VCD image flickering

[Jeff Walters]

Ok, this is my first dive into making a VCD and overall it turned out fairly well. I made an NTSC VCD compilation of some videos and although the majority turned out ok....a couple of them did have a problem: they flicker slightly in the center of the image so it's not very smooth at all.

Now, living in Australia I have a PAL TV, but I was told to make the VCD NTSC because the DVD player I had could play it and that's the format the original videos were in. 95% of the videos on the VCD do admittedly play fine....it's just 2 that have this flickering problem.

Is it the fact I have a PAL TV that's the problem or is the flickering a flaw in the encoding of the two videos? I *think* it might have to do with PAL because when I switch the DVD player to NTSC mode, although the picture is bad with no colour - the flickering disappears.

Anyway....any and all advice is appreciated. Please, forgive the muddled nature of this post, but yes...big newbie trying to wade through piles of tutorials here

PS - The tools I used were VirtualDub, TMPGenc and Nero if that helps.

[KingJohn]

It gets complicated when your making a NTSC VCD when your living in a PAL country. There is no reason why NTSC source should not be converted to PAL VCD's at leased if you did that you could rule your equipment.

Apart from the DVD playing NTSC your TV has to display NTSC, which may or may not be as good as your standard PAL. New widescreen TV's have 100Hz unlike 60hz or 50Hz TV's from the other country's

Like you in the UK I use PAL VCD's at all times, well apart from one NTSC I made by mistake none of the conversions I have ever had are bad.

If you have a problem source then it may get worse, if there are a lot of fast frames, and the original has been highly compressed it will look jerky.

The best are usually DVD rips. It is also important to find the best CDR's available for your machine, and to check if your Player has additional filters that can be switched on or off.

Conversion of AVI's is important, if you make a fully compliant VCD from a template in TMPGEnc then there is less chance you will have problems with it. Start to change bitrates or use SVCD or VCD film and your player might give problems.