VCD - not the quality I expected

[filmshooter]

I have just transferred some footage from VHS to a laptop via a Canopus ADVC 100 and then burned the material to CD using Windows Movie Maker. For importing the video into the laptop, I selected 'best quality for computer' and then, when setting up to burn the CD, I selected 'best fit for a cd.' Playing the VCD back on a computer, the quality is quite acceptable if the image is about half the size of the screen. Playing back full screen, the footage is a little soft and slightly pixelated. Now to many of you, this might seem normal. However, prior to this, I have read a number of sources that claim that VCDs should have roughly the same resolution as VHS tape. Though clearly, the footage on this VCD that I created is well below VHS quality. Is this normal or is there something I'm missing?

[guns1inger]

A couple of things to point out

1. Putting video on a CD does not make it a VCD. VCD is a strict standard (see What s VCD - top left corner) which must be adhered to.

2. Windows Movie Maker does not output for VCD. It outputs either DV avi, or Windows Media Video

3. WMM is notorious for producing soft output on all settings

4. I have never seen a VCD that compared favourably to a good VHS tape, although I have seen many crap VHS tapes that would be on par with a VCD

[filmshooter]

Thanks Guns. Though reading that description at the top is pretty similar to other online descriptions of this format - "VCD stands for 'Video Compact Disc' and basically it is a CD that contains moving pictures and sound." Though the main difference that the above description gives is that VCDs utilise MPEG compression. So if Windows Movie Maker cannot create a VCD, are there any free downloadable software that can do this? I'm looking for software that is basic to use and delivers good quality results. By the way, can any regular CD-R be used to create a VCD or SVCD?

[guns1inger]

Any CD will do. Probably the best free mpeg1 encoder is tmpgenc plus. You get mpeg2 encoding for 14 days, then mpeg1 encoding forever.

[filmshooter]

Thanks again. Though can tmpgenc plus import video directly from an external source like a Canopus conversion device or video camera? Or would other software be required for initially capturing the video and then transferring it to tmpgenc? I guess I could use Windows Movie Maker again though would it be best to select 'quality best for playback on computer' or 'quality best for tape' settings with WMM for importing?

I'm also getting some contradictary information about the pal / ntsc issue with vcds. Another website states that there are no pal / ntsc incompatibility issues with vcds and that any vcd can be played on just about any suitable playback device around the world, regardless if it's pal or ntsc land. Though I notice on this forum, there are many posts focussing on converting vcds from pal to ntsc and vice versa which suggests the same compatibility issues facing video tapes and dvds.

[mats.hogberg]

Transfer DV from camera to computer DV AVI with WinDV.
Encode DV AVI with TMPGEnc using the VCD template.
Author your VCD with VCDEasy.
The PAL/NTSC issue applies even to VCD.

/Mats

[filmshooter]

Thanks for outling all the steps involved!

[Alex_ander]

If you want to keep the picture resolution of VHS then SVCD is the nearest in quality: it also contains full number of TV lines (VCD keeps just a half of them) and slightly lower horisontal resolution (480 elements), the encoding is MPEG2 and film length 35-45 min per a CDR depending on bitrate settings. Along with an MPEG2 encoder like TMPGEncPlus or TMPGEncXpress (twice faster) you'll need VCDEasy (free version is downloadable from the site) for authoring (chaptering and creation of standard SVCD disc image).
As for your new questions.
1.TMPGEncXpress can open any avi's with installed codecs or filters, mpeg's, wmv's and asf's.
2.Your DVD player should support either both NTSC and PAL standards, or the one for the VCD (SVCD) you want to play. When you encode mpegs use the same standard as your VHS source, there are serious problems making perfect NTSC/PAL conversions.

[filmshooter]

Ah...the reason why I was enquiring about the pal / ntsc issue is that I am in Australia (Pal land) and i wanted to send a VCD or SVCD to someone in the US (Ntsc land.) So conversion is going to be a real hassle?

[mats.hogberg]

conversion is going to be a real hassle?

Yes. Not for the faint-hearted!

/Mats

[filmshooter]

I think I might hold off on the conversion then! I guess any VCD or SVCD can be played in any computer cd drive regardless of country and format. One question though with one of the software recommended - is it possible to edit with WinDV? I was reading the posts reviewing this software but no mention was made of any editing capabilities.

[mats.hogberg]

I guess any VCD or SVCD can be played in any computer cd drive regardless of country and format.

