TMPGEnc , Easy CD Creator, and quality issue

[John Devine]

Hello, I have made several attempts to produce a 4 minute
vcd but the quality of the vcd when played on my Pioneer
dvd player on my Sony TV really sucks. Does anybody else
have a quality issue?

My source video is a 4 minute volleyball tape shot with
Sony Digital HI8. I imported this .avi clip to TMPGEnc
and loaded the VideoCD(NTSC) template. As you know, you
can only tweak a couple of settings with these templates.
I set the quality to 'highest'. I set the aspect ratio to
4:3 525.

What determines the quality? TMPGEnc or Easy CD Creator?

Anyone have some help? Thank you.

John

[Sefy]

TMGPEnc is what controls the quality, but what controls it most is the quality of the source, the higher quality the source is, the higher quality the VCD will be.

[ngnr]

Sefy speaks the truth. Although Hi8 can give good results, it depends on what you are capturing. Without seeing your video, knowing it's a volleyball game, I would guess there's a fair bit of fast motion in it. That is always hard to encode well. By the way, what resolution are you capping at? That can make a big difference also.

[Sefy]

As ngnr mentioned, the higher resolution you capture. the more chances the VCD will look better, since the encoder will have alot more information to work with.

Most people I know tend to do captures at 352x480 minimum, or 480x480, and some even higher, as long as you capture the full vertical scan.

[John Devine]

Thanks for your replies. OK, so we've narrowed the quality
issue down to TMPGEnc. The resolution cannot be changed
when using the templates in TMPGEnc. So, I cannot tweak
anything other than the 'highest quality' setting, which
is what I've done with lousy results.

As far as my original footage, I have shot a lot of Digital
HI8 and it the the best consumer video available next to
DV, so my original video is not the problem here. My volleyball highlite tapes play on the local cable tv.

I wish there was a way that I could make my own settings in
TMPGenc so that I could raise the bitrate. Does anyone know
how?

And Sefy, I can't use the Svcd template because that converts to MPEG 2 which you cannot make a vcd with.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

John

[ngnr]

Hi John. I understand you have a good source with digital 8; I have one also. However, how are you getting the video into your PC? With firewire or anlogue capture? If analogue, what resolution are you capturing the AVI at? If analogue, are you using any compression on the AVI when you capture it? If so, what type and level of compression?

Despite the high quality of the video itself, and how good it looks when played back from the tape, the fast motion scenes can/will still be blocky at when compressed to VCD rates. So, if you are prepared to go outside STANDARD VCD you can change the bitrate and make an XVCD. I can't recall from memory the setting in TPMGenc cause I don't use it that much and I'm not at my own PC but it's probably something like "VCD non-standard" which will allow you to adjust the bitrate. Adjust it up and see what effect it has but just be aware that once you go outside the standard, there may be compatibility problems with some players, although it should play fine on your PC. For more info, if you haven't already done so, you may want to check out some of the XVCD guides on the site. There's one here http://www.vcdhelp.com/tmpgencxvcd.htm

[Sefy]

Hi John, well, you could load a Template and then load the unlock Template (located in the "Extra" folder) and then you can do changes to the regular Templates.

As for my Template, it may create a VCD like MPEG2 file, you can just burn it as non-standard SVCD, or you could use the SeVCD which uses MPEG1 and the only diffrence is VBR.

[lusid]

You can also try the "soften block noise" setting, starting at about 35 on each and working your way up.

If the camera was stationary, you can probably tweak it to look OK, but if it was hand held I don't think VCD is going to work for you. Too much motion.