MPEG1 anyone else?

[peterbuilt]

Hi All, was wondering if anyone else here still encodes to MPEG1.
I encode all my stuff from DVD rips, Camera captures, and the youtube etc into MPEG1 352x240 1150kbps 224mp2.
Clips are good and will play on most if not all DVD players as an ISO.

[Midzuki]

Hi there.

IMHO, 352x240 may look good only on a TV screen smaller than 29''.
IMNSHO, a maximum bitrate of 1150kbps is less than adequate
for MPEG-1 video @ 352x240 (it should be around 2000kbps).
Last but not least, VCD-structured disks do NOT have to mean
MPEG-1@352x240@CBR1150kbps. I have produced several non-standard VCDs
@ 352x480 and @ 480x480 that do look much better than any
"officially-compliant" VCD when viewed on my 33'' CRT.

[guns1inger]

I think 29" is optimistic. I wouldn't watch them on anything larger than my phone.

[Midzuki]

Certainly DVD rips and camera captures do NOT deserve to be
reduced to "VCD-compliant" quality. As for the typical YouTube sources,
well... uh... that's an entirely-different story.

[peterbuilt]

Way to technical for me Gents, wow.

MPEG1 anyone else?

[jman98]

peterbuilt - With 8 posts in 3+ years on the forum, it's pretty obvious you don't hang around a lot. That's why this is "way too technical" for you. You might consider reading the forums more often. You'll learn a lot and then this kind of discussion won't be too technical.

Anyway...
I have a friend who does basically what you do. He's fine with it. I have a 42" HD LCD TV and I sometimes watch VCDs on it. They generally look fine. Yes, I am totally serious. Today's VCDs are nothing like the horrible monstrosities from the 1990s and earlier part of this decade. Today VCDs are usually letterboxed and the reduced actual video size results in better quality. Properly done, VCD can be as good as good VHS tape. You're always going to have VCD-bashers here (I like guns1inger, but he is one of the regular bashers of the format), but a few of us like me and the guy who posts as Cornucopia here think the format can be OK if properly done. It will never be as good as DVD for sure, but you can get decent results from VCD. I don't use it much myself, but I wouldn't say I never use it. And I do sometimes buy Asian VCDs of movies I just want to see as cheaply as possible and don't care about seeing them in the best quality. Again, I am getting really excellent results from my TV and DVD player, so VCDs look OK. If you're happy with what you are doing, then by all means continue.

[Forum Troll]

Not me. VHS caps are 352x480 MPEG-2, and all other caps are 528x480 or 720x480 MPEG-2. MPEG-1 was a good idea 10 years ago, but nowadays when 1 terabyte hard drives are less than 200 dollars now, that much compression just doesnt make sense now adays.

[GMaq]

peterbuilt - With 8 posts in 3+ years on the forum, it's pretty obvious you don't hang around a lot. That's why this is "way too technical" for you. You might consider reading the forums more often. You'll learn a lot and then this kind of discussion won't be too technical.

Anyway...
I have a friend who does basically what you do. He's fine with it. I have a 42" HD LCD TV and I sometimes watch VCDs on it. They generally look fine. Yes, I am totally serious. Today's VCDs are nothing like the horrible monstrosities from the 1990s and earlier part of this decade. Today VCDs are usually letterboxed and the reduced actual video size results in better quality. Properly done, VCD can be as good as good VHS tape. You're always going to have VCD-bashers here (I like guns1inger, but he is one of the regular bashers of the format), but a few of us like me and the guy who posts as Cornucopia here think the format can be OK if properly done. It will never be as good as DVD for sure, but you can get decent results from VCD. I don't use it much myself, but I wouldn't say I never use it. And I do sometimes buy Asian VCDs of movies I just want to see as cheaply as possible and don't care about seeing them in the best quality. Again, I am getting really excellent results from my TV and DVD player, so VCDs look OK. If you're happy with what you are doing, then by all means continue.

Hi,
I agree with you, the other day I found an old VCD I'd done from a DVD rip of "Uncle Buck" I threw it in the player just to see how "bad" it would look on a plasma TV, It certainly didn't look great but to be honest it looked as good as a lot of DivX/XviD stuff I'd done, also it was an xVCD, I think the bitrate was around 1018k to fit the movie one one disc. So much of course depends on the source but I was surprised, Having said that I won't be returning to that format anytime soon.

[stantheman1976]

I capture TV shows sometimes that come on late in VCD MPEG to watch later on my PC or laptop because. I wouldn't see the need for it any other time.

[thecoalman]

The non technical version of all the above: VCD sux horse C****

[lordsmurf]

VCDs will always be blurry compared to even VHS, as the resolution is less than half of what the VHS tape was. If it follows the VCD spec of 1150k, it will also have blocks, even with a commercial hardware encoder. I can also play a VCD on a large HDTV, with somewhat passable quality (not comfortable to watch, due to excessive softness at that size), but that is because the tv removes most of the block noises with a heavy filter set.

[Video Head]

My Pocket PC's 3.5" LCD is native 320x240. I have found that video encoded to VCD MPEG1 playing on TCPMP looks far better than anything else I've tried on it. So whenever I am travelling, or know I might be stuck somewhere waiting, I'll make sure to have my Pocket PC, headphones and a 2GB SD card loaded with TV shows and movies in good old 320x240 VCD MPEG1. So yes, I still do use it.

