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

[Shurik]

To kwag

I have tried your example - good quality , but it occupied only left half of my TV screen . I tried every possible adjustments of my DVD (Pioneer 525), and then even burn my own samples (both in PAL and NTSC) and with every possible tunings like Full screen, Center, Lock aspect ratio - with mostly the same result - different parts of the only left half is occupied. 480*480 - working good. Can I do something more to fix it? (By the way - DVD-TV are RGB connected)

Great thanks from beginner

[kwag]

I have tried your example - good quality , but it occupied only left half of my TV screen . I tried every possible ajustments of my DVD (Pioneer 525), and then burn my own samples (both in PAL and NTSC) and with every possible tunings like Full screen, Center, Lock aspect ratio - with mostly the same result - different parts of the only left half is occupied. 480*480 - working good. Can I do something more to fix it? By the way - DVD-TV are RGB connected.

Hi Shurik:

Did you burn your mpeg as non-standard VCD, NOT as a SVCD?.
I burn with VCDEasy, but also Nero works.


I have tried the format on the following players:

Panasonic portable DVD-L10
Panasonc RP-56
Panasonic DMR-E20 DVD-R/DVD-RAM player/recorder
JVC XV-F80BK 7 disk changer
Pioneer 333
Sony DVP-NS300

Some DVD/VCD players don't like VBR on VCD MPEG-1.
Maybe then the 525 won't display the format correctly

kwag

[Shurik]

Hi,
yes I tried both nonstandard VCD and SVCD, burned by Nero.
Anyway it's interesting that PAL 480*480 works good, so it's more close to your template then standard PAL SVCD.
Will continue experiments. For Russia PAL is often more important.

[alkieman]

If you devaiate AT ALL from the VCD and SVCD standards then what you create is NOT a VCD or an SVCD. It's an xVCD or an SxVCD. Deviate from the standards and many VCD/SVCD and DVD players that are supposed to play VCD/SVCD will not do so.

Usually it's the cheaper far eastern ones that don't care and will play the disc. I made a few xVCD discs using templates given on this site and they would not play in either of my two Pioneer players. They played fine on a friends Mico. Created some VCDs sticking rigidly to the standards and they played fine.

So stop calling your non standard discs VCD or SVCD, they are not.

[kwag]

Strange..., I thought we've been ONLY talking about non-standard VCD's here.

non-standard VCD = Xvcd

Anyway, a friend just made the movie "City Hall" with the format, and called me to tell me that the whole movie played fine in his Sony DVP-S360.

Just to add another ( of the not so cheap ) brand to the list.

[Bud]

The samples I d/l played great on my Panasonic Portable LV55, SamSung M301 and my Hitachi 343. No problems with any of them. Used NERO 5.5.73 Non-Standard to Burn VCD and just for the fun of it tried the NERO SVCD Non-Standard mode, both played back with no problems. I don't think we are concerned about what we call the format as long as the end result is we get as much movie as possbile and as good as possible on one CD

Bud

[UnClEtOnY]

maybe the mpeg2 u created did not play on ur PC cos u have not got the correct DVD/svcd codecs? :-?

[kwag]

Hey Bud!, that's great.

Three more for the list!.

kwag

[Joe018]

-J

[thegig]

Hey Kwag, just curious what you capped at. I'm currently trying your template on a APEX1500 and JVC M567.

I looked at the sizes and noticed quite a difference from standard VCD (yours was bigger) is that because this is trying to get better quality into a VCD not necessarily size? I haven't capped a whole 2hours yet because I am curious what the optimal would be. Since your template is 720 X 480 I probably would not go much less than 640x480, correct???

[thegig]

Kwag, never mind on the cap, your ripping from DVD. DUH.

[kwag]

Hey Kwag, just curious what you capped at. I'm currently trying your template on a APEX1500 and JVC M567.

I looked at the sizes and noticed quite a difference from standard VCD (yours was bigger) is that because this is trying to get better quality into a VCD not necessarily size? I haven't capped a whole 2hours yet because I am curious what the optimal would be. Since your template is 720 X 480 I probably would not go much less than 640x480, correct???

No. The output size is 352x480.

Let me know if it works on your apex model and the JVC M567.

I know that on the first Apex AD-600A models, it displayes correctly, but the video jumps frames about every 2 seconds. The AD-600A doesn't like variable bit rate.

kwag

[Bud]

Kwag

Just did the first WideScreen movie with your template (The Tomb Raider)(DVD RIP) the quality came out perfect, the only problem I seen was the Width on the Widescreen was a little thin, the length was good. So the movie appeared a little "Flat", not much, but enough to not to look normal, hope you understand what I'm trying to say. Also did the first 2 hour (1:56) min film. (Animal House) Captured with Premeire 6.0 in DV2 (AVI) format. Did overburn with Nero 5.5.7.3 Came out very good. The Capture was from a Digital Cable system so the original was already good.

