How do I get rid of those STINKIN' BLOCK's in the XSVCD's!!

[Mavrick]

First off, Thanks to all who have helped me out in here! Things are going alot better.

OK...

I'm making XSVCD's... 720x480 with a bit rate of 4000. The quality is good, except every now and then I see "blocky" parts in the video. Its not that bad, but can it be cleaned up?

I still have the files in MPEG-2 format, not AVI cause of the file size of AVI..

Thanks again...

[baker]

you are doinh it all wrong, use cce with a res of 480x576 and the wuailty will be great.

Baker

[adam]

Well now if he chooses to make xsvcds thats his perogative, there is nothing wrong with encoding at 720x480 @4mbits, and you should be able to achieve almost the same level of quality (bits per pixel) that you would get at standard svcd settings. Also you gave him the pal svcd resolution, that won't help him anyway.

Mavrick you probably should be able to encode at those settings without getting macroblocks so essensially you are asking us to critique your method of encoding, but you didn't say how you encoded. Please give some more info as to exactly how you went from dvd to svcd. Baker's point is valid though, if you continue to see macroblocks than you should consider lowering your resolution.

[baker]

Yea well standards arent made for nothing you know. 480x576(480) with 1700 avg bitrate is the best mpeg quailty you will ever get on 2 cds. If you are going to use a res any highier than 480x576(480) than get e dvd burner cause 3cds aint worth it.

Baker

[Spicuzza]

Mavrick, my suggestion would be to capture 480 x 480 uncompressed AVI, then encode your (X)SVCD from the AVI. I'll assume you're going to play this on the TV through a DVD player, if it looks horrible change the field order. Also, if you just get a few CD-RW's you can experiment all you want without making coasters.

You're "best settings" are dependent on the quailty of the equipment that you have available. Also, your encoding time will greatly decrease if your captured frame size matches your output size. Again, I'm assuming from your post you're capturing 720 x 480 then encoding that 480 x 480?

Good luck,

Gary Spicuzza
cic7@juno.com

[Mavrick]

Sorry.. I'm still new at this...

O.K. Here is what I'm doing...

These are not DVD rips. I'm capturing from my VCR/Hi-8 camcorder via my ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 8500DV in VideoStudio 5. I'm using VideoStudio's 720x480 DVD NTSC MPEG-2 template.

Then I capture at 720x480 at 29.970fps. When done doing the editing stuff, I save it as custom MPEG-2 File and set the bit rate at 4000. Then I burn in Nero, SVCD template... but turn off the Compliant SVCD check box. It pays great in my RCA DVD Player witch supports XSVCD's.

I was going for XSVCD not SVCD, cause XSVCD's are supposed to support 720x480 res. I know a bit rate of 4000 will only give me 20min or so per CD, and thats OK with me... Its just old home videos and stuff.

Now were am I going wrong? 720x480 is the NTSC Standard, right? When capturing at this higher res and saving at that same res. I was hopeing for better quality than a SVCD at 480x480... or would the 480x480 at a higher bit rate be better?

[Spicuzza]

Mavrick,

DVD = 720 x 480
SVCD = 480 x 480
VCD= 352 x 240

With a 4000 kbps bit rate, XSVCD and XVCD should produce excellent results depending on the quality of the captured SOURCE material.

VideoStudio would not have allowed you to make an XSVCD with a non compliant frame size of 720 x 480. Again, I would suggest you try my previous post and see what happens. Also, when you capture directly to MPEG do some editing with the MPEG file then re-encode the MPEG you lose quality.

[adam]

Yea well standards arent made for nothing you know. 480x576(480) with 1700 avg bitrate is the best mpeg quailty you will ever get on 2 cds. If you are going to use a res any highier than 480x576(480) than get e dvd burner cause 3cds aint worth it.

Baker

I don't see what non-compliance or too many cdrs, for your taste, has to do with macroblocks. He asked for suggestions not rhetoric. There is no "best mpeg quality," that is exactly why many people choose to go outside of the svcd specs, to see just how much quality they can achieve. Like I said, if he wants to use xsvcd its his perogative. You should be helping him with his problem, not chastizing his methods simply because they differ from yours.

Sorry for being so blunt, I guess I just need some sleep but I just don't understand how people can give such purely subjective answers to such a purely objective question.

[vhelp]

afternoon mavrick,

maybe this will help in increasing your quality issue, be it 720x480 or
480x480, or 352x480 encodes, xSVCD's, etc. . .

