cheap apex decoders?? wtf....

[toolio]

ok my friend just got an apex ad-600 so i brought some svcd to go try. the picture quality is acceptable but by no means as good as the pioneer dv-434 and philips dvd825 i have seen. the apex does not seem to have as clear and appears more pixelated than the other players. i am using TDK cdr media and the dvd players is hooked up through the composite video cable. what gives? are apex decoders just worse.

BTW i think the apex is a good player. like i said, the image quality is accpetable but to me it seems worse than others. also it plays mp3 data discs which is awesome. my friend also paid a lot less than me, although i got mine 2 years ago.

[patrickm]

well, the pioneers always tend to have good video decoders, and the newer ones use a block-noise-reducer/smoother filter on VCDs (not DVD). this started either with the 333/434 or the 343 models (there's definitely no filter on the 525, but i don't have a 333)

composite does usually give a smoother picture than s-video because of greater color bleeding, so i think it's as smooth as it gets where you're at.

depending on what else you're playing it on, it might be worthwhile to use a noise reduction filter and the macro-block noise reduction in TMPG.

temporal smoothing is really the way to go, but literally doubles your encode time. in TMPG, try under NR:
spatial 3-5
range 1
temporal 12-16

just do a short clip and see what kind of difference it makes. MPEG compression likes smoother pictures to begin with, so less picture noise=less block noise.

[statuspending]

yo yo.

i just made my first svcd today with some sample of topgun that i downloaded. i believe i got it from some link from this site.

anyways, my ad660 plays it soooooooooooooooooooooooo smoothly. i couldn't believe it. im using a 27" tv, which is certainly as large as i need.

i can't imagine another dvd player being able to do it better


yo.

[Greg12]

I just burnt a SVCD with Nero. THe first succesful burn with Nero ever.

Now the audio is superb, the snapping I got when I played on my laptop is gone, and the audio/video is in sync!!!!!

Now their is some macroblocking. But that could be the cable. Perhaps I shall buy a gold plated S-Video cable. Or the gold composite cables I have.

WHy did he buy the 600? Get the 660.

I use Metaline Azo by Verbatium. It's unreal. I never expected these shows to be on a cd.

Now if anyone knows of the series "Are you being servered again?" it's what I'm watching. It's a Brit-Comedy.

Their's no fast motion. However, it was recorded from a antena. Should I re-encode with those filters?

Should I re-encode from the tape or just reverse transcode the MPEG2 files into AVI?