avi quality good, (S)VCD sux

[dmprice]

capturing videos at 480x480 29.97fps from vcr rca connections to wintv pci card. the avi video i get looks very nice, but when i convert it to S(VCD), the quality is terrible - svcd is no better than vcd. when played on dvd player on tv (north america), the picture is blurry and blocky.

using virtualdub, tmpgenc, and ahead nero. any suggestions on how to improve the quality?

[reboot]

What exactly are you doing in VirtualDub?
What settings are you using in TMPGEnc?

[dmprice]

VIRTUAL DUB: capture to single avi file (winxp -> no limit on avi size)
AUDIO:
audio compression: pcm, 44.1khz 16 bit stereo 172kb/sec
VIDEO:
video format: YUY2, 480x480
source: composite, NTSC_M
compression: no recompression
all other settings default
CAPTURE:
frame rate 29.97
lock video stream to audio
all other setting default

TMPGEnc: used to convert avi to S(VCD)
-PROJECT WIZARD
video type: non interlace
aspect ratio: 4:3 525 line ntsc
content of video: video movie
EXPERT SETTINGS:
VIDEO:
bitrate: constant
motion search: motion estimate
ADVANCED:
field order: top field first
all other settings default

AHEAD NERO: burning CD.

[ZippyP.]

I suggest you use some filtering during your conversion, either using Vdub and then frameserve it to TMPGEnc or use TMPGEnc's noise filter. Noise that you may not see in your avi eats up bitrate and causes blockiness. Filtering will add time to your encode. What bitrate are you encoding with? SVCD max?

[wulf109]

Your specs doesn't give the bitrate that TMPEG is using for video encodeing. What is the length of the avi your endoeing in minutes. Normal SVCD only allows for about 40 minutes.

[dmprice]

yes, using max bitrate in TMPGEnc.