HERE's HOW TO FIT 120mins movie on one cd in SVCD FORMAT!!!!

[scissors]

An couple of mpeg tests ( with template attached ).

One is 28 seconds from Lethal Weapon 4 ( high speed scene, water, fire, etc ).

The other is 30 seconds from Pixar's clip Geris' game.

View with PowerDVD, WinDVD, or burn as non-standard VCD ( NOT SVCD ).

Modified GOP structure 1,20,3,1 which gives best compression with maximum stability. Larger values create smaller mpegs, but you loose image stability.

No more comments. You be the judge

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/mpeg_test

Files are under "My Documents"

Enjoy!.

hi mate.

leathal weapon 4.

when i tried to demux it in tmpeg the video is reported as

352x480 at 23fps.

try it on mine

480x480 at 29fps.

it's the advanced setting [CENTER, CUSTOM SIZE] that you alter.

[kwag]

The 352x480 is the intended resolution. Called Half D1. ( Half DVD resolution. The only difference is I use MPEG-1 and not MPEG-2, to be able to burn as a XVCD ( non-standard VCD ).

This resolution is already being used in commercial products, like the Panasonic DMR-E20 DVD-R/DVD-RAM recorder. I have one. ( On the 4 hour recording mode on a 4.7GB DVD-R or DVD-RAM disc ).

This mode plays in 99% of standard DVD players capable of playing VCD's.


The 480x480 is intended for MPEG-2 SVCD, and will not play on most standard DVD players that are not certified as SVCD players.

kwag

[scissors]

The 352x480 is the intended resolution. Called Half D1. ( Half DVD resolution. The only difference is I use MPEG-1 and not MPEG-2, to be able to burn as a XVCD ( non-standard VCD ).

hi there.

I'll go with what you said. I'm just starting to look at dvdr half d1 is the bottom resoltion used isn't it?

sorry. I thought you were doing your version of svcd.
(which was the thread - but hey whatever)

I appreciate what you did, the qualities on par. (and at least i made the effort to download your exampl )

if we can start a new thread on half d1 please, as i'm interested, particulary the use of rempeg....
(I have emailed someone who is doing dvdr's (i must get back to them actually))

[vitualis]

There's a good reason this thread is in the newbie conversion forum.

Anyone's who has done a lot of conversion will have already tried very low bitrates. I also know exactly how VBR works.

What I also know is the practical limitations of MPEG compression and as a moderator, I make sure that newbies aren't taken off on a trip to fantasy land by people who make outrageous or exaggerated claims.

120 min on a standard SVCD on 80 min media that looks consistently better than VCD is next to impossible. This is the same criteria I use everytime this topic comes up. The reasons for this I've explained previous.

Now, you can abuse me all you want, but practical experience tells me that this is true and nobody has every showed otherwise in the 2 and 1/2 years this site has been up.

If you can't handle simple explanations and have to hide behind some VBR fudge factor explanation (which means you don't really know what VBR can and cannot achieve) or resort to bashing, you really have no credibility at all.

This doesn't mean that longer play X/S/VCDs aren't possible with better quality than VCD. Sefy's template is a good example but even he won't claim that it can do 120 min consistently (and it doesn't).

Furthermore, let me remind you all that this is a public forum not your own little personal ego-stroking chat session. This forums is for information and education by discussion and debate. If you can't respond in a civil manner when someone has an opposing point of view, then you should leave.

Regards.

[y2flyy]

Alright got dang ive had I give up
VIRTUALIS why dont you reply to the whole topic of this post!!!!!!
NOT any templates, not using VBR or anything else
IM talking about using an ASF file to convert instead of an avi file to mpeg2
and getting a smaller file size and keeping the quality
Why do you continue to talking about that other stuff??!!!!!
what about the damn asf files making a smaller output?????

[kwag]

To Michael Tam ( and others viewing this posts )


I would like to explain "mathematically", that it is now possible to achieve 120 minutes of video on a single 80 minute CD-R, with a quality far above a standard VCD and even visually close DVD.

