Quality -- What should I expect!?

[cradix]

I hope I'm in the right forum...

I took the day off work yesterday and spent about 10 hours reading, ripping, encoding, burning, and making my wife upset. The results of all my hard work (and frustrated wife) paid off when I finally got a rather decent SVCD burn of an Animaniacs episode from my Dish PVR using my AIW card.

Here's the thing though, there seems to be a lot of "static" around the characters when they move (especially fast, or where there's a lot of colors in one spot). (I don't know what this is called, or else I may have searched the forums for it for more info before posting.)

For the most part, I can tolerate it. But is this what I should expect? I think better can be accomplished, but after exhausting trial and error, this seems to be all I can do. If there's a problem, is it when I converted the AVI, captured it, or is this just normal?

Here's what I did, btw: Used VirtualDUB to rip an uncompressed AVI from my Dish PVR at 352x480 NTSC (YUY2) at 29.97fps. Then used TMPGEnc to encode that AVI at 480x480 using the "SVCD template". Then burned to SVCD using Nero 5.5.7.8.

I tried ripping at frame sizes other than 352x480, but the image was always stretched or skewed when played on my TV.

Ideas, Comments, Advice?

Thanks so much in advance. --Matt

[snowmoon]

What you are seeing is a combination of mpeg artifacts and "mosquito noise" ( those dots that seem to hover just around contrasting parts of the image ie around dard lines ).

SVCD can be tricky, but is well worth it. You should be able to capture and encode at higher than 352x480. I you list your encoding/burning/DVD it might help to diagnose why you are getting a distortes screen. What do you mean by distorted anyways ( it's such a vauge term )?

[snowmoon]

Oh... I think I see the problem...

Uncompressed AVI runs at 25MB/s this is usually WAY too much for most HD's to handle.

Minimally you should be capturing to huffyuv ( freeware ). Unfortunatly there are no more free MJPEG codecs PIC MJPEG is nice. Without a compression ( lossless or not ) your HD and space will be taxed unnecessarly by these huge files.

[cradix]

Seems as though everyone around here suggests uncompressed AVI for best quality, hmmm. I'll try the HUFFYUV, but I'm also willing to spend $20 or so to get better if it exists.

The Pegasus codec was only $18, I think. Should I go ahead and purchase it?

Also, when I capture at 480x480, then encode at 480x480, and say the final image is "distorted" on my screen, I am referring to the fact the whole image is "squished" (yes, i know, another technical term!) in the middle of my TV screen. (For example, there are black bars on the top and bottom of my screen and the whole image is "compressed" inbetween. In other words, the image does not take up the whole screen.)

Thanks so much for your help!

-- Matt

[snowmoon]

Ok, in TMPGenc when you select SVCD and encode, doe sit look Squished there too? Have you by chance selected 16:9?

Huffyuv is a lossless 2:1 compression. As for capture quality, you should shoot for the least ammount of LOSS possible without dropping a signifigant number of frames. Since huffyuv is lossless it's basicly a free lunch compared to uncompressed YUV.

[cradix]

Crap. For some reason VirtualDub couldn't find my capture card. (Maybe because I uninstalled MMC?) Anyway, I just downloaded all the latest drivers for my ATI AIW Radeon 7500 and it can now show in VirtualDub, but when setting custom video format, it keeps saying "Unsupported video format!" I've tried 352x480 & 480x480 at all kinds of different YUV data formats. (Which one should I be using, btw?)

Any ideas? I'm gonna go install MMC 7.7 and see if that helps. I doubt it, though.

-- Matt

[snowmoon]

Unfortunaly, with later version of the MMC it become inreasingly less supportave for theVFW applications like VDUB. You either need to find the driver revisions that support VFW apps, get the wrapper to work ( yea right ), or find a WDM capture application.

You are probably better off reverting to that last stabe release that mentions VFW support.

I use a ATI AIW 128 Pro 32mb card to make stunning SVCD. After trying MMC7.1 I reverted to 6.1 from the install CD and it works great. From Hi-8mm tape 640x480 is used to capture with ATI VCR1(16), also great are ati packed yuv data and ati vcr2. That is capturing through ATI TV 6.1.

The trick is to resize the video down, not up, to 480x480. Premiere does this nicely, better resize is used in the export advanced menu. After the avi has been resized it may be encoded.

Several compressors were tried out on the resizing export: none with millions + colors, ati YVU9, PicVideo at 100 and at 75%. All looked great with all three capture codecs listed above.

[cradix]

Okay, I installed MMC 7.7 and it works again. I am now ready to try the HUFFYUV compression.

I've captured a 3 minute clip of Animaniacs and am about to convert is using TMPGenc and its SVCD template. But what other settings should I use?

For instance: Interlaced or Non-Interlaced, CBR or Variable (2 pass or Auto?)? The Motion Estimate settings should be set to pretty much however high I have time for, right?

