picture quality

[double07]

thinking about getting a good video card for my computer. when i watch a mpeg1 movie on my computer using windows medea player, it looks great, untill i make it full screen, then it gets fuzzy. by putting a good video card in my computer, would the card enhance the picture quality? if it would enhance the picture, can i run a/v cords from my video card to my tv and get a nice picture to watch?

[Thomasm67]

No such luck. MPEG1 has a low resolution and doesn't look any better even on Grade-A+ equipment. Consider capturing in SVCD format, which is about the quality of SVHS and has a vertical resolution equal to that of DVD (480 lines on NTSC, 576 on PAL). Only the horizontal resolution is lower (480 compared to DVD's 720). SVCD looks very good even in full screeeen mode.

[double07]

was told that turning a mpeg1 into a svcd, would not get you any better quality

[snowmoon]

Turning mpeg1 into SVCD will probably look worse. Making SVCD from 480x480 captures will look much better than VCD. I would argue that SVCD is like SVHS as much as VCD is like VHS. Don't get me wrong all of my captures are in SVCD.

[double07]

but you can't take a downloaded mpeg1 movie and make the quality any better, you are stuck with the download quality. correct??

[GLADIATOR 2002]

You can make the quaility better by using virtual dub and filter use for all practicality. But how much improvement you can make depends on alot of things.

[sergiosjr]

I have a Pinnacle PCTV ( PCI ), a Pentium III 550 Mhz, 40 Ghz, 128 ram and the resulting quality of my VCDS is bad. I´m using a Panasonic VCR Camcorder as source.

Is there is something to do to increase quality ?

In settings, which is the better way to capture - pinnacle RT or Miro XL ???

PS When I try to make a movie in the standard VCD Mode ( 1150 kbps, 352 X 240 an audio 224 ) the sound don´t sync with video. But when I do at VCD 1130, 352 X 240 and sound at 192 it's ok - but the sound output is baad ... What is wrong ???


Thanx a lot...

[kawapiro]

FIRST YOU DON'T SAID WHICH ENCONDER YOU ARE USING I SUPPOSE THAT TMPGE .GO TO TEMPLATE AND DOWNLOAD THE SEFY AND SHIZZON TEMPLATE AND TRY IT. IF NOT TRY TO MAKE YOUR OWN TEMPLATE WITH THIS SETTING 480X480 29.97 OR 24 FPS (WORK FOR ME)224 AUDIO ,MPGE2 SUPER VIDEO CD 44100 OR 48 HZ, CHECK ERROR PROTECTION IN AUDIO,QUANTIZ MATRIZ CHECK FLOATING POINT DCT,AND MPGE STANDAR, IN GOP FORCE PICTURE SETTING TO 150 ( will some time ),IN ADVANCE USE GHOST REDUCTION(P 1000 OR - 1000 S 127 OR -127 AND B 1) NOISE REDUCTION DEPENDS OF THE QUALITY OF THE MOVIE YOU ARE ENCODING RANGE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TO ME , IN CUSTOM COLOR USE YUV IN VIDEO YOU MUST CALCULATE THE BIT RATE YOU ARE GOING TO USE VCD CALCULATOR I SOMETIME USE 2496 FOR ALL PICTURES IN CBR OR MANUAL VBR, ON DC COMPONENT PRECISION USE 10 AND HIGH QUALITY OR HIGHEST.ALWAYS USE PREVIEW TO SEE HOW IS YOURS ENCODING SETTING BEFORE START OR ENCODE SOME MINUTES ONLY.
NOW THE FAR YOU SEE THE MOVIE IN YOUR COMPUTER THE BETTER IS GOING TO LOOK TO YOU MY ADVICE BUY A GOOD DVD DON'T USE YOUR COMPUTER TO SEE MOVIES.
I HAVE POST A SIMILAR TOPIC IN CONVERSION BECAUSE THE PROBLEM I HAVE IS THAT I CAN'T HAVE THE SAME QUALITY IN ONE PICTURE SOME SCENES GET WORST THANT OTHERS .
HOPE THAT THIS COULD HELP A LITTLE TO YOU

[sergiosjr]

From my pinnacle PCTV ( pci ) I'm encoding with the included software DC 10 plus...
but the final quality is bad, with a lot of squares...


I have also a Creative Video Blaster Moviemaker and the quality is great but the software is a little suck... I can´t add subtitles in the timeline...

[kawapiro]

sorry for the caps people i just find that in not right.in a nasty way but i found it

[speedy]

If your goal is to watch MPEG on you TV and you don't have a video camera invest in a CD burner (better video card won't make any difference) and make VCD or SVCD disks. If you are starting with MPG as the source file it is CRITICAL to first convert to AVI. This will prevent transcode errors and minimize file detoration.

Use VirtualDub (free) to convert your source MPEG file to AVI and clean up the video with the various filters. In addition to what is included with VitrualDub several people have written additional plug-ins providing more filters including an unsharpen mask similar to Photoshop as well as level adjustment and other goodies. What combination of filters and what settings depends on your source video. There are no magic values that work with every source file.

After you render the file in VirtualDub use TMPGEnc to convert to a VCD or SVCD. Many articles already posted here on how to set it up. It is easiest to burn the CD in Nero 5.5 which also allows adding a menu.

MPEG-1 (VCD) video you attempt to view on a computer monitor at double size or full screen will almost always have blockiness. Using Microsoft's Media Player is a poor choice to view MPEG-1 files. One reason is its all or nothing. You're stuck view at normal size, double size or full screen with nothing inbetween. Other viewers allows you to either bump up the size in steps (120% 150% 180% etc.) or you can drag the view screen manually and make it larger, but stopping before the blockiness creeps in. Just drag a corner on the diagonal and you can have it fill any portion of your monitor screen.

A nice little application that allows both and is also a converter and simple editor is VCDCutter.

To view SVCD (MPEG-2) on a computer mointor you need some DVD player like Power DVD.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: speedy on 2001-10-24 18:30:33 ]</font>