640 x 272 DIVX Conversion to get decent svcd

[jupita]

Hi

I am trying to convert a DIVX Movie with the above format to SVCD. Whenever I try it I get really poor quality. There is a sequence in the film where a load of shields for a few thousand people can be seen.

In the AVI it looks great, but in my SVCD I get loss of detail.

The details are as follows. Im using TMPGENC 2. I have tried all sorts of things. My last attempt was to use 2-pass VBR with av bitrate 2400 and max 2600. I kept the movie at 640 x 272, hoping to utilise the xsvcd capabilities of my wharfedale m5 dvd player. Unfortunately this doesnt work properly either but thats another matter. I think the 640 x 272 was too much for it ; either that or the VBR was too great. Ive heard rumours of 2600 being too much for it.

It is a bad idea to convert the movie to 480 x 576 (pal) say as the movie isnt stored at that detail. This would make the movie more std but would mean that my rip ends up being of a greater resolution than my AVI.

Im after help in getting teh best quality on 3 cds. My movie is 130 mins in length and the divx summary shows it as 168.142 kbps (video bit rate). The movies is also ripped at 23.976 fps and I am converting to 25fps.

Regards

Darren

[Shabubu]

I would resize to 480x576 with letterboxes so that the actual film bit isn't a greater resolution than the original, this can be done in vdub (then framserve to TMPGEnc), avisynth or in TMPGEnc itself. Secondly I don't think you can have too much bitrate, it just means your movie goes onto more CD's. Thirdly converting framrates always screws things up, so be very very careful when you do it (I think you have to use a telecine tyoe thing but I've never had to do it so I don't know). Also, if you encode in CCE multupass, you can manually dedicate more bitrate to that section, or you could only encode that bit in TMPGEnc with a much higer bitrate, do the rest as you normally did, then join them up afterwards, though that's being a bit complicated.

[Hateslife]

Shit dude, converting that obviously NTSC film to PAL is a -seriously- bad idea.

First, the framerate conversion... Most programs, including TMPGenc, just double the last frame if you convert from 23.97/24 fps to 25fps. It totally screws up the video, makes it kinda funny looking, not smooth.

Second, the wasted resolution. Your movie is already a lot less than SVCD vertical resolution, at PAL SVCD, you have more wasted pixels than used pixels. Pointless.

Third, most DVD players will play PAL or NTSC stuff and convert it as it plays, so there's no reason NOT to use NTSC film with pulldown

You'll have no problem getting it on 3 cds... At maximum standard-compliant quality, one gets a little less than 45 minutes on a 80 minute cd.

[elaum]

For this source the best result will be to convert to anamorph NTSC. A source of 640x272 (square, PC) pixels equals 480x272 on NTSC/SVCD. As others have commented, the NTSC framerate is also better suited for film material.
If your TV doesn't support 16:9 you'll have to convert your divx to 480x204 letterbox. This obviously loses some detail.
If your only option is PAL, convert to 480x362 (anamorph) or 480x244 (non-anamorph).

[jupita]

Hi

In the end I tested some scenarios on my dvd player and resized to do some testing. It seems the framerate isnt an issue anyway. Itc copes with NTSCFilm so I didnt bother there.

I found that I could only get my DVD player to play at about half a dozen resolutions. The one I opted for was 352x240. I pushed up the framerate and compressed it as MPEG-2. This made it an SVCD technically although not in resolution terms.

Basically the resolutions I have tested that worked are
720x576
720x480
480x576
480x480
352x240
352x288

Has anyone go an idea on what other resolutions mught be supported by my player, so that I can try them.

Thanks everyone!

Darren