VCD VS. SVCD

[Quickstang45]

Well I'm fairly new to VCD and SVCD encoding. I finally bought a DVD player that can play both; Apex AD1500, and I couldn't be happier with a 69 dollar DVD Player. I encoded a divx/.avi movie last night in both VCD and SVCD to compare side to side on my DVD player. While I will say SVCD did look a tad better I was surprised there wasn't a bigger difference. What is your favorite encoding flavor VCD or SVCD? Personally with the small differences to me I think I might stick to VCD. The movie was 99 minutes long and with TMPGEnc it took little over 99 minutes to encode. When I encoded it to SVCD it took about 3 hours to encode. Well I have to say this encoding and playing on my DVD player is pretty addictive and fun. You have a great site here that helped me immensely on encoding my first VCD/SVCD! Keep up the good work!

Matt

[kinneera]

You've chosen a terrible source for comparison. The heavy compression applied to Divx does not result in good quality SVCDs, so VCD is generally the better option for those. Try doing the comparison with a DVD as the source.

[Vejita-sama]

At the same resolution and bitrate MPEG1 looks the same as MPEG2. MPEG2 is superior to MPEG1 because it supports features that MPEG1 does not: interlacing, multiple angles, multiple audio tracks, selectable subtitles, etc.

The VCD standard calls for 352x240 video = 1150kbit/s & audio = 224kbit/s. The SVCD standard calls for 480x480 w/ video = 2520kbit/s and audio = 224kbit/s.

If you take a high quaility source (DVD rip: 720x480 @ 6~9000kbit/s) and make a standard VCD and SVCD, the SVCD will look better.

But if you make an xVCD and xSVCD both at the same resolution and bitrate, the quaility will be the same. Most encoders can encode MPEG1 much faster than MPEG2. And more stand alones and all PCs support xVCDs (MPEG1) w/o installing additional software. So a lot of people perfer to make xVCDs over SVCDs.

[YafeiFula]

I'm currently using Shizzzon's xSVCD template and I'm very content to it. I converted 133 min length movie to xSVCD with it and when watching from TV the quality is actually very good. And I used only one 80 min cd.
Sure if you want best quality from dvd for example, use svcd and high bitrates & many cd's. But if a little bit worse quality is enough for you (like it is enough for me), use x(s)vcd.

[bilbogod]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>SVCD standard calls for 480x480 w/ video = 2520kbit/s and audio = 224kbit/s.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Forgive me if I've got this totally wrong but isn't that the whitebook standard for SVCD?? If that is true; several posts have recently stated that we shouldn't expect SVCD to look better than VCD when using under 3000 kbit/s. But this in itself would surely make it an XVCD and thus SVCD per se must therefore be inferior to VCD. To increase its bitrate, is to make it something which it is not i.e. XVCD...
I'm probably totally wrong here, so someone clarify this...

[anti-alias]

If it only took 3 hours to encode 99 minutes of SVCD then you were not using high motion search precision ... which I think is essential for a quality encode. The normal setting is just too blocky.

Encoding my home movies from an 8mm camcorder, I can tell a huge difference in VCD and SVCD ...

[tendtend]

To burn your kids' video into SVCD with the maximum bit rate (2600) is always a good choice (a 35min video on a CD is long enough for a story such as a birthday party). For a regular movie, maybe a VCD format is acceptable.

[vcddude]

I find that XVCD at 2400kbps is comparable to standard SVCD
in terms of clarity but SVCD seems to have more artifacting
in high-motion scenes than my XVCDs. I make XVCDs for videos
(e.g. cartoons, TV shows, etc.) and use SVCD for photo
slideshows. Also, converting to SVCD with TMPGEnc
takes a lot longer than to XVCD but that's not a
big surprise because it needs to do SVCD resizing when
I make photo slideshows.

By the way, I am playing with Ulead DVD Movie Factory
for my VCDs, it is really cool!!!

vcddude

[bilbogod]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>SVCD standard calls for 480x480 w/ video = 2520kbit/s and audio = 224kbit/s.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>


<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>Forgive me if I've got this totally wrong but isn't that the whitebook standard for SVCD?? If that is true; several posts have recently stated that we shouldn't expect SVCD to look better than VCD when using under 3000 kbit/s. But this in itself would surely make it an XVCD and thus SVCD per se must therefore be inferior to VCD. To increase its bitrate, is to make it something which it is not i.e. XVCD...
I'm probably totally wrong here, so someone clarify this...</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Is anyone going to answer this??




