The poll above ^^^ Why is VCD winning, I thought that SVCD

[kinneera]

Perhaps one thing that should be more emphasized about the settings I mentioned above it that it employs a full 720x480 screen res. This is extremely non-standard for a VCD, obviously, and as KoalaBear mentioned, the full vertical resolution does make a huge difference, especially when played back on a TV. Mine is a 20" Sony Vega (Trinitron), BTW, so my evaluation is hardly tainted by my TV Nomadxjl!

The differences between MPEG1 and MPEG2 seem to be far less important than the impact of bitrate, and the choice between making it variable and constant.

As for the "glitches" that have been mentioned, I don't know what they look like because I haven't experienced them on my Sony DVD-player. I would venture to say that perhaps the DVD player being used has trouble with MPEG1 streams at that bitrate...

[kinneera]

Another forum thread has some opinions that are actually rather relevant to this discussion (further reinforcing the argument that if you can push the bounds on VCD far enough, it can come close to or equal SVCD quality): http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=55768&forum=3&6

Also, with the odd argument that when DVD-R becomes big, SVCD owners can rejoin their clips and burn them again, how is this useful? You'll end up with a non-standard DVD that can only be played on a computer anyway, losing the biggest benefit of VCD and SVCD alike... It's not as if VCD people can't do the same thing, and get even more movie onto a DVD!

[adam]

KoalaBear that is a fair comparison between vcd and svcd when using captured, lower quality video but I still think you are missing the point. If you are capturing your video and converting to svcd then you are not even coming close to the potential of svcd. Keep throwing more bitrate at it if you want to but you'll never know how good svcd can be until you use a high quality source like dvd. With that source you could have easily done a comparison between vcd and dvd and gotten the EXACT same results, yet we all know how much better dvd is then vcd right?

If you are using a low quality source than svcd has absolutely no benefit over vcd at all in terms of visual quality except that it supports interlacing, which is negated by doing an ivtc.

Do a dvdrip to vcd and a dvdrip to svcd. Encode the svcd in at least 2-pass vbr. If you are just using regular vbr than again you are not going to get the full potential of svcd. It really does make a big difference in both quality and size. With a high quality source you should see a much bigger difference in quality now. The difference will be very similar to the difference between vhs and dvd.

Your observations about vcd and svcd are both very accurate, you are just greatly handicapping the potential of svcd and you are in fact not using the format as it was intended to be used. I am sure when using a higher quality source you will be even more impressed with the svcd format.

If all you do is capture from vhs and regular tv than svcd should not even be an option for you. It will yield almost no benefits over vcd, but this is in no way a reflection on the svcd format it is a reflection on your source.

[Nomadxjl]

kinneera, your wrong dude. They were talking about the Pioneer DVD burner thats out on TechTV, and MPEG2 files are what it burns by default and they will play on ANY DVD player (they said) and they meant regular DVD players, not just computer DVD players. They didn't say if you can even burn MPEG1 files, but I don't see why not, and yes you would get more on a DVD as MPEG1, but again, picture quality from the year 1960

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nomadxjl on 2001-08-23 21:46:57 ]</font>

[kinneera]

You're missing my point entirely...the MPEG2 files used for SVCD are not DVD-compliant - you are not going to produce a movie format DVD without re-encoding those files. Using my xVCD settings, from a DVD SOURCE, produces quality on par with SVCD, and I will stand by that. Standards-compliant VCD settings, granted, look like crap when your source video is high quality.

And for making a statement so absurd as to claim that VCD looks like video from 1960, you should sentenced to have all of your high tech toys taken away and replaced by a single, black and white 10" television manufactured in 1960 for the remainder of your natural life.

[TOMMO]

I can TOTALLY understand the sentiments raised here.

VCD - is simple to make, compatable with nearly all PCs and standalone DVD players (if they can read written CDRS). If the source material is a DVD backup then I see no reason at all to go up from VCD.

CONCLUSION - VCD will never be better than the video source and the encoder used does seem to make a difference. Almost universally compatable. Fast encoding. Small files.

