-24 18:36:02 ]</font>

[Jason A]

OMG Antonio !!!!!

He said that 700mb is 80 minutes!!!!!

I bet that he'll say the 650 is 74minutes!!!!!!

That's audio capacity !!!! not video capacity!!!!

He really is full of it....

Jason

P.S. It all depends on the bitrate and amount of compression used......there's alot more factors then just bitrate!!!

[Kdiddy]

and you tlak about me, you obviously need a course in enlgish as well...this is what I said

"80 MIN CDR = roughly 793 MB for video program stream encoding"

"700MB hold 80 mins worth standard VCD information and again STANDARD VCD total bitrate "

As anyone wil tell you the disks com package as reading 700MB/80mins, 650MB/74 mins...but I ASSUME he understood that the second number was video storage which is burn differently.....I love how people like to misquote others here and take things completely out of context w/o reading the WHOLE f*ckin post

"That's audio capacity !!!! not video capacity!!!!"

Actually since you know so much here Jason, you know that this isnt the difference. The is in burning in ISO Mode 1 as oppose to ISO Mode 2.

[Antonio S.]

Jason A:

I am still laughing!!! Do you know that this guy doesn't know the diference between CBR and VBR. He said that it is impossible to encode a 100 min long Mpeg file in a 700 Mb cd-r. Also he said that with a 1x DVD player you can have CBR bitrate of 2500 Kbps. I think that he doesn't know how to sum 1150 + 224 (vcd standard).

[Kdiddy]

Again, you take what you want to hear and completely twist it, first is ENGLSIH your first language, because that is very important your comprehension...again to requote my self:

"you need to check your math & facts, 700MB hold 80 mins worth standard VCD information and again STANDARD VCD total bitrate (1150V + 224A) is 1374 kbps...thus using simple math, anything with a higher TOTAL bitrate results in less time on the disk & and anything with lower TOTAL bitrate will produce more time on the disk....therefore at your settings, with audio at 112, you video would have to be MAX of 800 bps in order to fit 100min on 1 CD"

From here Antonio you have the floor, prove to me with a bitrate Calculator or your Math...where either at your settings of 1600 Vidoeo + 112 Audio, OR, standard VCD bitrate 1150 Video + 224 Audio will allow for 100 min worth of movie at those rates specified will fit on ONE 80 min CD....prove it, you talk how you are right, you have the floor now, prove me wrong.

"Do you know that this guy doesn't know the diference between CBR and VBR."

Again, the floor is yours, lets here you definitions between VBR & CBR?

""1(x) equals 350 BYTES per sec. 8 BITS = 1 BYTE, therefore 1(X) equals a 2800 BITS PER SECOND. dispute that, I would love to see you try. Thus if you TRULY have a 1X player, you can in theory raise your TOTAL bitrate to 2800 and it should play fine...PERIOD."

Upon further of this statement, yes I am both wrong & right. I have no problem admitting when Im wrong unlike others. I should have said that 1(x) = X refers to # of sectors it reads per second = 150. VCD/SVCD is stored in mode 2 form which allows for 2324 bytes per sector or 18592 bits per sector. thus 150 * 18592 = 2788800 bits per sector or 2.788 mbps. Thus this is your theoritical max for a 1X player. Again, read what I asid "in theory" bitrates up to 2.788mbps should be supported, does everything work to its rated max, no. But in theory YES, you can have a bitrate of 2.5 on a 1X player. Again you have the floor to prove me wrong with factual information, NOT opinions.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kdiddy on 2001-10-24 19:18:54 ]</font>

[Antonio S.]

Kdiddy: This is not a simple Math. Because you are comparing Apples with Bottles. Constant Bit rate use same bit rate all time. Variable Bit Rate is variable or adaptive to the complexity of the algorithm use in the Mpeg encoding. This means that the total bits needed for a determine time of encoding will never be the same for diferents movies. Rapid movements in scene, %luminance, % crominance, aspect ratio, etc. can make a diference when determining total bits needed. VBR is more eficient, and cannot be compute very easily with a bitrate calculator.

As for my first language. It is Spanish and I also speaks English and French. I am an Electrical Engineer with a master in electronics, and where I studied classes and books where in English. So if you don't like my English you can post in Spanish and I will be very happy to answer all your questions.

[Kdiddy]

"Variable Bit Rate is variable or adaptive to the complexity of the algorithm use in the Mpeg encoding. This means that the total bits needed for a determine time of encoding will never be the same for diferents movies."

We are not talking about different movies. I am referring to the same movie clip done in CBR & then done in multi pass VBR, the same movie.

" VBR is more eficient, and cannot be compute very easily with a bitrate calculator."

Ok so that I understand you correctly, you are saying that its very difficult to compute the file size/disks needed when using multipass VBR even with a bitrate calculator???

So far you have attempted to answer one point, what about the other 2?

[Antonio S.]

When I talk about 1X I am talking about speed (RPM) of your player. As you should know when Philips invent the audio cd in 1984 they use an "x"speed for the compact disk ( Frankly speaking I don,t remeber right know what speed it is) that allows a bitrate of 1374kbps. Remember that this was a very primitive system, at that time they don't have VBR, Varible speed in their drives etc. Four years later they met the "MOVING PICTURE EXPERT GROUP" people (MPEG) so they can help them compress video and audio so it can be fill in the same space occupied by the PCM audio of the Audio CD. Thats is how the VCD is born. It is not a casuality that the bitrate of the VCD is the same as the audio CD. Remember that Philips just want to modify their players so they may decode video( by just adding an Mpeg-1 decoder chip to their CD players). In a VCD player you must stay with this specifications for proper operation but not in a DVD player. This is because DVD players have "Buffers" and variable speed motors that adjust their speed to the bitrate (remember that VBR was born with Mpeg-2). However first generation of DVD players have a maximun speed of 1X. So you cannot exceed this bitrate ( In CBR) never. In VBR you can excced this bitrate for short periods of time because the "Buffer" may help the decoder. So I cannot see how you can increase your cbr bitrate above 1374 and play this Mpeg file in a 1x dvd player.