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: bilbogod on 2001-12-21 15:08:37 ]</font>

[boston]

YafeiFula - what DVD player are you using to play the lower-bitrates? (my standalone skips more and more, the lower I go...)

[kinneera]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
Forgive me if I've got this totally wrong but isn't that the whitebook standard for SVCD?? If that is true; several posts have recently stated that we shouldn't expect SVCD to look better than VCD when using under 3000 kbit/s. But this in itself would surely make it an XVCD and thus SVCD per se must therefore be inferior to VCD. To increase its bitrate, is to make it something which it is not i.e. XVCD...
I'm probably totally wrong here, so someone clarify this...
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Someone needs to go back and read the "What is" section again. Whitebook refers only to the standard videoCD format, which is 352x240/288 at 1.15Kbps video and 224Kbps audio. There is no specification for XVCD. SVCD is a totally different format, which has a specification, but it isn't part of the Whitebook spec. XVCD and SVCD can look comparable if the XVCD is done well (and at a vertical resolution of 480/576), but the XVCD uses MPEG1 whereas SVCD uses MPEG2. SVCD is fairly close to the MPEG2 low-bitrate sweetspot (preferably at 24fps), so the MPEG1 is better than MPEG2 is pretty much a myth.

[bilbogod]

So just so we are totally clear here. If I'm changing the bitrate of SVCD from the standard template within TMPGenc, it would still be classed as SVCD?? In which case it should remain compatible with any SVCD playing DVD player. I know this is probably sounding dumb and confused, but I know I'm not alone in the confusion

[kinneera]

Yes, you can change the video bitrate and still have it be an SVCD (as long as you don't exceed a bitrate of ~2500Kbps). The only way to really make an SVCD into an XSVCD is to change the resolution, audio bitrate, or audio sample rate.

[bilbogod]

Well then you've just added weight to the my point then... Recent posts say 3,000 kbits/sec needed for SVCD to start looking better than VCD. Either these people are wrong (quality is subjective)or they are no longer creating SVCD's but XVCD's.

[Truman]

The bitrate depends highly on the source. For a DVD to SVCD conversion I need an average bitrate of 1500kbps (1:2,35) - 1800kbps (4:3). If the source is VHS or DV(both are usually 4:3), a much higher bitrate is recommended. Well, 2500 is probably the minimum, if you can, use a higher rate or a lower resolution, for example 352x480/576.

[kinneera]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
Well then you've just added weight to the my point then
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Absolutely not! Since your use of acronyms isn't making since to me, I think we still need to sort out some confusion there:

VCD - standard videoCD, as described previously
XVCD - nonstandard videoCD, MPEG1, see the "what is" for more info
SVCD - standard super videoCD, MPEG2, again, "what is" for more info
XSVCD - nonstandard super videoCD, MPEG2

If an SVCD is created at > 3000 Kbps, it is an XSVCD, not an XVCD. Big difference. And no, that kind of bitrate is absolutely NOT required to make an SVCD look better than a VCD, or an XVCD for that matter. That was why I made the MPEG2 low-bitrate sweetspot comment.

SVCD has two times the bitrate of VCD, uses much better VBR encoding to take advantage of it, and has double the vertical resolution, which makes it look moderately better on computers and far better on TVs.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kinneera on 2001-12-21 16:48:33 ]</font>

[Truman]

If you have a crappy source, like DivX 320x240 @ 900 kbps, a SVCD wont look better than a VCD, but also not worse. A SVCD requires a high resolution (at least 480x480) source.

[bilbogod]

O.k. thanks for the advice, I'll note this down.. I just noticed a number of posts recently referring to peoples great SVCDS which were created at bitrates higher than 2600kbps.

[rcbax]

SVCD if done properly is much, much better than VCD. I use LSX Mpeg encoder, which gives you much more control, and you can set to higher bandwidths. It also depends on the quality of your original video. It takes 8 minutes to process one minute of video on an Athalon 850, but the end result is outstanding. I don't know about divx, but I record at full resolution MJPEG, and then encode to Mpeg-2.

I think with divx, you have already lost a lot of the original quality, which can never be recouped.

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-19 23:13:39, Quickstang45 wrote:
Well I'm fairly new to VCD and SVCD encoding. I finally bought a DVD player that can play both; Apex AD1500, and I couldn't be happier with a 69 dollar DVD Player. I encoded a divx/.avi movie last night in both VCD and SVCD to compare side to side on my DVD player. While I will say SVCD did look a tad better I was surprised there wasn't a bigger difference. What is your favorite encoding flavor VCD or SVCD? Personally with the small differences to me I think I might stick to VCD. The movie was 99 minutes long and with TMPGEnc it took little over 99 minutes to encode. When I encoded it to SVCD it took about 3 hours to encode. Well I have to say this encoding and playing on my DVD player is pretty addictive and fun. You have a great site here that helped me immensely on encoding my first VCD/SVCD! Keep up the good work!

