Is thequality better converting from VCD to DVD?

[ljCharlie]

Any chance the quality will be better if I decide to convert my VCD to a DVD+R? I would assume that the quality will be the same on a DVD converting from a VCD, but that's only my assumption. I wonder if there is a way to make the picture look better on a DVD converting from a VCD.

Any help is appreciated.

ljCharlie

[teegee420]

It will not look better. In fact, if you try converting the vcd 720x480 mpeg-1 to mpeg-2 it will look far worse. You're better off resampling the audio to 48000hz using an authoring program. There's no need to convert the video, as it's already DVD compliant in terms of resolution.

[ljCharlie]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm not sure what resolution my VCD is in but I believed it's not 720x480, it is something by 320 only. That is why I wonder if I covert or resample to 720x480, will the resolution get worse or better since it was originally record at 480x320, I think?

ljCharlie

[teegee420]

Forgive my mistyped previous reply. What I meant was that if you converted your VCD mpeg-1 (which is probably 352x240) to a DVD mpeg(720x480 mpeg-2) the quality would look terrible. You are better off leaving your mpeg as is and merely re-sampling the audio so you can author it to DVD.

[ljCharlie]

Thanks! One more thing, why I would want to resample the audio track? What's the benifit in that?

ljCharlie

[Gazorgan]

Because you have to. All DVD audio is 48 khz. Whereas VCD/SVCD is 44 Khz.

VCD MPEG1 video is DVD standard (as opposed to SVCD MPEG2 which isn't). However, VCD audio isn't standard at 44 Khz. If you resample (but leave it MP2) it to 48 Khz, then you can author it as DVD video.

Don't convert the video, it will only look worse.

[duhmez]

Check out svcd2dvd
(it does vcd too)
it will dpo the audio for you and leave the video alone.

[ljCharlie]

Thank you. I'll give that a try.

By the way, since VCD quality are a lot lower than DVD quality, it is possible to put in like 4 VCD worth of material in one DVD+R by using Adobe Encore, correct?

ljCharlie

[mmasw]

Thank you. I'll give that a try.

By the way, since VCD quality are a lot lower than DVD quality, it is possible to put in like 4 VCD worth of material in one DVD+R by using Adobe Encore, correct?

ljCharlie

if all you're doing is resampling the audio, you should be able to get 6 vcd's worth of material on a dvd.

As far as possibly converting the video from mpg1>mpg2: while it's true that you would be recompressing and as such would technically degrade quality, it is also possible that you could "improve" the video.

By that I mean if your vcd has some appearence problems, an application of filters during the re-encode can help. I've had vcd compliant mpg1 that was too dark/light or too much/little color saturation and by applying the contrast and brightness filters or saturation filters in TMPGEnc, sometimes along with sharpening the images, I've improved the 'watchability' of the video. I'm not claiming I have improved the quality.....just some arbitrary aspects of the video.

There is also no "rule" about the resolution having to be full dvd spec. When I've done this, the resultant MPG2 has had a resolution of 352 X 240 with an 1150Kbs bitrate. So you don't have to drastically degrade the quality by quadrupling the resolution, as was the example discussed in this thread.

[ljCharlie]

Thanks!

ljCharlie