SVCD - Damn this is hard to get right. It seems that depending on your DVD Player, the settings for encoding have to be tweaked. But when you have got it right, and using a Digital 8 camcorder as source for home movies - SVCD wins hands down. Frankly - I was pleased with the quality of my D8 footage as VCD - but at the same time a little dissapointed. I had a determined go at SVCD now I will not go back to VCD for Home movies, SVCD is superior by FAR. However to say I worked it all out myself as to TEMPEnc settings then I would be lying. Some good people helped. But we had the same hardware - at least the DVD Player. However the SVCDS I produce are not accepted by NERO without complaining. Easy CD Creator won't have them at all. The only program that does is WINONCD.

CONCLUSION - SVCD quality is very very good. My home movies will all be done in this format from now on. not very user friendly or machine compatable. By this - settings for hardware players will be different. long encoding times.

DVD Standard - I have encoded home movie footage to DVD standard. It is PAR excellent. No doubt the winner. However, I cannot afford the £650 for the burner, £10 a disk etc. The standard still has to be sorted. This will have to wait for a long time. Please don't post that you have seen the kit for less, I am not interested - yet. The cost no matter what is too high when CDRS can be bought for 50 pence each.

CONCLUSION - The winner by a long way, but the standards need sorting and costs need to drop fast.

Overall conclusions. Each format has its virtues. Every person will be comparing different sources, encoding methods and players. Difficult to make precise judgement to make a definative YES or NO on a worldwide basis.

[CommanderXJL]

your settings DO NOT produce the quality of SVCD, I already tried. You either don't have good eyesight, don't know how to make an SVCD, are going from a crappy source, or have a crappy small tv, otherwise you would see it, the difference is easy to see. Your super awesome XVCD settings look identical to a 2 hour recording on video tape from a good source, and that picture quality has been around since the 60's. Did you think VHS was invented in 1980 just because thats when the player's came out? They made Twilight Zone episodes on video tape in the early 60's. President Kennedy was on video tape in the early 60's. If a person wants the best picture possible and doesn't care most movies need to go on 3 disks then you make SVCD's, and thats all there is to it. My 7 year old can tell the diffrence between XVCD and SVCD, so can my wife. Plus with your magic XVCD settings it takes 12 hours on my 800 mhz Athlon to do a 2 hour movie, the same time it takes to encode a high quality SVCD, so why would I make an XVCD with those settings if I don't care it takes 1 more disk to fit a movie?

[kinneera]

Jesus, can you people actually READ?!?!? The TV I use is a 20" FLATSCREEN SONY VEGA BASED ON TRINITRON TECHNOLOGY - it's not huge but its f*ing high quality!! The source video is DVD!!! And my vision is corrected to better than 20/20 courtesy of contact lenses...so CUT THE IDIOTIC PERSONAL ATTACKS PLEASE!!

Like I've said before, the difference between MPEG1 and MPEG2 barely matters compared to the bitrate, which is almost equivalent to SVCD using my settings. Perhaps now is a good time to mention that I rip the DVDs to 23.976 fps, so interlacing doesn't matter, thus MPEG2 for all intents and purposes doesn't matter. I also use the constant quality setting in TMPGEnc, which does something quite different from the regular VBR, to my determination. So sorry if we were comparing apples and oranges here.

And finally, I am well aware that VHS isn't only as old as the 80s, but anyone who claims that any video produced or encoded today, VCD or otherwise, looks worse than even the very best video from the 1960s is a moron, no ifs ands or buts about it. Just look at the Nixon/Kennedy debate footage for god's sake.

[thebach]

I rip the DVDs to 23.976 fps, so interlacing doesn't matter, thus MPEG2 for all intents and purposes doesn't matter WHAT THE HELL?????? I rip DVD's to 23.976 also and make SVCD's, and the difference between XVCD with those settings and SVCD at 23.976 is obvious. Most people who make SVCD's use force film in DVD2AVI because they play smoother than 29 fps, so you just showed how much you know about SVCD's. You also seem to think bitrate is all that matters, and you are way wrong, there is more to it, an XVCD with a bitrate of 5000 is not going to look as good as an SVCD with a bitrate of 2000. Virtually every person who has experience and has replied to this thread has said that SVCD looks better than any XVCD but you just can't get it through your damn head for some reason, you have this unconditional love affair for XVCD, I GIVE UP ON YOU Kinneera