Matt

</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

[next]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-21 16:13:44, bilbogod wrote:
Well then you've just added weight to the my point then... Recent posts say 3,000 kbits/sec needed for SVCD to start looking better than VCD. Either these people are wrong (quality is subjective)or they are no longer creating SVCD's but XVCD's.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Yup, they are wrong. A 3000 kbs xSVCD will absolutely blow away a 1150 kbs VCD when it comes to quality. And a 3000 kbs xVCD will absolutely blow away a 1150 kbs VCD when it comes to quality. This is really simple stuff. Simply pick your poison. The only difference is the mpeg stream. Mpeg1 vs Mpeg2.

[vhelp]

Quickstang45,bilbogod and others still confused:


VCD: MPEG-1 352x240/CBR 1150 bitrate/224k
----------------------------------------------------
* ANY deviation from the above, and you now have what's considered
an xVCD - period!

SVCD: MPEG-2 480x480/CBRorVBR 2520 bitrate/224k <-- (give or take a few degrees)
------------------------------------------------------------
* ANY deviation from the above, and you now have what's considered
an xSVCD - period!


My encodes are for MPEG-2 SVCD creation.
And, these are my settings in the majority of my encodes:
* 352x480/VBR 1850mn/2520mx/128k audio
So, give these specs I use above, one would call NOW call my encodes
an xSVCD, becuause I deviated or went beyond the standard SVCD specs!

I capture from satalete, so my source is pretty darn clean and sharp.
If you want to compare the quality of my sample clip against yours, I
have a sample clip at my website that you can D/L and view to get
an idea of the quality I am able to produce from these Satalete captures.
And, I use the above specs in pretty much all my capture/encode projects.
Also, based on my above specs, I can encode a 1 hour capture in under 3
hours with my Athlon T-Brd 900mhz PC133 128mb ram

Please don't compare divX avi's/mpegs you D/L from various sources because
they do not make acceptable sources for such declarations! ...best leave
that to DVD/Satalete/Digital Cable sources! Then, come bact here
and re-state your claim again!!

Good evening to all. . .

[Maui_Lover]

Something else to keep in mind amongst all this debate is how it plays on your external DVD player.

Personally I also have the Apex 1500 and have more troubles when trying Svcds than i do with VCD's. I especially notice the difference in low light/dark background scenes.On the pc my SVCDS look great but when the Apex decoder handles the SVCD it seems to want to inject a greenish tint into the slight background artifacting that occurs. Especially on dark scenes.

I've taken to just going straight VCD using the template and setting the motion setting to highest. The apex player plays them back very well with minimal audio sync problems on FF's or jumping to a spot on the vcd using the goto option. On SVCDs and higher bitrate, non-standard vcd's I notice far more sync problems. maybe I am doing something wrong but I have tried many tests.

Personally - If I truly want DVD quality I buy the dvd. Otherwise the VCDs work fine.

[vhelp]

Maui,

Maybe you R doing something wrong. I've ben able to make encodes up to 4000
and they all play perfectly on my AD-1500!! I don't make 4000 bitrate
encodes, ...just wanted to see how high I could go without having problems.
And, with NO audio synch issues.

So, maybe its your capture card, your encoding method, your MB/CPU/BIOS, etc.,
etc. Every setup is unique. What works with my setup, may not work with your
setup. But, it does work at up to 4000, so far.

I've ben able to play straight SVCD's that I created and xSVCD's as well.
Mostly, I only encode xSVCDs becuase they work for me with very good
results/quality. This is for both my AD-500 and AD-1500 models.

Below is my specs - you didn't state your specs, so. . .

Anyways, my setup is:
---------------------
* Windows 98
* ATI Rage Fury Pro (agp) (not used for capturing)
* ATI-TV Wonder (I only like capping at 352x480)
* VFW driver (I used hauppgues version, though not using hauppage card)
* WDM driver (not using, but is listed in avi_io and VD)
* APPs: avi_io and now Virtualdub
* Encoder: TMPGenc
* SVCD or xSVCD cuz I use 352x480

My System specs:
----------------
* Athlon T-Brd 900mhz w/ pc133 128mb ram
* plus (above) specs

That's about it!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: vhelp on 2001-12-21 23:33:04 ]</font>

[bilbogod]

O.k I think the overall gist that I was trying to convey (albeit in a polite and roundabout way)is the incorrect abundance of references to amazing SVCD's that are deviating from the correct parameters of SVCD. I make a laughing stock of myself earlier by not referring to it as XSVCD but XVCD. People only have to check some of the old posts floating round to see that unfair comparisons have been made. In short, everyone including me needs to take care with using the correct terminology, otherwise something mildly confusing becomes totally confusing...

