Which DVD player for unrestricted mpg1 playback?

[Ertoil]

Hello, i have realized that the VCD playback of a DVD player restricts the mpg1 vídeo bitrate to 1 mbps, later the new DVD players with USB ports let you play directly single mpg1 video files from a pendrive encoded with higher bitrates and resolution (around 2-3 mbps).
Is there any DVD player model that can play mpg1 (from USB or data DVD-R) with same restrictions as mpg2 ( 9-10 mbps) ? thank you.

[DB83]

The only reason mpeg1 can be played on a DVD player is that they support (or should support) VCDs and VCD resolution is also part of the dvd spec.


The higher bitrate is more likely due to a little-used half-D1 format mpeg2 352*576 @ 2500 kbits/s


Even if a player supported a higher bitrate I hardly see the benefit in encoding as such.

[Ertoil]

Sorry but yes,a DVD player can play mpg1 files at 2.8Mbps (704x576) from the USB playback...the quest is to find a player that can play mpg1 files with higher vídeo bitrates cause at 2-5Mbps the mpg1 is still better than mpg2 and you save a lot of storage.

[DB83]

Good luck in finding that player but....


You are somewhat misguided.


mpeg1 at 352*288 at whatever bitrate = the filesize of...


mpeg1 at 704*576 at whatever bitrate = the filesize of...


mpeg2 at {whatever frame size} bitrate


Or to spell it out in another way. You do NOT save storage by increasing the bitrate in whatever codec you choose. Filesize = bitrate * run length. ALL videos will have the same filesize (if the audio is also consistent)


Or to re-quote what I previously wrote "I hardly see the benefit in encoding as such"

[Skiller]

Hello, i have realized that the VCD playback of a DVD player restricts the mpg1 vídeo bitrate to 1 mbps

Cannot confirm. Due to a lack of a proper DVD burner I did loads of VCD and SVCD stuff about 15+ years ago and found that virtually any player that also supports SVCD (which they pretty much all do?!) can – at least – play up to the SVCD bitrate limit even when playing VCD (which is 2500 kBit/s). And 2500 is plenty for 352x288/240 (not enough for SVCD though ). I even found that some players can play SVCD up to twice the maximum bitrate of the standard (5000) which results in quite good quality. It really all depends on the optical drive of the player and how fast it can read CDs.


Edit: Of course all of that experience I have applies to 15+ years old DVD-players. I'd doubt that modern players have software restrictions or have slower optical drives than old ones which would prevent playback of high bitrate VCDs but I don't know for sure.


Anyways, did you know that you can also put MPEG1 on DVD? There would certainly be no high bitrate problems there with just about any player.

cause at 2-5Mbps the mpg1 is still better than mpg2 and you save a lot of storage.

Urban myth by the way. After moving away from VCD/SVCD to DVD I did more MPEG2 encoding in my life than any other codec. MPEG1 is not better at low bitrates.

[pandy]

DVD players may not support anything above 352x288 - MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 are different (for example MPEG-1 support up to 4096x4096 video size where MPEG-2 not). If you searching for media player supporting MPEG-1 more than VCD then you need to perform examination by yourself and contradictory to other i can say that sometimes MPEG-1 is better in terms of subjective quality than MPEG-2 .

[Ertoil]

Thank you.
Depending on the encoding software but yes mpg1 gets solid DVD quality at 2-3mbps while mpg2 is a pixelation disaster at the same 2-3mbps

[DB83]

^^ Disagree.


Do it properly, as I have done, then mpeg2 @ 2.5 mbps is not a pixilation disaster. Of course full-D1 720*576 is not suited for these low bitrates but half-D1 is.


But you have not, in any of your posts, stated the resolution that can be played. 352*288 mpeg1 @ 2.5 mbps, which is 10 hour dvd recording mode, is going to look terrible on any current screen.


Again, from personal experience, I was encoding at VCD resolution way back in the late 90's. I still have many of these encodes and even on a 20 inch monitor they look horrible.

[dvd3500]

Have to agree with DB83 here... If you are getting pixelation in MPEG2 there is something wrong in the encode.
I own Star Wars (the good ones) and my VHS copies look better on my 42 inch than my VCDs (which are all legal, official releases) No probs on DVD or Blu-Ray.