VCD quality issue ...Help sought

[Powershot75]

TESTING PHOTODEX - proshow gold ver 2.5.1620 TRIAL

I have images with crystal clear, high resolution. But when the final video (VCD format with encoding quality - high quality) got created and viewed in the PC monitor they look very dull and grainy. (same thing with MemoriesOnTV 2.17 and photo2vcd latest). I tried viewing the final avi in someother pc with xp and TFT monitor and the video looks bad. The quality of the avi is very very poor.

Do you think that by

(note : I DO NOT HAVE DVD WRITER, PLAYER OR ANYOTHER DVD STUFF, since the OS is win2k, I can't try Microsoft Photostory 3....)

a) installing a good ENCODER the video file (MPEG-1, for VCD) would have been a good quality. If yes, what is the best encoder for this purpose. But the Proshow Gold does not seem to give an option to select ENCODER....i have tmpgenc free encoder already in my PC.

b) Reduce the dimensions to fit TV screen using any lossless JPG program would be better ?

c) What is the solution please - to have a better quality VCD (MPEG-1). The images are high quality and crystal clear.

Please give me your valuable advice..

Thanks in advance.

[Soopafresh]

I had the same thing happen when creating a Photo VCD. You can try batch processing your original pictures to 352x240 resize with slight sharpening and see if the encoding works better.

Xnview is a free program that will batch resize and apply sharpening to picture files.

[Powershot75]

Thanks for the reply.

Any other comments/suggestions from other members will be highly appreciated.

How do I know, which encoder is being used while creating .AVI ? and how to change the default encoder to see whether the output is better with some other encoder ?

Come on guys, you can help...

[the * dude]

nooo, don't resize to 352x240, vcd supports high res 720x567??? guess what ever the us eqiv is....


create the mpg stills using VCDEASY, authour with too if you wana, you can control the final size of it too if you still get prob then resize the pics with an external prog........

[Powershot75]

Thanks dude.

I could use vcdeasy for creating photo slideshow. But I want to use Proshow Gold or MemoriesonTV or Photo2VCD to take advantage of the transition effects, captions and ease of use.

Once the avi or mpeg file is created by them, I can use VCDEASY or NERO whatever for CD writing.

But my problem is the video output AVI/MPG file is VERY POOR which I am testing before writing on the CD itself.

Any ideas please...

[junkmalle]

I think you're expecting too much from VCD. It's a low resolution format (352x240 NTSC, 352x288 PAL). No matter how good your source is VCD looks like crap. Try stepping up to SVCD (480x480 NTSC 480x576 PAL). That more closely resembles the resolution of standard TV.

Also keep in mind that televisions use a much higher gamma than computer monitors. So you expect the (S)VCD to look "dull" on the computer.

[bugster]

I think you're expecting too much from VCD. It's a low resolution format (352x240 NTSC, 352x288 PAL).

But it can also do 704x576 or 352x288 for still pictures. (Thats PAL, NTSC would be 704x480 or 352x240)

It still won't look as good as the originals though.

You could see if Soopafresh's idea of resizing before encoding helps, but resize to the larger supported size.

[junkmalle]

I think you're expecting too much from VCD. It's a low resolution format (352x240 NTSC, 352x288 PAL).

But it can also do 704x576 or 352x288 for still pictures. (Thats PAL, NTSC would be 704x480 or 352x240)

It still won't look as good as the originals though.

You could see if Soopafresh's idea of resizing before encoding helps, but resize to the larger supported size.

You can put 704x576 and 352x288 MPEG on CD media, and it may play in most VCD/DVD players, but it does not conform to the VCD spec.

[bugster]

I think you're expecting too much from VCD. It's a low resolution format (352x240 NTSC, 352x288 PAL).

But it can also do 704x576 or 352x288 for still pictures. (Thats PAL, NTSC would be 704x480 or 352x240)

It still won't look as good as the originals though.

You could see if Soopafresh's idea of resizing before encoding helps, but resize to the larger supported size.