BTW, snowmoon, capturing at 480x480 now works just fine, so I think it must have been an aspect ratio issue (although I haven't seen a setting for that yet). Anyway, no biggie for now -- as long as it works.

One more question -- Should a 1 minute AVI clip using HUFFYUV be almost 200MB?

-- Matt

[snowmoon]

Yes huffyuv is big, but it should be half the size of uncompressed YUV at the same resolution. If it's not that means that the last capture lost many frames.

Interlaced/non-interlaced is a religious debate for some people. Personally I would say it comed down to one thing. PC or TV? If you are going to only watch it on your PC then de-interlace and choose non-interlaced. If you are going to watch it on your TV choose interlaced. Note: that only applies to TV captures, not to DVD rips where 99.99% should be non-interlaced.

When I use TMPGenc I ususally also use macroblock softening as it tends to make the most egregious mpeg artifacts easier on the eyes.

[cradix]

So what about the VBR vs. CBR issue? If VBR is the way to go for SVCDs, then is 2 Pass best or Auto?

Thanks again for all your help... I think I'm getting there. The last burn I did of my 3 minute Animaniacs clip (2 Pass VBR, Interlaced, High Quality ME) was rather choppy & jerky. I guess I'll try other settings until I get it right.

What would you try? Are there different preferred settings for live vs. animated movies?

-- A Most Appreciative Matt

[Macros746]

Part of your problem is you are capping down and encoding up. What I mean by that is you are encoding at a HIGHER resolution than you are capping at. That is a very bad idea. Consider it this way: Whatever blemishes there are in your capture...and there will be some....are suddenly magnified. I would recommend trying a cap at 352x480 and encoding to standard VCD 352x240 just to see what I mean. I'll almost guarantee that despite a lower bitrate your VCD quality will be higher. What that mean is that you might try capturing at 480 x 480 (if your rig can handle it) and then encoding to 480 x 480 OR try encoding to CVD at 352 x 480. I think you'll be happier with your results.

macros

[cradix]

What that mean is that you might try capturing at 480 x 480 (if your rig can handle it) and then encoding to 480 x 480 OR try encoding to CVD at 352 x 480.

I've already learned that lesson, Macros. My previous post stating I was still having "choppy" quality was based on ripping & encoding both at 480x480. I should have been more specific.

I think the reasons for the poor quality now lie in my encoder settings (interlace vs not, vbr vs. cbr, etc.). Do you have an opinion on what settings I should use for an SVCD animated video?

Thanks so much! -- Matt

[Macros746]

Check out Lukesvideo.com for some suggestions on encoding and filtering cartoons. I would also ask the question...why are you wed to the idea of SVCD? For DVD rips I can't argue with them....but I really think both CVD and VCD are better solutions for captures from a faulty source. Also, have you tried CCE? Running your AVI through DVD2SVCD with a resize to make it CVD can make a VERY pretty capture.

Macros

[snowmoon]

If the video looks jerky on the TV you have the field order wrong. Chenge it under TMPGenc input settings. Still shots look clean, but movement is jerky ( 2 forward, 1 back, 2forward 1 back ... )

[cradix]

Macros, thanks for the link! I'll check that out as soon as possible. As for my "marriage" to SVCD it's simple -- I'm a newbie!! hehe Everywhere I read, everyone says "you get better quality with SVCDs"! So, I haven't tried a VCD since. I'll make that my project for tomorrow.

Snowmoon, thanks for the tip. I'll try that tonight.

Thanks a bunch, everyone! I'll post my results.

-- Matt

VirtualDub has a Swap Fields setting under Video in Video Capture. Would that help when video is jerky?
Michael

[snowmoon]

No, it will just swap fields, not field dominence.

It's the diffrence between jittery movement and jittery image.

My latest captures tried again to get smooth motion in solid frames using 480 captures to no good results. See my post "SVCD 480 caps suck". Huffyuv was used. All the 480 captures were jerkey. Only 640 captures resized down to 480 produce smooth motion. The information just is eliminated in 480 captures and can't be replaced. The information is averaged or blended together into some blurr in resizing and that is what produces smooth motion across the screen. You can't always see the motion skipping in scenes that don't have a person walking across the screen.

[cradix]

If the video looks jerky on the TV you have the field order wrong.
--snowmoon

As it turns out, my field order was set wrong when I encoded interlaced videos (and thus creating the "choppy" videos as described earlier.)

For the record, I was using Field Order B instead of the correct Field Order A.

I originally got around the "choppiness" by just choosing the non-interlace method in TMPGEnc. I thought that solved the problem until I discovered it then didn't play right on the computer. That's about when I actually tried Interlace again only with field order B. Never gone back since!

-- Matt

[snowmoon]

Just another FYI: Field order can depend on the type of interlaced video/time of day/how cranky my computers is being

Seriously though. When I was working under Win98 at times field order appeared to change mid stream on occasion. It was probably driver, just though I would let people know that it can happen. Some people have it easy though DV is always one way, by spec it cannot be any other.