Let's put the facts on the table!:

A standard VCD ( NTSC ) is 352x240 MPEG-1 at a bitrate of 1,150Kbps. This totals to 84,480 pixels.

In order to use half D1, 352x480, you must double the bitrate ( to 2,300Kbps ) in order to maintain the same ratio of bitrate/pixels, because 352x480 totals 168,960 pixels.

But then, you could only fit about 40 minutes instead of 80, because of the doubling of bitrate.

Now consider this other fact:
MPEG quality is ->NOT LINEAR<- in relationship with bitrate.

If you are watching a low movement scene on a VCD ( MPEG-1 ) at 1,150Kbps, the quality will be sustained, even if the bitrate was around 850Kbps.

Below that, the quality falls off sharply, and blocks appear very clear.

Now this is what I have done, and I'll explain in detail why it works:

With the information above, if you create a VCD with a minimum bitrate of 300Kbps and a maximum of 2,300Kbps using CQ_VBR of 70, you will maintain an average of around 900Kbps for slow moving scenes but on high speed scenes the bitrate will bump up to the maximum which is 2,300Kbps. I use 2,300Kbps max because most DVD/VCD players can play 2,500 ( some can go higher ). But I have 5 different brands of DVD players and they all play this format.

I have also modified the GOP structure to be 1,20,3,1 instead of the standard 1,5,2,1. This enables higher mpeg compression because there are more P frames available to the encoder. Higher values create "ghosts" on images. Specially on anime and computer generated films.

The value of 3 for B is optimal, because increasing it doesn't compress the image anymore.

This values are to be used with the latest TMPGenc 2.53 plus.

The samples I posted above, one is from "Lethal Weapon 4" ( actually the filename is Action Scene Test ) is almost 29 seconds long, but the file size is roughly 4MB!.

If you look at this file, which has raindrops falling, fire and movement, with the bitrate viewer ( http://www.tecoltd.com ), you will see that the average bitrate is 941Kbps and the maximum is a peak of 1489Kbps.

But looking at the file with WinDVD, PowerDVD, or burning it as a non-standard VCD the quality on a regular TV ( 32" CRT ) will look just like a DVD.
Unless you have a HDTV( which I do ) and there you can see some difference. But the quality is far far above any VCD I have done , or even commercial VCD's.

The whole file "Lethal weapon 4" is a bad example, because it's a continuous action movie, and the whole film encoded with this method came out to a size of 1,006,003,824 bytes ( or about 1GB in size ). So I couldn't fit it on one CD. The whole movie is 127 minutes long. But then again, if created as a standard VCD, the size would be over 1.6GB and with less quality!.

As another example, the film "Don't say a word" which is also about 2 hours long, was only 700MB in size!.

I also drop the audio to 128Kbps to save some space.

So, please look at the samples before saying that the quality is below VCD, because it is FAR above VCD and I would dare say that it's equal or better than SVCD.

The real thing here making it possible is the newer version of TMPEG. Older versions of TMPEG never achieved this quality/compression.

The samples are posted at http://briefcase.yahoo.com/mpeg_test under My Documents.

So enjoy! ( and flame me all you wan't )

kwag

[sean madison]

question-

I have not looked at it and i will NOT until i get this question answered-

It is far above vcd?
There is NO one quality of vcd.

There are different sources to encode to vcd so what source?
cam, minidv, wp, tc, scr, dvd-scr, vhs, dvd, mov, rm?

Also, even if it is dvd, vcd is good quality from ripping and close to dvd but NOT from avi-asf-mpg, NO WAY!

You can be right that the file size may be smaller some how, but asf quality is actually WORSE than wmv because mpeg-4 codecs are worse than windows media video.

I used to do tests and i had captured from a dvd to 2 mbps straight and when played back, it looked only vhs style, then u still gotta keep in mind, u gotta encode again!