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: thebach on 2001-08-24 01:31:42 ]</font>

[Sefy]

Geesh, you people are still argueing what is better ? and the poll said more people do a VCD and not a SVCD, but that has nothing to do with quality, SVCD will always be better then VCD there is no doubt about it, but don't give me the reason that "thinking for the future" remark, because that is completly bogus! why ? because when you get your DVDR, you won't be "joining all the parts" you will be RE-RIPPING so you will get HIGHER quality, maybe even DVD quality.

No matter how you think about it, VCD is EASIER to make, requires LESS computer power, gives you MORE movie on the same size CDR, and it is MORE compatible then ANY other format.

SVCD will give you BETTER quality, but it will be HARDER to make, especialy if you want to use the entire SVCD possibilities which ARE numerous over VCD, but it also requires ALOT stronger PC for the encoding time! and you get alot LESS movie on the same CDR (If you use standard!, don't get X into this!) and the chances it will work on your DVD are very SMALL compared to VCD, even a X VCD has more chances to be compatible then a SVCD, and it does not really matter how much better quality SVCD has over VCD, cause it is better quality at the end, especialy if you use all the features and possibilities of SVCD, but the majority have spoken, they prefer VCD, those who prefer SVCD will keep using it and having alot of popcorn during movies, and that's it.

[Kdiddy]

Kept seeing topic over & over again, I tried to stay away...but I just knew some hot shit was going down in here..LOL, man you guys turned this into some real Ali-Frazier, Hatfields & McCoys type shit....well now lemme throw my 2 Abe's in this..

Man Sefy ya right, I mean cmon people..the poll said which do you PREFER to store ya movies as, not which was better quality, especially when quality is as much based on fact as it is opinion..

However, I'll approach this in a newbie fashion, not quoting bitrates, encoders, burners, yadda yadda yah...but it was once said that we are talking about 2 different groups of people...my neighbor (VERY newb) for instance, once I told him about VCD, he said, "how is quality?" I said "come & check it for yaself" (key here, was NOT to hype it up), so when he saw it, he was floored! enough so that he went & bought the same DVD player as me the very next day...now when I saw it for the first time my reaction, was not bad considering amout of time spent & no cost, my reaction to SVCD, was pretty good, but for me (remember still somewhat newbie, but more so just a lil lazy) too much leg work invovled...so my vote went to VCD, mainly cuz I dont having the time to do SVCD CORRECTLY & VCD is a snap for me now, plus if I really want the movie to look that good, I'll just drop twenty on the DVD...I mainly just burn thearter release to VCD & my "WIFE", LOL, not me in case the FBI is watching, my "wife", "MAKES" me copy DVD movies sometimes when we might not have time to watch b4 Blockbuster wants them back.

However by the same token, I think it is basically wrong to even compare the 2..while yes they both produce the same end result (having CDR(W) disk play in a standalone DVD), they are on different levels thus shouldnt be compared...I sorta look at like this..o so long ago when I was in HS, my JV(=VCD) football team went undefeated as well as did the varsity(=SVCD) team the same year...all season long there was a running debate about which team was better...and my coach said it best...while both teams play the same game (IE, produce playable movies), they shouldnt be compared because they play on different levels...both are good teams, you cant say one was better when they both never lost a game...however, on the counterpoint, when we did play practice against each other, the varsity won about 70% of the time, but by the same token they didnt blow us away, it was always a struggle...

Ok now that that insane trip down memory lane is over with, really lets not just turn this into who's got a bigger dick contest...cuz if so, I got interesting twist to throw in this. I am sure you experts know this, but wonder why it hasnt been brought up yet....I used TMPG (I know CCE is better, but Im having probs with it), and made mpeg-2 video stream, w/ 2.75 mbit/s video rate, 720x480, all that other picky settings crap...muxed with my audio in BBmpeg, BUT muxed as a mpeg-1...sent that bad boy to NERO and burned as a VCD, oops technically X VCD...and to my surprise it not only played, but looked quite well next to regular xVCD with same bitrate & other jazzy settings...now why is that??..did really see a difference or was it just 2 in the damn morning & my eyes saw what they wanted to see??..LOL, somebody lemme know?