[stantheman1976]

The non technical version of all the above: VCD sux horse C****

No, it's just antiquated and really serves no purpose anymore. Before DVD recorders were available for the home market or when they were new technology and still expensive VCD was a viable alternative for some markets. Now it's usefulness has passed.

[thecoalman]

The non technical version of all the above: VCD sux horse C****

No, it's just antiquated and really serves no purpose anymore.

My comments were meant to be humorous, I was speaking comparatively . I've used it myself, made a VCD for band, cheap for them to reproduce and they didn't need a DVD burner. Would also be very useful for creating a dowloadable ISO, still quite big but at least its not in the GB range.

[peterbuilt]

Thanks all for feedback, as mentioned im not real up to date with all the latest and greatest but I like to keep things simple so Ill stick with MPEG1 as quite a few commented that its still quite reasonable acceptable quality.
And I can fit approx 7 hours on 1 DVD.

[guns1inger]

The other thing to consider is that many players now happily support Divx/Xvid encoded material, and you can get twice the resolution and a lot less compression artifacts while getting 12 hours on a single layer disc. Yes, it is not universally playable on all standalone players, but then neither is xVCD or kvcd. 12 hours as half or better DVD quality trumps 7 hours of sub-VHS quality any day in my book.

[yoda313]

Nope. Dvd spec mpeg2 for me these days

[Tundra Trout]

I do all the time.mpeg1 seems to give a better picture with lower bitrates.mpeg2 looks crappy below about 4 mbps.

[olyteddy]

Considering there is still activity in the next forum down (VCD and SVCD Authoring) I'd say quite a few people still use MPEG1. I used to use it with my Hauppauge to 'sneaker net' tv shows on CD to the living room but since I got a DVD burner it's MPEG2 for me.

[yoda313]

I can see the appeal of mpeg1 for portable players. However I imagine divx/xvid has a much larger following for the average zune/ipod/archos users out there (and the myriad other video players).

[Video Head]

I can see the appeal of mpeg1 for portable players. However I imagine divx/xvid has a much larger following for the average zune/ipod/archos users out there (and the myriad other video players).

I found on my Pocket PC that with DivX/Xvid encoded files playback was not as smooth as VCD, probably due to the level of compression. Held true for both Windows Media Player and TCPMP.

[yoda313]

@ video head - Interesting. Did that occur even with a firmware upgrade? What was the bitrate used on the divx files? How high does your player support?

[Video Head]

@ video head - Interesting. Did that occur even with a firmware upgrade? What was the bitrate used on the divx files? How high does your player support?

I actually find this to be the case on 2 different devices, one a PPC running WCE2003 the other a smart phone running WME5. I run Windows Media Player and TCPMP on both. Both have up-todate firmware installed. I have tested many DivX files encoded from source in different resolutions and bitrates, then the same source file encoded in VCD. The VCD's just look better to my eyes and although the DivX files do not have any specific playback problems the VCD's just look "smoother". I may be prejudice on this too as I am not a big fan of DivX files as a general rule. I find that DivX files played on my HTPC to the 50" Toshiba lack the "bling" that DVD's offer. The funny part being that I originally built my HTPC primarily to playback DivX/Xvid files. Nowdays I am almost strictly DVD. I guess I'm just stuck in the MPEG camp.

[lordsmurf]

Being "smoother" is not the fault of the format, but the encoder and the settings chosen when encoding. Many of them default to a lower framerate.

MPEG-2 looks fine -- far better than VCD spec MPEG-1 -- at lower bitrates, assuming the resolution is set to 352x480, and you're using 2-pass VBR encoding with a good encoder. Again, poor quality is the fault of the encoder or the encode settings.

In each case, it's user error. But the good news is this can be corrected.

[Video Head]

Bear in mind that these are ARM or TI based processors running below 1Ghz. The displays are 3.5" LCD and 2.5" LCD...do you really think that I am going to start running multi-pass encodes for the media I run on these? Quick and dirty. For this application I just want my media in a compact "to go" format that is quick to create and provides decent quality. VCD is providing that experience in one click without having to spend hours encoding to technical perfection. My AIW 9800 Pro can record TV directly to VCD files that I can drag and drop onto an SD card and take with me on the road. Why would I add complexity when this is working to my expectations?

[lordsmurf]

A 3.5" LCD is going to look okay with almost anything.

[Video Head]

A 3.5" LCD is going to look with almost anything.

Look what?

[jagabo]

One problem with NTSC VCD is the fixed frame rate. Film sources will always be jerky.

[AlanHK]

One problem with NTSC VCD is the fixed frame rate. Film sources will always be jerky.

One interesting feature of VCD is that it supports 23.976 fps, with no pulldown -- in fact, pulldown is not supported. I've got several commercial VCDs that use this.

It's a bit grey whether MPEG1 at 23.976 fps is supported on DVDs, but I've made a few (converting from the above-mentioned VCDs) and they have worked on the players I tried.

[jagabo]

One problem with NTSC VCD is the fixed frame rate. Film sources will always be jerky.

One interesting feature of VCD is that it supports 23.976 fps, with no pulldown

Ah, you're right, it does. All the NTSC VCD files I have are 29.97 fps -- probably because they were recorded (usually very poorly) over the air.