Bud

[thegig]

I tried your template with no changes and it jittered quite a bit on both players and the sound skipped on the APEX. I believe its because I did a cap instead of rip. I changed your template for size and FPS to match the next lowest from the cap I did (480x480 @ 29.97) and it worked great. No blocks on high motion and the picture was pretty good. I don't have a DVD player on my PC to do a rip right now, so I can't really give you a "for sure" it works as is, and I can't cap at 704x480 either, I only have a 5400 rpm drive. I'll be getting a new drive today so I'll give that a shot. BTW I noticed the FPS is 23(Film). I don't think the two playes accept this rate after looking at the spec.

[kwag]

Kwag

Just did the first WideScreen movie with your template (The Tomb Raider)(DVD RIP) the quality came out perfect, the only problem I seen was the Width on the Widescreen was a little thin, the length was good. So the movie appeared a little "Flat", not much, but enough to not to look normal, hope you understand what I'm trying to say. Also did the first 2 hour (1:56) min film. (Animal House) Captured with Premeire 6.0 in DV2 (AVI) format. Did overburn with Nero 5.5.7.3 Came out very good. The Capture was from a Digital Cable system so the original was already good.

Bud

Hi Bud:

You have to fool around with the advanced/video source settings. I always play my original movie with PowerDVD to look at the aspect, and then I make a small, 10 second or so, mpeg file to view the output again with PowerDVD. I actually have a couple of small pencil marks ( for full and wide screen movies ) on my monitor, believe it or not!, so that when I'm creating an mpeg, I can compare if it's the original aspect

kwag

[Cr@zy8pe]

Personally I'd just buy a DVD-R/RW drive, encode a movie in DVD format, burn it, then sit back and watch a movie thats of good quality. Instead of wasting all that time just to put one movie while also risking quality over compression.

[kwag]

I tried your template with no changes and it jittered quite a bit on both players and the sound skipped on the APEX. I believe its because I did a cap instead of rip. I changed your template for size and FPS to match the next lowest from the cap I did (480x480 @ 29.97) and it worked great. No blocks on high motion and the picture was pretty good. I don't have a DVD player on my PC to do a rip right now, so I can't really give you a "for sure" it works as is, and I can't cap at 704x480 either, I only have a 5400 rpm drive. I'll be getting a new drive today so I'll give that a shot. BTW I noticed the FPS is 23(Film). I don't think the two playes accept this rate after looking at the spec.

The frame rate has to be 23.97 if you are converting a DVD NTSC(FILM). Most movies on DVD are created FILM, but the playback is at 29.97.

If you create your xVCD or a regular VCD ar 29.97 from a DVD, it will playback jerky.

I don't have an Apex 1500, I do have an AD-600A, and I know that a 352x480 at 23.976 does skip and jump on that model. So I think the problem on the Apex is the variable bit rate, and not the resolution.

Have you tried burning one of the samples that I posted?. These are both 352x480 @23.976 NTSC(FILM) clips. If that plays correctly on your DVD player, then you can be sure that your rips will play ok. You can burn with Nero as VCD ( NOT SVCD ) and turn OFF compliance check.

Here's the link of the samples again:
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/mpeg_test and go into 'My Documents"

Please let me know if it works. Then we'll know if the Apex 1500 can play this format.

kwag

[Bud]

Kwag,

Most of the my test on your template work great, however on some when played back on the TV (61" Sony") picture would be on the far left of the screen, will not fill up the screen, great quality, just don't fill up the screen, very small. Playing back on Hitachi 343 DVD Player. On my Panasonic Portable LV55 plays back perfect, sound may drag a little on both. If there a way to be sure the end result will play back correctly on all TV/DVD Players, at least the ones I hae (Samsung M301/Hitachi 343/Panasonic Partable LV55). Many thanks for all your assistance, I know this is time consuming for you to answer all these question.

Bud

[kwag]

Personally I'd just buy a DVD-R/RW drive, encode a movie in DVD format, burn it, then sit back and watch a movie thats of good quality. Instead of wasting all that time just to put one movie while also risking quality over compression.

Sure, I'll do that too, when the prices of DVD-R media drop below $1.00 or so.

Right now the're about $3.66 +- each ( with shipping + handling ) , and each CD-R is about 15 cents!.