Have you tried using tmpg's noise filter at it's default??????
20.1.20

You'll gain approx 5mb per minute space saving AND this may or may not
help in REDUCing your blocks at those high resolutions.
You may be surprised at how much extra space you'll save AND at how
MUCH/MANY more minutes you can add to those puny 20min encodes, he, he...

Please have a look into this right away and get back to us here.

Hope I've ben helpful to ya

-vhelp

[vhelp]

afternoon mavrick,

one more thining to add. . .

...also, look into ivtc/32pulldn/inverse32 to add in space savings AND
better quality (reduced blocks)

-vhelp

PS: of course, you could be already doing all the above and then
some.

[baker]

Well if you a newbie i think you should read the thing on the right called svcd than read xsvcd. xsvcd at 720x576 vs 480x576 wouldn't be MUCH of a quailty difference, however this would give you 2 other benefits:

+better quailty to a cd (macroblock wise)
+its a standard and will play in more dvd players.

Baker

[Mavrick]

vhelp... I was with you untill your last post:

...also, look into ivtc/32pulldn/inverse32 to add in space savings AND
better quality (reduced blocks)


Is that in TMPG? Sorry for my ignorance...

[vhelp]

mavrick,

sorry for the confusion. I'm not a very good explainer, though I do
carry on, and on, ... ... ...

As to your question, yes, ...well, yes/no.

tmpg has an ivtc in it's filter area under the Advanced Tab.
I've done a few w/ various versions of tmpg's, and some are good and
others are not so good. It depends on your source and how you captured
it into a medium, ie, AVI, DV, etc.
Also, the success of ivtc'ing depends on how well the source kept it's
film consistancies, ie "interlace", behind-the-scenes inverse 32, etc.

Sorry i'm not a good exapliner on ivtc/32puldn/inver32 but maybe some
one else here can BETTER explain it than I. I just know how to make
use of it in my encodes. But, there are many websites, in addition to
this one that go into it in detail. Doom9 is one, and if you use the
search on THIS forum, you should see much on this topic.
Yes, someone can better explain it here but its best to go to a site
that goes into it in detail so you can read it w/ better understanding
and patience vs. posting what's ivtc, ...ok, now what inverse 32, ok
now what's bla, bla, bla.

My suggestion to use is read through the <<FAQ>>
I think it's ben touched on in detail there - can't remember for sure.

But, in answer to your question, if BOTH** methods are used, you should
be able to:
* see less blocks
* cleaner video
* small video file size, meaning more minutes in your VCD/SVCD
* but, all this requires much longer encoding time a sacrifice to pay.

I think that newbies expect too much. They think right way, that if
whatever encoding project they work on, they will not have any blocks
or any other artifacts. And, then they get surprised when they see
nasty blocks or pixelation on fast scenes or panning, etc. and wonder
why they are getting it in their encodes.

-vhelp

** in both I mean the noise filter in tmpg or even in:
* Vdub's noise and/or temperal filters
* avisynth built-in noise and/or temperal filters
* there are other filters as well, but they add MORE time to your
encoding. R U ready for that?

[Mavrick]

Thanks for the help...

Maybe I am expecting too much from XSVCD. It might be my history with PhotoShop and working with very high res and BIG files...

It just sounds logical that a higher res. 720x480 and a higher bit rate 4000+ would yield a sharper picture. If there is not alot to be gained from this than 480x480 (svcd). Then why would DVD's use 720x480 at 8000+ bit rate? Oh well....

I have always liked Quality more than Quanity. I would rather have 4 good short CD's than 1 crappy one. And the "theme" on this site seems to be how to fit more on a single disc.

I don't like to give up, so I'll keep pluggin' away at it...

If I can't get a good video (even a short one) ... I might have to fork out some $$$$ for a DVD Burner.

Thanks again!

[Spicuzza]

Mavrick, these are your words..... "I'm capturing from my VCR/Hi-8 camcorder"

Neither of these formats are 720 x 480 or 16:9 (widescreen DVD), they are 4:3 aspect ratio (regular TV screen). Buying a DVD burner is not going to help your macroblock issue. Your source VHS tape and or your Hi8 tape is higher quality than anything you are going to try to capture and reproduce on your computer.

What you're doing is taking a 4:3 format and capturing it to a 16:9 format and then expecting Hollywood DVD quality because of capturing at a large frame size and high bit rate. It's high stress on a CPU to capture directly to MPEG-2.

Let me repeat myself for redundancy, capture 480 x 480 uncompressed AVI, then encode your (X)SVCD from the AVI. You're not going to get any higher quality than this because of your SOURCE material!