Let's stick with the high quality and not focus on the small file sizes.

I dl the clip of the lethal weapon 4 and the quality is even terrible!!!

I wont even touch it cuz it was showin blocks all over the place.
It only looked good when there was ABSOLUTELY no motion!

That is ridiculous.

If u want a REAL testing clip, wait a week for my new HD comes in.
It was suppose to be in yesterday but now its gonna be next tues.

I'll encode a clip wit no blocks so THEN, people can actually test things on.

[kwag]

ShiZZZon wrote:

>I dl the clip of the lethal weapon 4 and the quality is even terrible!!!

>I wont even touch it cuz it was showin blocks all over the place.
>It only looked good when there was ABSOLUTELY no motion!

And if you make the same clip from "Lethal Weapon 4" as a standard VCD, the blocks will be worse because of the action on the material!.

Funny, other people have e-mailed me, telling me that the quality is awsome!.

Check again your TV ShIzzZoN

I have a Samsung 32" HDTV, and that clips looks at least twice better than the same material in standard VCD.

>It is far above vcd?
>There is NO one quality of vcd.

A standard VCD theoretically would be a perfect 352x240 ( 352x288 PAL ) from a perfect source.

So the maximum vieweable area would be 101,376 pixels
That's it!. No more, no less. Period!

So 352x480 is twice of that. Do the math.

You could try to do that clip of "Lethal Weapon 4" with any encoder ( CCE, Panasonic, LSuX, etc ) at CBR 1,150Kbps 352x240, and I guarantee that you won't like the results, after you compare it to the sample.

Remember that I am using CQ_VBR max 2,300Kbps so the encoder has "bandwidth" to go in high motion parts.

Specially where there is water and fire, as seen in the clip.

kwag

[sean madison]

i didnt watch it on my tv, i watched it on my pc.

I dont burn anything unless it looks damn near perfect on my pc before it hits the tv, cuz when blown up on pc vs tv, the tv shows it better cuz pc's res is higher.

So think bout how i encode, if it looks good on pc, its gonna look damn good on tv and thats how i encode.

Perfection to its max

[JAXBOSS]

This is all facinating watching the "techies" have a battle of machismo, but what about us peeps that just want a plain simple way to burn say a 100 (+ -)min movie onto one cd(vcd)(svcd). I have read all 4 pages and tried a do things but just can't get the specs correct(bit rate, etc.) Just looking for a simpler way to try this out. LOL, my first attempt at going from avi to mpeg to asf resulted in a file of 1.6 gigs compared to the mpeg of 950megs. Surely I need my hand held on this.
If I can do it and view the results myself, then I can decide if it's worth it.
Remember, one man's opinion is another man's pride. THANKS IN ADVANCE.

[Bud]

JAXBOX,

Just follow the LINK that kwag posted above, download his sample and the TMPGEnc Template, I did it last night and the samples were great, i did my test on a ADM 1.7 GHz system with a western digital 120 GB disk, using version 2.02 TMPGEnc and put the move CUBE (93 Min) on one CD and came out great, will try a 2 hour move later. The only problem would be the 2-pass, if I use the 2-pass it would take 30+ hours to covert, under the 1-pass it came out to be 10 hours, the end resutl was great, I did try Sean's tmplate and came up with just about the same end results including the long processing time, I watched all this on a Sony 61" TV so I was able to very clearly see any and all Blocks/Spots/Lines etc, I would say the Kwag's template results had less blocks then Sean's. All I would suggest is that you try you own, your system and results may be very different than mine, I played all back on a Panasonic Portable DVD, SamSuung M301 and and a Hitachi 343 to test. Burned with Nero 5.5.7.2 non-caliplaint VCd or SVCD (they both seem to work)

Bud

[Bud]

JAXBOSS......sorry did not mean to trash your name................