[bilbogod]

One more thing... If I want to compare my differing encodings (vcd/svcd), varying bitrates etc etc, can I still burn all of them onto one cdr to compare their playback. I'm not a stingy miser, the U.K. is just pricier for cdr's than the States and my player (Eclipse 695) is not cdrw compatible

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: bilbogod on 2001-12-22 03:39:04 ]</font>

[Maui_Lover]

Vhelp,

My sources for my tests are strictly DVD rips right now. I have not bought a capture card as of yet. I have been using Smartripper, DVD2AVI and TMPGenc to make the MPEGS.

I have a 1.8 gh pentium 4 system running Windows XP home edition
Nvidia Geforce 3 card
512 ram
I am not sure of my driver versions or actually where to find them.

I will do some more tests and see what I can find. Like I said in MPEG2 SVCD with anything but the highest motion estimation I get annoying greenish areas in artifacting in dark areas. I only see it when played back on my apex. It looks fine on my pc. I used the SVCD template in TMPGenc changing only the VBR number.

Its nice to know it should work. I should have some time this weekend so I'll try some more tests.

[vhelp]

maui,

ok, just another something to note for pondering. . .

I don't go the dvd "ripping" route simply because I have the wintv PVR usb
that does it pretty well. It's really good quality at 2520 bitrate, but even
if I didn't use the PVR method, I would STILL not go the "ripping" route!
I would much rather capture it in 352x480 and then encode it in much
shorter time (and still get great quality) minues the time it would take to
watch while capping - with total encoding time being 3 hours for 1 hours
capture plus the 1 hour to watch/capture. So, if move was 90 minutes,
and encode was 4hours, I'd save a couple of hours (or more) I haven't
done this YET, but I should, just to be more accurate. I may end up trying
this out, just to satisfy MY curiosity!

But, I don't get much enjoyment in the "ripping" route. IMO, I believe the
quality is much better when you Capture the DVD vs "ripping" it!!
I've done many "rips" and done a few 5 or 10 minute captures to see
the difference in quality, and I am more on the capture side. But, this is
purely on the subjective side. And, not to mention that there is a lot more
work envolved in "ripping" DVDs.

Later.

[vhelp]

maui,

I just got an idea, being that i'm in the HELPing kind-of-mood!

I have an arscenal of DVD's, w/ my latest being added (x-mas gift)
yesterday, "Miss Congeniality" which I haven't backed to CD-R yet.

If you can give me the name of the DVD you are trying to get
working for you (dark scene) I will encode this same clip for ya and
you can see if it performes greenishy on your ad-1500 still.
And, if by chance I don't have the movie, then perhaps you can give
me a small list of some of the DVDs you've had these green troubles
with! And, I'll look and see if I have the same DVD (hopfully) and
will try my hand at it!

Does this sound plausable to you? Respond back here soon!
Till then!

[Maui_Lover]

Hi Vhelp,

The two main movies I have had problems with the green when trying to do a standard SVCD are Arlington Road - just after the credits during the hospital waiting room scene and the following scene where Jeff Bridges and his girlfriend are talking outdoors at night.

The second one I noticed was in Almost Famous in the bus scene where they are all singing Tiny Dancer.

Right now I am trying a few things with Pearl Harbor. I first encoded the first part of the movie in standard VCD. I am now encoding about an hour of it in VCD with a bitrate of 1500. Given the time I will try an SVCD version too.

Again I'm not looking for perfection, just something that will be somewhat comapatible on most standalones and that gives me good mix of quality and compression (50 to 60 minutes per 80 minute cd if possible)and plays well on the 1500. I am not yet into trying subtitles and chapters and all of that (yet at least).

Oh, and thanks for the offer of help. The relative newbie appreciates it.

[vhelp]

maui,

sorry, but I don't have those two movies.
Actually, I don't think I've ever heard of those "Arlington Road" and
"Almost Famous".

I too, am not interested in the subt and chptrs, etc. I just
wanna watch my movies with minimum of fuss - no fancy smancy!

I'm futzing around with a cap I did yesterday.