320x240 vcd conversion question

[murrays]

Looking to convert my digital movies (320 x 240 10fps avi) to vcd. Want the result to be as sharp as possible. The problem with most attempts is that the video appears to be scaled up on the tv, thus not very sharp.

Tried converting the avi to mpg using various templates with TMPGEnc and centering the video to take care of the increase size of 352x240. Get a black area on the sides as expected.

My best result is when I use the dvd template and center the video which creates a black around the whole video and burn it with Nero. When played on a 27 inch tv the resulting video is about the size of what would appear on a 15inch tv.

Does the video actually get scaled up when playing in the dvd player? It appears pretty good on my computer dvd. Looking for suggestions.

Thanx in advance!

[wulf109]

I've converted Divx 320 x 240 with Tmpeg's standard vcd template without problems. Have you tried the standard template without modifying it? I suspect your real problem is the oddball framerate!
10 FPS?

[vcdfreak]

VCD is usually not sharp. Try SVCD, XVCD or DVD if you want sharp video.

[therick]

upsizing from 320x240 will lower quality-so ignore vcdfreak's post

[vcdfreak]

You need to necessarily upsize. You can fill up the rest with black screen if you tolerate small pictures.

You also try MPEG-1 with higher bit rate (non-VCD compliant) if your player can support it.

You can also get from a better source or you can rip from a DVD source.

[murrays]

Didn't realize that my DVD could play SVCD. I was able to create SVCD using the center option in TMPGEnc which has a black border and has pretty good resolution.

My original videos are from a digital camera which explains the low fps.

Are there any settings in TMPGEnc that could make the video sharper? Don't care about the processing time.

Will continue trial and error. Thank goodness for re-writables. 8)

Thanks all for the responses.

[vcdfreak]

You can have the sharpen filter checked in the settings. I also heard that it's also good to have the inverse telecine filter checked although I'm not sure how it can help to improve the quality. It's also good to have the motion search set to higher quality (slower encoding time). Avoid the noise filter if your source is clean as it will blur your video a bit although not much. The thing that matter most is the data bit rate and motion search. Try a 2-pass VBR (Variable Bit Rate) with high data bit rate and motion search of high quality and Sharpen filter on. Hope this helps.

[zzyzzx]

I have yet to see a 320x240 VCD that looked decent.