And the quality is just about half a DVD, but in reality, on a standard TV you can't tell the difference!. At least it's far above (S)VHS.

So 3.66 / .15 = 24.4 ( round to 24 ) and that's 24 movies on 24 CD-R's that cost $3.66 instead of $87.84 for 24 DVD-R's.

And the quality is not 24 times lower than the original DVD.

I think that's not a waste of time/money/quality.

[y2flyy]

great reply to that guy's post kwag
have you read my email yet
and is your template only for dvdrips??
b/c thats all i here yall talking about
is the settimgs different for just an avi file??
b/c i am using your temp for avi files
should i match the frame and res on the avi file??
Thanks
Y2Flyy

[kwag]

great reply to that guy's post kwag
have you read my email yet
and is your template only for dvdrips??
b/c thats all i here yall talking about
is the settimgs different for just an avi file??
b/c i am using your temp for avi files
should i match the frame and res on the avi file??
Thanks
Y2Flyy

Check your mail.

The template should work on anything because it's really what can be fed into TMPEG. You can read AVI's, either frameserved from Virtualdub, XMPEG, DVD2AVI, or whatever into TMPEG.

Always try to match your input resolution to your output. That means [input >= output]. If your input resolution is greater that your output, there's really no gain in quality in your final product. But your processing time will be much longer.

kwag

[Scav]

Kwag,

Tried your template with captured-from-video AVI, burned to CD-RW in Nero, and was able to play it on a Sony DVP-NC600. The audio and video was clean, however, the image seemed to stagger ever-so-slightly. I then noticed you had the FR set to 23.97. I tried the same clip using FR 29.97 and the jerkiness is gone. I'm assuming the FR23.97 is set because you only feed this template a progessive stream? If so, what method do you use to deinterlace or IVTC your video before sending it to TMPGenc?
Also, I didn't get quite the compression savings you have been talking about (90 mins-> 961,500kb) and it was a very low-motion video. Am I missing something? Or would the non-progessive input account for the larger size?

By the way, thanks for all the useful input!

[vhelp]

Hay, i'm d/l'ing the sample clips (love to d/l samples, he, he.... - )

I'll let ya's know if it worked.
and, my HONEST two-cent's worth as to it's quality.

then you can add mine to the list

-vhelp

[kwag]

Kwag,

Tried your template with captured-from-video AVI, burned to CD-RW in Nero, and was able to play it on a Sony DVP-NC600. The audio and video was clean, however, the image seemed to stagger ever-so-slightly. I then noticed you had the FR set to 23.97. I tried the same clip using FR 29.97 and the jerkiness is gone. I'm assuming the FR23.97 is set because you only feed this template a progessive stream? If so, what method do you use to deinterlace or IVTC your video before sending it to TMPGenc?
Also, I didn't get quite the compression savings you have been talking about (90 mins-> 961,500kb) and it was a very low-motion video. Am I missing something? Or would the non-progessive input account for the larger size?

By the way, thanks for all the useful input!

Hi Scav:

If you capture to AVI from a capture board, then your capture should already be 29.97 FPS. So, yes, you have to change that in the template from 23.976 to 29.97.

The method I always use, because it has never failed on me, is XMPEG 4.2a -> VideoServer 0.92 -> Tmpeg. I am currently trying XMPEG 4.31a now.

Xmpeg automaticaly detects the framerate from DVD's, so it shows 23.976 most of the times. That is why the template is set to 23.976.

I haven't tried other methods for quite a while now. I used DVD2AVI in the past, but because it doesn't support sub-titles, I stoped using it.

Also, because I have a P4 @1.6GHZ, I don't even rip to HDD anymore. I just authenticate the DVD with a player, load the .ifo from XMPEG, and away it goes!.

kwag

[vhelp]

-vhelp
-------------------------
Ok,

I've played the sample, "Action Scene Test.mpg"
And here are might comments

* Burned with Nero, [ ] VCD compliance off
* BASED ON MY APEX AD-1500
* 13" TV

* quality was good, clean that is, (dvd rip)
* blocks? well, yes, but they were fine, small-like micro*** blocks, and
as long as you don't SHUVE your face in the TV set, and view from a
moderate distance ie, 4' at least, then you really don't notice it too
much. But, then again, this was a short scene, and on the dark side.
I hate to see what it looks like in a "sunny" or "daylite" scene, he, he...
I don't know how these encoded type of clips would look like on a larger tv,
say, 32" or 60"+, etc. but on my 13" LOL, its not so bad, if you're those
that call these "micro blocks" good or great quality, and I'm gonna use
this template for now on kind of people.
* audio, skips quite a bit, but I didn't mind cause I was testing viewing
the sample.
* video, only jumped when audio skipped

For some reason or another, I just don't see myself "wanting" or falling in
love to use this template. Sorry
But, it's a step in the direction towards reaching quality, just not in my
direction

Thank you for taking the "laborous" time in making & sharing this template
w/ all us vcdhelper fans.