I have recently spent more time on the miniDVD, as much as I love good video, but 5.1 surround makes it all that much better...once that comes around a lil better, "my wife will really make me start copying a lot of DVDs"


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kdiddy on 2001-08-24 05:04:02 ]</font>

[thebach]

How do you make a mini DVD? What the hell is that?

[vitualis]

miniDVD = cDVD = DVD image burnt onto CD media

This can only be read by 2 or 3 discrete DVD models (the portable AIWA and the Afreey and its clones) and even then, they have their issues.

It is NOT a viable video disc solution for most people if you intend to play them on a stand-alone player.

They do work very well on the PC though.

Regards.

[KoalaBear]

In point of fact, both clips were captured from DVD. The comparison wouldn't be meaningful unless I started with source material better than either format could handle, right? But the fact that they were captured as opposed to ripped isn't relevant to the outcome.

What the experiment shows is that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. That means if I'd have produced these clips by ripping instead of capturing, both clips would benefit to the same degree if either of them benefitted at all. So we'd be back to square one with respect to what it means: SVCD would still look better than VCD due to the better vertical resolution, but in absolute terms, not by all that much.

Throwing more bitrate at SVCD isn't the solution to its problems, either. It might improve the picture, but you might also end up with a 7-disc presentation of "Ghandi" to show for your effort. Wouldn't you prefer to buy a movie outright than swap that many discs in order to watch it at a level of quality far lower than the DVD it was ripped from? I know I would.

But if you really want to preserve a DVD in its glory, try 352x480 at 3 Mb/s. It's one of MPEG-2's "sweet spots," a combination of resolution and bitrate that's known to be particularly effective. Plenty of picture, plenty of bits to encode with, and outstanding picture quality from end to end. I produced a sample clip in this format for a 3-way comparison, but lack of web space prevented me from uploading it for everyone to see. Doesn't matter, though, because all it would have shown is that it's better than VCD and SVCD by a wide margin, and that's not the theory I wanted to test.

I'd certainly be interested in seeing other people's sample clips, though. I'd wager that the level of quality they accept in practice is much lower than what either format is actually capable to achieve.

[adam]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-24 09:00:02, KoalaBear wrote:
The comparison wouldn't be meaningful unless I started with source material better than either format could handle, right? </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

But you didnt thats the whole point! Thats why its not meaningful. If your going to compare formats then your source is not what you start at its what you feed into the encoder. It doesnt matter that it came from a dvd, you captured it and its a low quality capture at that. If you want to do a comparision between two formats you need to compare the best that each has to offer. Your source is already almost as low a quality as vcd. But your SOURCE is no where near as good a quality as svcd can provide to begin with. You said it yourself, throwing more bitrate at it is not the answer. Well thats exactly what you are doing by converting that low quality video to svcd, your throwing more bitrate at an already degraded source and thats why its not looking any better. So in your comparison you are getting the best of what vcd has to offer and about %2 of what svcd has to offer. This is not a fair comparison at all and honestly it holds no relavance. If your source started out higher quality than svcd than encoding in the svcd format would have PRESERVED the quality better than vcd. Thats where the quality differences come in. You cannot expect the svcd format to actually increase your source quality, which is what this experiment is attempting to do.

If svcd looks x amount better than vcd at x amount of source quality, increasing the source quality will only increase total quality of both formats? The difference in quality between the two formats will remain proportional? Are you serious? That is not how it works at all.

Once quality is gone its gone for good. Your cramming vcd quality video into the vcd format, fine it looks like a vcd. But your also cramming vcd quality video into a svcd and guess what, it looks like a vcd. Now you cannot compare svcd and vcd to each other in this situation, its just not accurate at all. Increasing the source quality would not have made the vcd look any better, you've already reached your maximum potential. But the svcd would have looked MUCH better. If you want to compare the benefits of svcd and vcd when using low quality captures then fine this holds relavance and only proves the point that svcd should not be used in this manner. But if you want to compare the quality differences between the two formats then this comparison means nothing.

