Control the size of SVCD

[tomwang]

I tried to rip a 90 min. movie into two SVCDs. I am using TMPGEnc to do encoding with the standard SVCD NTSC template. But found the size of resulting mpg files too big to fit into a CD-R. How do I control the size of the mpg files in TMPGEnc?

[pinoy2201]

well use a bitrate calculator to find the maxium bitrate for the size of your CDR remember you can fit 800mds with a 80min CDR

[poopyhead]

if you're using VBR (and i'm assuming you do cuz CBR is just a waste of space), bitrate calculator might not be completely accurate, so leave some space for error.

i.e., given the same movie length, VBR of 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen movie is going to create a smaller file than VBR of a 1.33:1 fullscreen movie. also, VBR will create a bigger file if there are more action, fast scenes in the movie than a movie with very little of it (given the same movie length)

so u gotta take those into account also

[Vejita-sama]

The bitrate calculators work fine for either CBR or multiple VBR, in TMPGenc = 2pass VBR. For CCE thou you can do up to 9passes (althouh I normally only do 3).

[poopyhead]

Vejita-sama, hrm...so the bitrate calculators take into account the ratio of the movie being ripped? cuz it's obvious that VBR fullscreen is gonna take more space than VBR widescreen. might make a difference for those people trying to fit the maximum on a CD-R (for me it's around 795.57 MB on a 80 min CD-R)

[MikeyBhoy]

poopyhead,

how are you getting 795Mb of data on an 80min CD-R? I thought the max was around the 700Mb'ish mark?

[VidGuy]

VBR fullscreen does NOT take more space than VBR widescreen UNLESS you are making the comparison based on quality.

Remember - that average bitrate is the average bitrate - the size is the same whether or not it's fullscreen or widescreen.

The only difference is that for a given bitrate - widescreen will be better because there are fewer changing bits (the black borders), although that's not necessarily true if the black borders are not multiple of 16, since the black line takes a lot of bits to encode (that's why the really quality lower-bitrate rips have borders that are multiples of 16).

[VidGuy]

P.S. for the 795 vs 700 info - see https://www.videohelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=69858&forum=3

In case I wasn't clear - a bitrate calculator doesn't need to take into account the ratio of the movie being encoded. The only time that's an issue (or the amount of motion or fullscreen/widescreen) is when you're using something like TMPGEnc's CQ mode - then the same programming (e.g. CQ 65, MAX 1850, one of my fav's) will give you a different sized file (i.e. a different average bitrate) given those factors, because you've constrained the maximum bitrate and the quality, not the average bitrate.

Remember the old joke:

Choose any 2:

cost
time
quality

For encoding it's pretty much the same, except

average bitrate
maximum bitrate
quality

[Bud]

Just completed a SVCD with TMPGEnc the orignal movie was 89 min, was able to get 900MB plus on one 80 min CD or about 62 mins of movie time, the remaining time or about 400MB was put on the second CD. Played back on SamgSung M301 with outstanding results. I used the stand templates wthat came with TMPGEnc, have a 1.7 GHz system, took about 4 hours to convert. Also used NERO to burn, had the overburn feature turned on with a 99 min default set in the advance tab in Nero.

Bud

[Vejita-sama]

The size of your encoded MPEG is NOT affected by the size of your source or the resolution you choose. It's just based on the source runtime.

Notice that it's kbit/s. 2pass VBR actually makes 2 passes (yes this doubles the encode time). First it makes a CBR pass, then it makes a 2nd pass and lowers the bitrate for low motion scences and raises it for high motion scences. But it raises/lowers such that the final average bitrate is what you entered. Thus you can still predict the final file size.

eg. 2pass VBR min=300, max=2520, ave=1625 (w/ audio=128kbit/s) works out to ~50min on a 80min CDR. 2pass VBR will lower the bitrate to as low as 300 and as high as 2520, but keep the total ave at 1625.

MPEG data is burnt/saved as Mode2 (no error correction). This means a 74min CDR holds 740MB of data and an 80min CDR holds 800MB of data. You need ~2MB extra for VCD and ~6MB for SVCD. So you should be able to burn any MPEG that 734MB or 794MB to 74min or 80min media.

[poopyhead]

VidGuy, heh...yea...forgot to metion i was referring to CQ_VBR.....