Good luck and "keep pluggin' away"

[kinneera]

Neither of these formats are 720 x 480 or 16:9 (widescreen DVD), they are 4:3 aspect ratio (regular TV screen).

He's not capturing to 16:9, I'm not sure what the relevance of that is supposed to be. As long as he sets the output aspect ratio to 4:3, he'll be fine. Resolution is independent of aspect ratio in MPEGs, otherwise (for example) the SVCD resolution wouldn't work at all.

...also, look into ivtc/32pulldn/inverse32 to add in space savings AND
better quality (reduced blocks)

Inverse telecine (to reduce 29.97 to 23.97) should not be used on camcorder/VHS footage, as this type of video is natively interlaced.

A couple of general observations:
For VHS footage, 720x480 is overkill - the tape is incapable of representing that level of detail, so don't try to. For Hi8, you may find it beneficial to capture at that resolution, although I would suggest downsizing to 480x480 or 352x480 afterwards.

Tape footage is generally noisy - vhelp's suggestion to use the noise reduction filter is probably the best advice I've seen so far. You might also want to consider 2-pass VBR with avg. 4000, if you don't mind doubling the encoding time.

[Mavrick]

Spicuzza,

DING! (the light comes on), I CAN BE TAUGHT!!

I guess I had a mental block or somthing... It never hit me that the VHS/Hi8 was not 720x480 to start with.

I have since been playing with TMPG and the filters, and the video quality looks almost as good as my origional Hi-8 tape. The only problem I'm getting now is the motion when moving the camera is a little jerky. I hope capturing at the RIGHT res for Hi-8 will fix that.

My wife is on the PC now... so I will have to wait to try the new res. capture. I'll let yall know how it turns out.

Thanks to everyone for sticking in there with me... I guess sometimes I need to be hit over the head, b4 it will sink in

[Spicuzza]

To: Kinnerra
From: Gary D. Spicuzza, Holiday, FL USA

pedantic, n. 1. a person who makes an excessive or inappropriate show of learning. 2. a person who overemphasizes rules or minor details. 3. a person who adheres rigidly to book knowledge without regard to common sense.

Kinnerra, I must say I enjoy reading your posts on this forum more than anyone elses, but not for the information you bring to the discussion. Because you're such a pedantic, little bitch, know-it-all, you spend more time with your blow torch than you ever do helping with the topic.

The following must have had you in mind when it was written!

"MPEG is an institution unto itself as seen from within kinnerra's own universe. When (unadvisedly) placed in the same room, with kinneera, a blood-letting debate can spontaneously erupt, triggered by mere anxiety over the most subtle juxtaposition of words buried in the most obscure documents. Such stimulus comes readily from transparencies flashed on an overhead projector. Yet at the same time, this gestalt will appear to remain totally indifferent to critical issues set before him for many months."

By the way, if you do respond to this post please provide your name and town as I don't have any respect for pedantic internet posters who hide behind their screen names.

Hope this is as much entertainment for those who may read this as it was for me to draft this.

Best regards,
Gary D. Spicuzza
Holiday, FL USA
cic7@juno.com

[Mavrick]

Uhm.. I did not intend to get a verbal battle going in here...

I just wanted help...

Just so yall know... I'm not getting into it...

[Spicuzza]

Mavrick, this is just entertainment on the internet read the thread below for more.

http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=88077&highlight=

Gary

[vhelp]

afternoon Mavrick,


ummm, (regards to above) who cares! Anyways, I have a sample clip
that I will upload to my samples site. There, you can see for yourself
the kind of quaity you can expect from a CAM (Dit-8 or DV, etc)

If you want to see a sample clip that I made from my DV cam, as an
example of the kinds of quality to expect from such a device, then just
let me know here and, . . .
.
.
The footage you are about to see (if I ever get it uploaded... theres some
minor problems i'm having w/ my serve/ftp) was done as such:
* Taped from Satalite (DirecTV) a tv movie from last night on USA, to a
miniDV tape - SP mode of course.
* used my firewire card to transfer the miniDV footage to my HD
* frameserved w/ some filters via AVIsynth --> Vdub --> TMPG, then
* encoded to CVD
* and burned w/ nero

Ok, now the above project was based on ALL the above I posted in my
previous post(s) earlier.

IMO, the best viewing app for mpeg-1/mpeg-2 encodes is WinDVD, else
PowerDVD w/ show some blocks or other artifacts.

Mavrick, please let me know if you still want to see a sample I've done
from a DV cam recording.

-vhelp

[Mavrick]

Vhelp..