Bud

[y2flyy]

hey fellas im back
im back to let everyone know to try kwag's template
its simply amazing
its between svcd and dvd quality at times
and it takes alot less stress than my method
and also less file size
i really could not believe it
i will definetely still use my method of an asf file source
when ever i want to make an svcd
but his method is twice as better just using vcd
heres why
1.it looks about the same (depends on movie)
2.it takes half the time to encode than my method
3.its no where near the headache
4.b/c y2flyy says so
thanks
Y2Flyy

[Kdiddy]

In order to use half D1, 352x480, you must double the bitrate ( to 2,300Kbps ) in order to maintain the same ratio of bitrate/pixels, because 352x480 totals 168,960 pixels.

Wow Kwag, I cant believe you actually change your resolution after all that debate we had over it, lol.

[kwag]

Yep, I changed it, because that is the resolution being used commercially in many products like the Panasonic DMR-E20 and it is more compatible that 720x480 in VCD players.

And on a regular TV, you can hardly tell the difference between 720x480 and 352x480. Only if you have an HDTV you can distinguish it.

But then 720x480 is twice again the pixels of 352x480, so 2,300Kbps works very good at that resolution and gives a stabler image than 720x480 ( MPEG-1 of course )

[Piper]

KWAG

I just took a look at your template and I'm curious why you choose normal motion search precision, wouldn't you get better quality using the Highest Quality setting?

Don't have a good source to try it now, will try it this evening. It does look interesting...

Piper

[Shurik]

To kwag
Great Thanks.
??
1. What main changes to template would you recommend if it's PAL 4/3 DVD?
2. For me SVCD is OK. Would you still reccomend MPEG1 ?

[kwag]

Hi Piper:

I choose normal precision because there is hardly any visual quality increase from normal to highest. Also the time to generate the mpeg is much longer when using the highest quality mode.

What I do use sometimes, is turning on the noise reduction on TMPEG, depending on the movie.

One case is "Air Force One" which is a "noisy" DVD, as seen on my HDTV with progressive scan turned on in the DVD.

The results are a less blocky mpeg file, but the processing time increases about a couple of more hours for conversion with this filter turned on.

kwag

[kwag]

To kwag
Great Thanks.
??
1. What main changes to template would you recommend if it's PAL 4/3 DVD?
2. For me SVCD is OK. Would you still reccomend MPEG1 ?

If your DVD is PAL, then the DVD resolution is 720x576, so change the template to reflect an output of half D1 PAL resolution of 352x576.
Also change your output on TMPEG to 4:3 625 line PAL.

Everything else should stay the same. You may have to play with your input settings under advanced tab/video source settings to get the correct aspect of your video depending how you feed your movie to TMPEG

kwag

[Piper]

kwag

Fair enough, though my experience with enabling the noise reduction filter sounds a little different than yours. Turning this on, one can easily increase encoding time by more than just a couple of hours. Then again, I always use the highest quality motion precision setting. Perhaps it's significantly faster when combined with normal setting.

[kwag]

kwag

Fair enough, though my experience with enabling the noise reduction filter sounds a little different than yours. Turning this on, one can easily increase encoding time by more than just a couple of hours. Then again, I always use the highest quality motion precision setting. Perhaps it's significantly faster when combined with normal setting.

Yes, you're right!.

Normal + noise filter = long time.

Highest quality + noise filter = Very Looooooooooooooong time .

kwag

[Piper]

kwag

I'll give that a shot then.

I've downloaded your "Action Scene Test" and it looks very good, esp for a low bitrate mpeg-1. I'm curious how it'll hold up to tv caps that aren't widescreen. I'll be testing it tonight for sure.

What do you use for playback on your PC for correct aspect ratio with files like this? I've always used good ol mplayer2 for vcd viewing which of course doesn't support other aspect ratios.

-Piper

[Piper]

Silly me.

Mplayer7 will play it correctly. I'm not suprised it took me so long to find that out though (hate Mplayer7).

[kwag]

kwag

I'll give that a shot then.