True, but then, why create a VCD/SVCD/DVD at all? Just burn your video to a CD as data if you don't specifically want it to be playable on a standalone player. mpg1 is as universally playable as any video format is ever likely to get.

is it possible to edit with WinDV?

Nope. It's just for getting the video data from the DV source into your computer. From there, there are plenty of AVI editors (VirtualDub for simple cuts).

/Mats

[SingSing]

Have anyone advise the poster that DVD on DVDR is cheaper than VCD on CDR, with about 8 times better in quality and double in playing time?

Note : A DVD burner now costs as low as $25.00.

[mats.hogberg]

True, but you'll still be stuck with the same PAL/NTSC issue.

/Mats

[filmshooter]

DVDs.....yes, better quality generally but.....since the original source material is VHS, I don't think that a DVD will make much difference to the end quality. Also, I would prefer to get some experience creating VCDs before taking on the more complicated task of creating DVDs.

Mats, I would prefer an SVCD over a standard CD for getting better quality at full screen size playback.

[guns1inger]

Don't fall for the myth of SVCD or VCD being the same as VHS. They aren't. You will get the best quality transfer using DVD, and playback will be more reliable. A lot of DVD players will not play SVCD format discs, even though they will play VCDs fine. I have owned a few, from major suppliers, that would not. I have never foudn it a problem because frankly I find VCD and SVCD material to be of such low quality I wouldn't watch it. This includes VCDs encoded and pressed commercially.

DVD creation can be easily as simple as VCD. More so, in fact, because there is such a large range of tools to chose from. If you go SVCD or VCD for the reasons you have given, I believe you are making an ill-informed choice.

[mats.hogberg]

I would prefer an SVCD over a standard CD for getting better quality at full screen size playback.

There's no inherent quality in SVCD that can't be accompished with a "raw" mpg file. VCD/SVCD is just "packaging" that allows for standalone playback (and features like chapters, menus and that kind of stuff).
If you want SVCD (calculate about 40 minutes of video on a CD as SVCD) use the SVCD template in TMPGEnc instead of VCD. VCDEasy is still the best tool for authoring.

/Mats

[jman98]

Don't fall for the myth of SVCD or VCD being the same as VHS. They aren't. You will get the best quality transfer using DVD, and playback will be more reliable. A lot of DVD players will not play SVCD format discs, even though they will play VCDs fine. I have owned a few, from major suppliers, that would not. I have never foudn it a problem because frankly I find VCD and SVCD material to be of such low quality I wouldn't watch it. This includes VCDs encoded and pressed commercially.

DVD creation can be easily as simple as VCD. More so, in fact, because there is such a large range of tools to chose from. If you go SVCD or VCD for the reasons you have given, I believe you are making an ill-informed choice.

You have a point, but I can't say that I am in total agreement here. SVCD quality CAN be better than VHS (or at least as good) with careful encoding. I made a single disc SVCD of an origial Star Trek episode from a DVD I own. The episode in question was encoded to SVCD using DVD2SVCD and I used CCE to encode. I burned it to a 90 minute CD-R and honestly, it's really hard to tell it's not DVD.

I used to be anti-VCD because most of them aren't very good quality, but last year, I bought a few VCDs from Hong Kong for stuff I wanted to see, but didn't really want to pay DVD prices for. The quality of VCDs has improved a lot over the years. Manufacturers started letterboxing VCDs, which made a huge difference in improving the encoding quality. The quality of the encoders improved too. You may be like I was - I remembered how VCD was with full frame images and macroblocks everywhere. VCD today is not like it used to be.

[lordsmurf]

VCD is lower qulity than VHS. Period, end of discussion, no room for argument. It is lower resolution, and the low bitrate on the spec will always lead to some degree of digital artifacting. It is progressive, so interlace content must be deinterlaced.

SVCD is slightly above VHS resolution, although the lower bitrate will often lead to artifacts. CVD is 352x480 and has better bitrate allocation. These are arguably indentical (or better) than a VHS tape. Interlace is available.

[lordsmurf]

I have read a number of sources that claim that VCDs should have roughly the same resolution as VHS tape.

Myth. Piss-poor myth, to be exact. The folks who write VCD=VHS are sloppy with numbers and mix up their measurements.

"240" is the magic number that is always quoted. But video has two dimensions, X and Y. Then you have to remember digital video and analog video is measured a bit differently.