The above was my HONEST comments, and I hope you don't take it negatively!!
kwag, and othres, keep up the work and good luck in your constant vcd/svcd
endevers

-vhelp

*** not MACRO, those larger type blocks.

[kwag]

Hi vhelp

Just a question. Did you burn your CD on a CD-RW or a CD-R ?

Because I've had problems at this resolution with CD-RW's, but not with CD-R's.

I guess it has to do with the read-speed of CD-RW's and the MPEG de-compression.

Regarding the micro blocks, I have tried the same clip as a standard VCD, and you can see heavy macroblocks. As I mentioned earlier, this is a bad example, because the scene has a lot of movement. Water, fire, etc. But on a standard VCD this scene will look worse!, no matter how hard you try with any encoder, because at 1,150Kbps CBR and 352x240 the macroblocks are twice as large as in 352x480.

kwag

[thegig]

Kwag, I finished some more testing over here. I capped 720x480 and ran the template (only changed the framerate to match the cap 29.97). Not good on either player(very blocky). I then changed the aspect to 352x240 and the quality was very good. I even had light and dark scenes to test with and without action. I thought maybe the 720x480 didn't work because of interlace problems so i even deiniterlaced, and also field swapped(wintv), no dice. I ran some calculations and it looks as though the amount of video that can be stored is 40 minutes. I am using TMPEG 2.02, I haven't switched (yet) have they improved that much??

[MITSUI_1]

Just a comment on the Apex 1500 players.

In my experience:

It HATES HATES HATES 24fps VCD. Can't do it. Can't play it. Skips, jerks, stutters, etc.

BUT if you feed TMPGenc with 24fps and tell TMPGenc to encode at 29.97, basically what happens is that it will duplicate one frame every five. This will cost you some smoothness, but the Apex 1500 will play it fine (assuming you put bitrate in a reasonable realm).

Also, I've found that doing this actually does NOT cost much in terms of quality. Why, you say? Well, my theory is that those duplicate frames used by TMPGenc to get up to 29.97 fps wind up being P or B frames taking almost no space in the GOPs (since they're duplicates of other frames).

Also, although this does not apply to the MPEG1 xVDC templay Kwag is talking about, the Apex MUST have 24 fps SVCD MPEG material treated with the pulldown.exe utility to play correctly.

REgards, MIts.

[rmtaibo]

I learn how to fix 120min movie onto one 700 Mb SVCD in a Spanish site www.vcdsp.com
They called their SVCD method like CVCD.

Using TMPGEnc at 352x240, 23.97 fps, MPEG-2 (or MPEG-1 multiplexed as MPEG-2 with TMPGEnc too), 2-pass VBR, Interlaced NTSC movies.

Not all standalone players are able to play this kind of discs (>90% of DVD players with SVCD support can read them)

[kwag]

Kwag, I finished some more testing over here. I capped 720x480 and ran the template (only changed the framerate to match the cap 29.97). Not good on either player(very blocky). I then changed the aspect to 352x240 and the quality was very good. I even had light and dark scenes to test with and without action. I thought maybe the 720x480 didn't work because of interlace problems so i even deiniterlaced, and also field swapped(wintv), no dice. I ran some calculations and it looks as though the amount of video that can be stored is 40 minutes. I am using TMPEG 2.02, I haven't switched (yet) have they improved that much??

First of all, captures are never as good as a direct DVD rip. So the material you're feeding TMPEG is not the same quality as the material on the DVD. I suppose you're capturing, at least S-Video ?. Still if your end result is going to be 352x480, then there is no sense in capturing higher than 352x480.

When I capture a VHS tape, etc, I use a WinTV Go and input on S-Video to capture to AVI at 352x480 @29.97FPS using the Huffy codec. Then I frameserve from VirtualDub with noise/temporal/etc filters to smooth and clean the video over to TMPEG. That way I get good quality material before it hits TMPEG.

I also capture to Cheetah 10,000 RPM SCSI drives, so I don't drop frames.

As for TMPEG 2.02 to 2.53, the one I currently use, the quality is much better on 2.53 and file size is much smaller when doing VBR.

kwag