how to improve videoCD quality

[entoncesuno]

i've created a VideoCD using Pinnacle Impressions. encoding with TMPGEnc. Everything works okay when i play back from the CDImage folder, EXCEPT the video quality is equal to or less than VHS.
(i have not burnt it yet so it's not a disc problem).

my settings in TMPGEnc now are:
VideoCD(NTSC); 352x240,29.97,CBR,Bitrate:1150,
high quality(slow),closed GOP. audio standard.

What do i need to do to get a better picture quality?
this is only a 2 minute piece,20MBs so far; i want to fit into a 50MB miniCD.
thanks in advance.

[holocaust]

dont judge it by the way it looks on your pc monitor burn it to a cdrw disk and have a look at it on you tv i will look better.

whats your source video whats the quality of it like as they say crap in crap out.Try mucking around with different settings,encoders etc etc...

also if your dvd player supports it try mucking eround with different bitrates,resolutions and or try svcd as the picture is so much clearer at the higher resolution and bitrate

[entoncesuno]

holocaust:
thanks for your reply; i understand what you are saying that quality is better on tv monotor; however, most people will watch my CD from computer CD drive ... this is a business card miniCD.
with that said, i think i will try svcd as you suggest, at the higher resolution and bitrate ...
BUT... will svcd be viewable on most computers drives?

[Triffid]

You really can't expect better than VHS from VCD. If you want better quality, you need a combination of higher bitrate and higher resolution....however this is not VCD. In my opinion, for videos with any movement in them, the next good place to stop is DVD! SVCD is better than VCD, but I tend to get a lot of blocking, and I think that the the standard bitrate is really a little low. You could try xVCD or xVCDS (or my favorite...no idea what designation has been agreed on for it....VCD resolution with SVCD specs otherwise...not sure how it goes for NTSC though) But, these WILL make your files bigger (which I see you don't want......but you've got to sacrifice something)

All that aside, try turning off the closed GOP thing (it reduces the amount of MPEG compression and so pushes up the quanitisation which IMO is responsible for most of the mess that MPEG makes). Also try disabling the box related to half pel stuff on the GOP page. Then do the scene changes manually (go into the manual section and do an automatic search.. or whatever it is called...with a value of 150...then change all the detected changes to "I, New GOP "). Also, use the "Default" GOP settings, not the other 2. This will most likely improve your quality, and will also give you many more hours of fun!!!!

One other small question. Does Pinnacle give you MPEG or avi? You are always going to get a crap picture if you encode MPEG to MPEG.

Good luck

[zzyzzx]

Make a XVCD instead.
Try using the following bitrates:
1750,
2150
2500
3000
3500
4000

Just to see how high your DVD player will play and where the law of diminishing returns applies.