Theory states VHS is "240 lines" of resolution. Now that's great and all, but the true resolution of analog VHS video, when put into digital equivalent measurements, is about 250x480 to 300x480. Notice that the first axis is where "240" resides (as in 240x480).

Now VCD is ass-backwards, at 352x240. See the 240? It's on the wrong side, wrong axis. So your VCD video has HALF THE RESOLUTION OF VHS, achieved by deinterlacing of all things, so it's not only lower res, it has interlace artifacts.

Add in a few bitrate deficiencies, and you end up with VCD.

Blocky, blurry crap.

[mats.hogberg]

Add in a few bitrate deficiencies, and you end up with VCD. Blocky, blurry crap.

Just like a slightly worn VHS tape on an old VHS player.

/Mats

[lordsmurf]

VHS was never blocky, and VCD blurriness is well below that of VHS tape softness.

[Alex_ander]

Gentlemen, is it fruitful to discuss personal negative experience with one or another format?

[mats.hogberg]

Absolutely not! Only the OP can be the judge.

/Mats

[filmshooter]

All very good points and I see a wealth of valuable knowledge here. Though I still don't see why in my case DVDs would give significantly better quality than SVCDs considering that the source material being transferred is VHS tape. Not only that but it is fairly old VHS recording which shows some signs of deterioration. Since the resolution of the source material is not much higher than SVCD, I don't see how a DVD would give any extra benefit in terms of quality. In other words, I don't see how a DVD would elevate the quality of the footage to a higher grade than that of the original VHS tape. Then again, I am totally new to this technical video stuff so there could be something I'm missing here. Additionally, since the person who will play this disc lives in ntsc land, playback will be confined to their computer CD drive so DVD players not playing SVCDs is not really an issue.

Mat, out of curiosity, how would one transfer a "raw" mpg file to CD? What steps and software would be used? If this gives basically the same quality as SVCDs without the need to do chapters and menus etc then this might be a simple, no fuss route.

[guns1inger]

You also have ot remember that you captured as DV at full DV resolution. You already have your footage at much higher than SVCD resolution. You have to throw away data by resizing down to get there.

Regardless, resize it as you need to, encode it to mpeg, then simply copy the output file to CD or DVD as a data disc. It can then be read on any PC.

[jagabo]

I still don't see why in my case DVDs would give significantly better quality than SVCDs considering that the source material being transferred is VHS tape. Not only that but it is fairly old VHS recording which shows some signs of deterioration. Since the resolution of the source material is not much higher than SVCD, I don't see how a DVD would give any extra benefit in terms of quality.

It's not a matter of resolution, it's bitrate. The crappier your video is the higher a bitrate it will need to keep from degenerating into a heap of macroblocks. SVCD is limited to 2600 kbps max. With DVD you can go up to 9800 if necessary.

[DereX888]

what do you ppl discuss here... LOL
Someone should have told OP since begining that:
1 - DO NOT USE Windows Movie Maker to make any videocapture, EVER
2 - DO NOT USE even think of using VCD format - its 2006 for crying out loud!

He is capturing with Canopus ADVC100, so it doesn't have to be some poor-piss (as Smurf said) crap in VCD-alike formats at all!

[AlanHK]

Also, I would prefer to get some experience creating VCDs before taking on the more complicated task of creating DVDs.

I started making VCDs, but my drive was quite old and slow and when looking at upgrading I found a new DVD burner was very little more than a CD burner, and much cheaper than my original CD burner. Perhaps more importantly, there are a few good but aging tools for VCD making, but many more excellent and free ones for DVD as no one seems much interested in the VCD format these days. So better just to jump into DVDs. You'll just be annoyed in the future at the lower quality if you do VCDs now.

Ah...the reason why I was enquiring about the pal / ntsc issue is that I am in Australia (Pal land) and i wanted to send a VCD or SVCD to someone in the US (Ntsc land.)

With any luck he'll be able to use a PAL disc. can you ask him?

[filmshooter]

I'll have to ask her in my next e-mail if she can play PAL DVDs on her DVD player. I simply assumed not. I know someone here in Australia who shot a 'feature film' on film and telecined the footage to minidv and then burned DVD copies to sell to people around the world. Unfortunately, he only had the software to burn PAL format DVDs and apparently, many Americans who purchased his film could only play these DVDs on their computer CD / DVD drive and not their DVD players. So I assumed then that the majority of DVD players in the US could only play ntsc discs. Again, I might be be wrong about this assumption.