Thanks! I'd love to see it... I'm still playing around with settings, and got the quality I've been looking for. Now working on the smoothness...

BTW.. Whats the URL to your sample site?

[kinneera]

Kinnerra, I must say I enjoy reading your posts on this forum more than anyone elses, but not for the information you bring to the discussion. Because you're such a pedantic, little bitch, know-it-all, you spend more time with your blow torch than you ever do helping with the topic.

Frothing reactions are so quick to occur with some people I'm never quite sure what to do with them. Perhaps you need to take some valium, since its just not that important!

I was merely pointing out that you confused the concept of resolution with aspect ratio. This was not intended as a personal attack, nor was it pedantic, as it was entirely intended to help the original poster avoid barking up the wrong tree, so to speak.

As for any of the other comments I made, I would like for you to qualify how they are pedantic, in the sense that they provide no potential assistance to the original poster in resolving his problem. I think they all could help him with his problem, and are the types of things I would have appreciated hearing when I was learning how to do this.

As for my name and location, I am not afraid to share that information, on a case by case basis. I am sure as hell not going to make it public to everyone, though, most particularly because of dangerously unbalanced people who go berserk just because of a message on a forum. I also don't want the spam.

[Spicuzza]

Kinnerra, you're a smart guy and know alot about this stuff. However, it seems that you just can't post regarding the topic at issue without first blasting the other respondents.

Also, if you are going to blast away at someone at least have the balls to identify yourself. Not that you were blasting me, I didn't take it that way. I was just having some blasting fun with you! I thought you would appreciate it, I guess I was wrong.

But, the first half of your post had absolutely nothing to do with the topic and is totally pedantic, when you did finally give advise you basically concurred with previous respondents.

You and kwag had a regular pissing contest on this thread,
http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=88077&highlight=
and I don't believe as of yet you've told us the truth about, Mpeg 1 and Mpeg 2, what's the real life difference?

Name & Town, Name & Town, Name & Town if you wish to opine.

Gary Spicuzza
Holiday, FL USA
cic7@juno.com

[kinneera]

you just can't post regarding the topic at issue without first blasting the other respondents.

??? How did I blast anyone? If you are referring to the relevance comment, you are far too sensitive.

if you are going to blast away at someone at least have the balls to identify yourself.

It's not that I don't have the balls to identify myself, it's that there are other concerns when making that information public on the internet. I pity you the type of spam that you must receive as you keep posting your e-mail address so prominently (I made that mistake back when I first joined the forum). List-building spiderbots love that kind of thing. As far as I can recall, I have never said anything I wouldn't be willing to say in person to an individual, and quite frankly I fail to see how where I live is relevant to the discussion.

But, the first half of your post had absolutely nothing to do with the topic and is totally pedantic, when you did finally give advise you basically concurred with previous respondents.

A correction of an incorrect statement is pedantic?

You and kwag had a regular pissing contest on this thread,...and I don't believe as of yet you've told us the truth about, Mpeg 1 and Mpeg 2, what's the real life difference?

The truth? That any significant quality differences between MPEG1 and MPEG2 are not inherent to the specifications themselves, but rather the result of varying encoder qualities or improper comparisons (i.e. mismatched resolutions). If I sound irritated in that discussion, it is because Kwag has repeatedly claimed that MPEG2 is always inferior below 2000Kbps, because he can't understand the relationship of resolution to quality.

[vhelp]

mavrick,

* out of curiosity, what (how high/low) a bitrate did you use to achieve
your desired encode??
and did you use VBR/CQ/CQVBR ? ?

* R U making VCD or SVCD

-vhelp

[Spicuzza]

Kinnerra, you're a smart guy and know alot about this stuff. You Win!

I like this part though, "dangerously unbalanced people who go berserk"

Now, let's get back to the topic and I'm asking you for your opinion based on the totality of Mavrick's posts regarding his macroblock issue.

My observation is that capturing VHS tape and/or Hi8 tape at a frame size of 720 x 480 directly to MPEG-2, then editing the MPEG in VideoStudio 5, then re-encoding the edited MPEG-2, are multiple reasons that all contributed to the macroblock problem. You simply should not have a quality issue with a clean capture and a bit rate of 4000 kbps!

Mavrick, stated his DVD player WILL play 720 x 480 @ 4000 kbps, which I think most of us would agree, that is GREAT! Now, knowing his DVD player can play that high of a bit rate I would amend my recommendation!

