Just got VCD running, now lets move on...

[elokus]

Ok hello all, I just wanted to share my experience so I'll tell ya'll that I just did my first attempt to make a VCD (all must have past through this) out of a avi file I downloaded from the internet and I'm looking for better things, so I'll need some help here since I'm not a guru on this burning movies to cds thing.

This is what I did... I Donwloaded 2 144MB .avi files for the movie "Behind Enemy Lines". I read here that I could burn the VCD with Nero on a common CD-R, so I utilized Nero 5.5.6.4 + SKC 80min CD-R. Nero took care of the encoding process for the wich took the same time as each part of the movie last: 50mins (I don't know wich format it uses and how big the resulting file was); afterwards nero continued controlling the process and burned it to the CD-R (Samsung CD-R/RW SW-408B).
After all that finished went to the TV room and inserted the CD-R into the DVD, a light turned on "VCD" and the movie started. I sat down to watch some of it.

I noticed some little blocky squares just as I do on my PC when I play the .avi files, their not THAT anoying, also noticed that the sound was only in "Stereo" so I selected the 3DSound option ON from the DVD player to have somewhat surround possible. As you can tell results weren't that amaaaazing but good since now I can see these movies on the dvdplayer (ah! forgot to tell you it's a Samsung DVD-V1000).

Now the real deal is this, I was thinking about which are the steps to take in order to get better performance out of the encoding process and the DVD itself.
Could it be possible if this is already been asked to give me the link to the post or could I get some guidance from any experts around here on what to do now?
(like if I should let nero handle encoding, should I stay with VCDs only, go for XVCDs, wich templates should I try in order to get better quality in image and sound, etc)...I'm very willing to learn this new things for me,

Thnx in advance
PS-> forgive my not that great english I'm from Central America.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: elokus on 2001-12-17 13:01:32 ]</font>

[flaninacupboard]

*thinks about posting something helpful*
look, just use the frame on the left.

[elokus]

been doing that (reading) and some test also...shame the encode process is so slow.
Just though I might get some other information in here about wich would be the steps to test the DVD 1 at the time, anyways thank you. I'll keep on reading the left panel.

[siaododo]

Don't use Nero to code your file. It sucks. It gets really blocky. Try using Tmpegenc to code your AVI files to mpeg. Use the VCD/SVCD templates that comes with the program. You will like the results. You can also download Sefy's SXVCD/SeVCD templates for Tmpegenc. They will give you better result than having Nero does it for you.

[elokus]

Ok I'll continue the testing, thnx

[elokus]

I just made up a SVCD(PAL) and changed the bitrate so it would fit on 1 CD using the bitrate calculator (this was the 2nd part of a .avi movie file)...the bitrate was something like 1963, went to play it and even thought the DVDcomparison list shows that the Samsung DVD-V1000 doesn't play SVCD it ran ok (didn't see the whole movie though but it recognized the CD as a VCD and played it).
Now that I know my player can go with SVCDs scratch the VCD and XVCD formats, I'd like to get tips on how to improve the image of this movies on SVCD format (as for now I was advice to keep the SVCD in NTCS format, bitrates between 2300 and 2400 and audio rate between 194-224)
Any other thought about this, thnx in advace...

[Sefy]

Best way to handle DivX files, get VirtualDub and TMPGEnc, open your AVI and select Save WAV, load TMPGEnc, then open your AVI as the Video Input and the WAV as the Audio Input, then select an appropriate Template (VCD/SVCD,whatever..) and Encode!

This will be faster and MUCH higher quality then using Nero's encoding! and you can use Nero to burn the file when you are done.

Either way, that's what I do.

[w00kiee]

by the file sizes you stated the origional avi was likely on the blocky side.. so you are starting off with mediocre source.. you can run the noise filter built in to tmpgenc to kinda blur out the blockiness. there are also links to great external filters that fix blockiness as well. kinda tries to message the crap in crap out rule. (mpeg4 [divx/navi] basically tries to keep as much of the picture as close to the source as posible - usually by keeping most of the bitrate to the detailed areas and using less bits (resulting in blockiness) in large less detailed areas) running the filter smooths out the blocky areas a bit but they also blur out the details - catch 22.
i say if you can get an hour and a half of movie viewing in 300 mb and get to watch it on yuir tv, then you cant complain too much .. hehe

[elokus]

Ok guys thnx for replies, the more I read about this the more I wanna test and try, it's a shame it takes some time to encode the movie, I'll have to start writting down stuff I wanna try 'cause by the time encoding ends I forgot what I wanted to do next (grin)...

About the sourve being a crappy file regarding image "quality", I went and checked between the other avi movies and found a Tomb Raider DivX avi file of 668MB, went to encode it on TMPGEnc and used toolame to handle the audio (is this ok, or should I use vdub?), the process took around 6hrs30mins resulting a MPG file size of 1.53GB.
*Before I encoded it I used the bitrate calculator so it could fit the file in two 80min CD-Rs...

Went to TMPGEnc tools to split it the new MPG file and from what I read from the menu on the left I need to set manually the time lenght I want each part to be, used simple math and from the total movie time of 1:31:59, both halves would be 45:59 or so, then I selected the markers from this tool and the 1st half was done in matter of minutes, resulting on a MPG file size 786MB, when I went to do the same for the secons half a error shows up and shuts down TMPGEnc.
The error msg shows "At address 73F91D04, Read error occurred against address 73F91D04"....Dunno what happened and the msg shows again no matter what other time lenght I use to do this secons part.
Any clues about wwhat could be wrong???, did I do something wrong on the steps I wrote down here???