What Bitrate/Resolution to use on a VCD for older computers

[neilpercy]

Hi all,

let me explain. I am producing a video project for a University, delivering on DVD for presentations and CD's to be given away at recruitment fairs etc.

The DVD is only 7 minutes long, so comes out at about 500 MB, so it would easily fit on a CD as an MEPG2 file.

But after reading this topic VCD Authoring and Compatibilty Issues
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=192573

I decided to go with an MPEG1 file and the autorun solution involving the mplayer2.exe file from Vitualis, as this seemed the most universal.

(I had to modify the 'open=' to
'open = c:\program files\windows media player\mplayer2.exe videofile.mpg' for this solution to work, as just mplayer.exe on it's own wouldn't work -at least on Win95 and I think the others ? I am sure (from my old dos days) that there is a way to use enviroment variables to determine the path to mplayer or the default program files drive/directory but endless searches last night didn't produce many reults.)

My problem is that size isn't an issue (for once) as the video file will easily fit on a CD, but what Bitrate/Resolution combination will work on the most amount of computers.

A high Bitrate/Resolution doesn't play well on my old 133MGhz Win95 Laptop - stuttters but plays - whereas a lower Bitrate/Resolution combination doesn't look as good on my 3GHz Xp machine.

I have tried :

352x288 25fps CBR 1850kbps, Layer-2 44100Hz 256kbps.mpg
which is the least quality, but plays on my Dinosaur Laptop.

352x288 25fps CBR 4000kbps, Layer-2 44100Hz 256kbps.mpg
which struggles on my Laptop but plays fine on my Win98 P2-300Mhz,not much in the quality of both on the Win 98 machine.
(not sure if the increased bitrate helps the picture much but doubles the filesize.)

and

720x576 25fps CBR 5000kbps, Layer-2 44100Hz 256kbps.mpg
which gives excellent picture quality on the 3Gig XP, but struggles a little bit on my Win98 P2-300 and really struggles on the old laptop.(filesize only a little bigger than the last one , but really good picture quality.)

So my rather long-winded question is, where do I pitch my quality. What sort of machines do people tend do have, or do you Video producers assume people have these days.

Am I the only one who still has these old machines around. I was on the P2-300 until earlier this year when I built the new XP machine for editing purposes, it did everything I needed amd I am a PC enthusiast with TONS of software!

I have toyed with putting all three onto a disk, as they will fit, and building a front end to give people a choice something like in this post

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=177605 or an html file

but I have to deliver tomorrow, and I am not sure I can putup with another sleepless night when I am almost there.

Sorry for such a long winded first post.

Any thoughts. Always much appreciated. Been reading for a long time and learned loads.

cheers,
Neil

[epo]

VCD is 352x288 25fps CBR 1150kbps, Layer-2 44100Hz 224kbps. Poit.
For PC-oriented CD with video, MPEG isn't the best solution. There are easier formats for PC to handle.

[neilpercy]

@ epo

cheers, I appreciate what the basic VCD standards are, but thought that as size isn't an issue, I thought I'd try and get as much picture quality in as possible.

Also the Mpg format means it could also be read on a Mac if necessary.

What other formats would you suggets? wmv (?) or something similar ?

I am not saying that all the computers will be old wrecks, but curious as to what level people would pitch their videos at? 1gig machines, 2gig? these could all easily handle my largest file mpg.

chees

[bugster]

IMHO, it all depends on your target audience.

Its for university recruitment fairs, so I guess its aimed at prospective students?

If so, I would target a min spec of an 800Mhz PC. This is probably lower than most students will posses but caters for the few that may have slightly older equipment.

You should be able to provide DVD quality on a machine of this power but there is something else to consider, though probably no too important.

Using autorun as you suggest, the video will play directly from the CD. Therefore the speed of the CD drive becomes a factor.

Encode your video in mpeg-1, 640*480, using 2-pass VBR max 4000, min 500, avg 3000 and it should look pretty good and play on most machines around at the moment.

Or, if using TmpGenc, CQ mode gives pretty good quality too. Use CQ 75 or 80, max 5000 and you should be fine.

[Gazorgan]

Whoa, stop the presses.

Do you honestly want anyone from a recruitment seminar that doesn't have at least a Pentium II and is running something newer than 95? Stop trying to be compatible with antiques!!!

MPEG2 won't play on 90% of the computers out there. ESPECIALLY if you are calling Mplayer/2 to do it. The codec is not natively supported with any Windows system.

If you want compatibility then it's either MPEG1 or one of the lame AVI codecs from 1996 that have horrible compression. You only alternative is a standalone player that has embedded codec support.

[freestyler]

why dont you try and put together an autorun html file that says somethin like PLAY HIGH RES / PLAY LOW RES?

I'd probably do somethin like that...

-Free

[neilpercy]

@ bugster

you pretty much understand where I am coming from.

I went with my -

MPEG-1 352x288 25fps CBR 4000kbps, Layer-2 44100Hz 256kbps file

made with TMPGEnc PLus, seemed a fair compromise. Quality was pretty good, but maybe playback window was a little small. But as given out to prospective students, the message gets across anyway so seems OK. will have a look at your settings.

@ Gazorgan

you're right, I should stop worrying about the antiques, as I am sure there are very few out there really (it seems I've got most of them )

But this is my first time as an overall producer ( I am a TV camerman by trade - hence the concerns about image quality ) and I really didn't want to give the client anything to complain about, as the discs are for worldwide distribution, and the message gets across anyhow.

Although the client still hasn't got the finished article back from the dupilcators yet, I only dropped it off today



@ freestyler

toyed with the html idea idea and the excellent autorun file here :-

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=177605
(played around with that for hours last night, but couldn't get one of the buttons to launch the university website or that would have been a goer)

but I just wanted the file to autorun straight off, no choices.


cheers for all your input