mpeg 2, mpeg 1 and stuff

[vidnewbie]

I completed a video cd with MPEG 1 - and now i read that i can improve on the quality by using MPEG 2 instead. Is this true?

Using the same mpeg 1 video, can i convert it to mpeg 2 and then burn it on a vcd?

Do i use TMPGEnc for this?

Just reencoding the mpeg1 to mpeg2 does not improve the quality it will instead decrease the quality a bit. And VCD is MPEG1 only. But if you have a good video source like dvd, very good high resolution divx, dv or some captured high res avi you can try SVCD.

[guitar_george_skank]

Every time you re-encode something your going to lose quality. It's like taping a video over and over. You lose something each time you try to compress the file. You do get better quality with SVCD but you have to use a higher bitrate because the resolution is much bigger than VCD.

SVCD = 480 x 480/576 (NTSC/PAL)
VCD = 352 x 240/288 (NTSC/PAL)

For example a pal VCD has 352x288=101376 pixels per frame, whereas a SVCD has 480x576=276480 pixels per frame. As you can see there is a ratio of 2.72 to 1 so technically you need 2.72 x the VCD bitrate to achieve the same quality. Of course when using SVCD we use 2 pass VBR which gives better quality at lower bitrates. There are plenty of guides on this site to explain how to make a SVCD. I personally agree with test and would only use SVCD from a high quality source like a DVD rip or similar.

Have you tried XVCD's (if your DVD player supports them)? You can increase the quality of your VCD's using higher bitrates and 2 pass VBR. Of course this means splitting the movie over 2 or 3 CD's but you can put 1 hour of video encoded at 1581Kb/sec using 2 pass VBR onto 1 80min CD. The quality is excellent (in my opinion) and most movies are under 2 hours so the bitrate can increase if the movie is shorter. I recently ripped Shallow Hal onto 2 CD's at a bitrate of 1710Kb/sec using 2 pass VBR. On my 25" Sony TV it looks just about as good as the DVD. If you didn't know any better you would be fooled when watching it.