I've downloaded your "Action Scene Test" and it looks very good, esp for a low bitrate mpeg-1. I'm curious how it'll hold up to tv caps that aren't widescreen. I'll be testing it tonight for sure.

What do you use for playback on your PC for correct aspect ratio with files like this? I've always used good ol mplayer2 for vcd viewing which of course doesn't support other aspect ratios.

-Piper

Thanks!.
Remember that it's really not low bitrate. It's a variable bitrate, so on low movement and dark scenes the bitrate goes as low as the quality factor has determined ( 70 in this case ) because it doesn't need a higher value, but on high motion scenes it can go up to the max which is 2,300Kbps as defined on the template.

I am using PowerDVD 4.0 for prewiewing my encodes.

[vitualis]

Wow, intellegent discussion and debate actually came out of my last post. Except for the comment by someone up there that the quality is between DVD and SVCD. For obvious reasons, this makes no sense.

I'm happy.

Regards.

[Bigswaffo]

hi folks, my problem doesn't come out of TMPGEnc, but it comes out of converting the AVI to ASF. Is there something I'm missing here? Ya'll said that it would be the same quality and no one has come against it. On my computer, it came out with a lot more noise and blocks. Can I use one of the earlier VirtualDub programs to clean this up? Also, with Kwag's template, should I change the picture size to 352x480? Any help would be appreciated.

[Bigswaffo]

the reason i asked about resizing to 352x480 is because when i resized the picture to that size in virtualdub, it looked long and it just didn't look good. i'm wondering if changing the resolution in TMPGEnc would do anything to change the quality or anything else.

[Bud]

kwag

I tried your Templates with TMPGEnc 2.53xx, the movie was DVD rip of Cube (93 min), it indicated that it would take 34 Hours to process, is this the correct time? I have a AMD 1.4 GHz system 120 GB Maxtor Drive. I was under the impression it should not take that long to convert or does this apply only to AVI format? Many Thanks

Bud

[kwag]

kwag

I tried your Templates with TMPGEnc 2.53xx, the movie was DVD rip of Cube (93 min), it indicated that it would take 34 Hours to process, is this the correct time? I have a AMD 1.4 GHz system 120 GB Maxtor Drive. I was under the impression it should not take that long to convert or does this apply only to AVI format? Many Thanks

Bud

Hi Bud:

Yay!, that's a very long time!.

My time takes movietime x 2, so a two hour movie takes about 4 hours to process with the 352x480 template.

I only use XMPEG 4.2a ( Now testing 4.31a ) frameserving via VideoServer ver. 0.93 into TMPEG 2.53 Plus.

My hardware is P4 @1.6GHZ - 512MB Ram and 60GB Samsung HDD.

Are you using DVD2AVI ? - Because I did a test last week with a project created with DVD2AVI and reading directly with TMPEG was very slow. Much slower that with XMPEG. What method do you use to feed into TMPEG?.

Regards,
kwag

[kwag]

kwag

I'll give that a shot then.

I've downloaded your "Action Scene Test" and it looks very good, esp for a low bitrate mpeg-1. I'm curious how it'll hold up to tv caps that aren't widescreen. I'll be testing it tonight for sure.

What do you use for playback on your PC for correct aspect ratio with files like this? I've always used good ol mplayer2 for vcd viewing which of course doesn't support other aspect ratios.

-Piper

I do all my Stargate SG-1 full screen tv cap episodes this way ( I'm my wife's slave for those episodes. If I don't record them on friday mornings on Satellite T5-9 i'm screwed! . I record them on my Panasonic DMR-E20 DVD-R/DVD-RAM player/recorder, then I take the DVD-RAM and put it in my PC and read it with my Panasonic LF-311, load up XMPEG->VideoServer->TMPEG and out to xVCD with this template. I am recording in 4 hour mode with the DMR-E20, which is 352x480 VBR MPEG-2. So it's really transcoding 352x480 to MPEG-1 and of course lowering the audio from 48Khz to 44.1Khz. The results are excelent.

kwag