I would not bother with MPEG-2, (a subset of MPEG-1) at all. I would capture 352 x 480 uncompressed AVI, do whatever editing I want in VideoStudio with the AVI file, then encode my final movie MPEG-1, 352 x 240, 4000 kbps, burned as an XVCD. This should very nearly reproduce the quailty of the original source material and would be a clean, simple and straightforward approach.

One word of caution, I think VideoStudio 5's limit is 2000 kbps for MPEG-1, they have changed that for VideoStudio 6 and will now allow as high as 14,000 kbps for MPEG-1.

Where have I gone wrong?

Gary Spicuzza
Holiday, FL USA
cic7@juno.com

PS: Send over a Blond and a Brunette!

[adam]

His source is interlaced. I think its best to stick with mpeg2 to preserve the interlacing if inverse telecining isn't possible on these sources.

[kinneera]

I don't really feel as if there was anything to "win", I'm just glad the discussion remained fairly civil.

My observation is that capturing VHS tape and/or Hi8 tape at a frame size of 720 x 480 directly to MPEG-2, then editing the MPEG in VideoStudio 5, then re-encoding the edited MPEG-2, are multiple reasons that all contributed to the macroblock problem. You simply should not have a quality issue with a clean capture and a bit rate of 4000 kbps!

Agreed, realtime capture to MPEG from a noisy source is generally bad, re-encoding it afterwards is worse. If realtime MPEG capture is Mavrick's only option (he hasn't really indicated), then I would suggest capturing to the final authoring format and editing without re-encoding if at all possible. In this case 352x480 is advisable.

I would not bother with MPEG-2, (a subset of MPEG-1) at all. I would capture 352 x 480 uncompressed AVI, do whatever editing I want in VideoStudio with the AVI file, then encode my final movie MPEG-1, 352 x 240, 4000 kbps, burned as an XVCD. This should very nearly reproduce the quailty of the original source material and would be a clean, simple and straightforward approach.

This is one perfectly acceptable option. However, there are several variations I could suggest. First, to Mavrick - have you tested if your DVD player will also play 48Khz audio on an SVCD/VCD? If so, 352x480 MPEG2 with 48Khz audio is technically a DVD-compatible format, in case you ever find yourself with a DVD burner in the future.

Also, perhaps to clarify my original post, for Hi8, capturing at 720x480 (uncompressed, Huffyuv, or MJPEG) if you can handle it is not necessarily a waste. Resizing to a smaller frame can act as a convenient, faster method of noise reduction, especially if you resize to account for overscan. (This may even be useful for VHS as well, but that's pushing it).

In either case, I would keep it at 352x480. If MPEG1, deinterlace - you'll still at least keep both fields rather than throwing one out completely. And while VHS may not truly represent 480 vertical lines, it generally does retain more than 240 on a good tape through a good VCR. If MPEG2, try keeping it interlaced - this may look better than anything else.

If you do go the MPEG1 route, you might query people's opinions as to how VideoStudio compares in quality to TMPGEnc or Panasonic, the two most-preferred MPEG1 encoders on this forum, and consider using one of them instead.

If your DVD player can handle spikes even above 4000Kbps, try doing 2-pass VBR encoding with 4000Avg, this works wonders for blocks. If not, you might try one-pass VBR to fit more video on your disc.

[kwag]

If I sound irritated in that discussion, it is because Kwag has repeatedly claimed that MPEG2 is always inferior below 2000Kbps, because he can't understand the relationship of resolution to quality.

Hi kinneera:

My claims have been after many hours of trials under the SAME conditions. Same source, same encoder, and different encoders.

I ask you to find an encoder, any encoder, that will produce a video of better quality at 352x480 @2,000Kbps MPEG-2 better than TMPEG 2.53 @2,000Kbps at the same resolution.

I've done this over and over so many times, and the results were always the same. MPEG-2 unstable on static scenes, vertical lines have a "wavy" look, etc.

And my last test, which I guess you didn't have the chance to download ( sorry, the files were deleted from the site ) were a side by side comparison of an MPEG-2 ( "The Mummy Returns" ) created with TMPEG at a constant bit rate of 2,520Kbps, standard SVCD template.

The MPEG-1 at a variable bit rate of 300Kbps to 2,300Kbps was equal in quality. No visible advantage.

But when I lowered the same MPEG-2 to 2,000Kbps, using the standard SVCD template in TMPEG, the results was of inferior quality, unstable, motion artifacts more noticable.

Now I don't know if it's the MPEG encoders, decoders, or what. The point is, and I sustain my facts by so many tests, that MPEG-1 below 2,000Kbps looks better, or is better ( anyway you want to look at it ), than MPEG-2.

kwag