You can put 704x576 and 352x288 MPEG on CD media, and it may play in most VCD/DVD players, but it does not conform to the VCD spec.

Well, according to this , for still pictures, it does conform to the VCD spec.

[dinkob]

I am guessing that you are trying to author photos or like a slideshow for your VCD.

Wasn't this the recommended tool?

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Philips_VideoCD_Toolkit

(using it is a big pain in the butt, it wouldn't take my tmpgenc mpeg's unless they were demuxed by bbmpeg or I had to reencode them - and yes must CONFORM 100% Standards - no cheating)

As for the encoding question yes the good encoder makes a difference.

For VCD's 100% Cinemacraft Encoder Basic definitely.

TMPGEnc is smoother but CCE Basic is sharper and colors are more vibrant (yes even on VCD)

MainConcept was also a choice of some but I don't like it because it burrs the picture (or I did something wrong)

Experimenting on CCE Basic is very easy as they simplifeid it as much as possible - so if you opt to use this encoder just remember to change offset line setting from 1 to 0 (by default is 1 which will remove the scanline and reverse the field order - for VCDs this will LIFT your PICTURE UP).

[junkmalle]

I think you're expecting too much from VCD. It's a low resolution format (352x240 NTSC, 352x288 PAL).

But it can also do 704x576 or 352x288 for still pictures. (Thats PAL, NTSC would be 704x480 or 352x240)

It still won't look as good as the originals though.

You could see if Soopafresh's idea of resizing before encoding helps, but resize to the larger supported size.

You can put 704x576 and 352x288 MPEG on CD media, and it may play in most VCD/DVD players, but it does not conform to the VCD spec.

Well, according to this , for still pictures, it does conform to the VCD spec.

Bugster, I appologise. I have been able to verify that VCD 2.0 (White book) does indeed support the higher resolution for still images.

[junkmalle]

Powershot75, I don't know the software you're using, but computer monitors have a very different gamma setting than televisions. That makes video look dark and dull on the computer. Your software may have simply adjusted the brightness so the pictures don't get too bright and washed out when viewed on a television. Burn a sample to a CD and watch it on TV to see how much brighter it looks.

[bugster]

I think you're expecting too much from VCD. It's a low resolution format (352x240 NTSC, 352x288 PAL).

But it can also do 704x576 or 352x288 for still pictures. (Thats PAL, NTSC would be 704x480 or 352x240)

It still won't look as good as the originals though.

You could see if Soopafresh's idea of resizing before encoding helps, but resize to the larger supported size.

You can put 704x576 and 352x288 MPEG on CD media, and it may play in most VCD/DVD players, but it does not conform to the VCD spec.

Well, according to this , for still pictures, it does conform to the VCD spec.

Bugster, I appologise. I have been able to verify that VCD 2.0 (White book) does indeed support the higher resolution for still images.

No apology required, we all make mistakes. Its learning from them that makes us better people. I make mistakes all the time and, hopefully, learn from at least some of them

[Powershot75]

Thank you soooooooooooooo much.

So many of you have really tried to help me. I really feel very good to have got good advice from you all.

Last night, I tried to resize some 10 snaps using JPEGCROP ( 352 x 288 ) and saw them using IRFANVIEW. They look grainy. Then I realised that the poor quality is not due to ENCODER or the applications. But the resizing of very large size photos, into smaller ones make the photos look dull and grainy. Hence the output from the avi/mpg is poor.

In this case, only option left is CROPPING instead of RESIZING. I will crop the photos to fit the dimensions for SVCD/VCD and if they look better in IRFANVIEW, the result will be better otherwise NOT.

I will post the RESULT on monday.

[Nelson37]

VCD supports 720x480 for STILL PICTURES ONLY. No Transitions. If you want transitions, you drop down to 352x240.

Are the transitions worth loosing 75% of your picture information for?

If so, suggest make a DVD-compliant XSVCD at 720x480 and 48k audio, many players will handle it and you will be all ready for your DVD burner.