"So we'd be back to square one with respect to what it means: SVCD would still look better than VCD due to the better vertical resolution, but in absolute terms, not by all that much"

This only applies when your source video is vcd quality to begin with, in which case there is no reason to use svcd anyway. This holds absolutely no relavance to the vcd and svcd formats. Do a dvdrip and use each format, that is a fair comparison and your results will be shockingly different than the ones you got.

[vitualis]

How did you capture (what card, codec, specs, etc.)?

Usually, unless you have a pretty good capture card, there is a massive difference between a rip and a capture.

I believe that I've got a very good method in produce DVD rips of VCDs and I get very high quality results. However, all SVCDs of DVD rips I've created, even my first few attempts, are definitely visually superior (I've made several VCD and SVCD rips of the same movie). This is especially obvious if the scene has relatively high motion and high detail.

One particular scene that I remember well as striking me as remarkably different (SVCD vs VCD) is Borg Cube fight scene at the beginning of Star Trek 8 (First Contact). If I'm bothered enough, I may post clips.

ST8 fit on 2 CDs as VCDs. ST8 also fit on 2 CDs as a SVCD as well. This is an important point. Although you can fit up to 80 min of video on a CD for VCD, most movies are indeed longer than 80 minutes. When spread over two CDs, a lot of space is actually wasted for a VCD. Most movies in SVCD format can be placed in 2 CDs as well -- and if authored correctly, close to every last bit of capacity can be utilised. If a movie is under 80 minutes in length though, there is a compelling reason to use VCD. Indeed, unless I particularly liked the movie, I would probably use VCD over SVCD in this case.

Although SVCDs have a max video bitrate of 2500 kbit/s or so, it is unnecessary and indeed unwise to encode at this bitrate CBR. A much lower average bitrate (e.g., 1800 kbit/s video) but with multipass VBR encoding will yield very similar quality. Your 7-disc example is a bit of hyperbole and not a realistic example. For really long movies (e.g., those that require 3 CDs for VCD), you can invariable fit them on 3 CDs for SVCD as well -- with higher visual quality. I agree with the sentiment that it is perhaps time to think of buying that actual DVD for these movies though...

I also agree that most people probably accept quality in practice far lower that what is possible (after all, 3 pass VBR takes a hell of a long time). It's all a matter of balance between convenience and quality. With standard VCDs, there really isn't a choice... unless you choose a poor quality but fast MPEG-1 encoder or a real-time encoder. However, with SVCDs, you can tailor it to your needs. If it's a simple, low-motion, or "don't really care" type of movie, CBR MPEG-2 may be more than sufficient. However, for those "masterpieces" or personal favorites, multipass VBR gives spectacular quality over standard VCD.

Regards.

[Elco]

okay. Time for a conclusion, because this topic will take HOURS to read!!

May I?
VCD; most populair, acceptable quality for most of us.
SVCD; better, but you have to invest some more (time, pc, patient)

My opnion; I will NEVER give up SVCD because I want the BEST, as long as I can afford it!
Now, let's help some red eyed shakin' newbies who REAYLY want to know what his is all about!

[WMike]

How many times have we had this discussion?

There are many factors to be considered when you decide what is "quality", most of which is in the eye of the beholder.

I produce SVCD's most of the time. For my taste, and for my goals (converting VHS movies), SVCD gives ME the quality I desire vs. VCD. I find that when converting my B/W crappy VHS movies to SVCD, the quality actually "looks" better than the original (I know it's technically not, but the appearance is what matters to me). Other's have different equipment/goals/tastes, so their perspective will be different. This is a tasks of trade-offs, file size vs. quality, time vs. quality, blah blah blah.

The argument about compatibility will ALWAYS be an issue, and no one can really accurately anticipate all the changes that will occur down the road. I figure, once it's digitized, I'll have options down the road to convert. Maybe not always totally lossless, but likely no worse than analog losses which have occurred from the days of converting from 4-track

My 2cents
Mike

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: WMike on 2001-08-24 10:27:20 ]</font>

[Sefy]

my god it's still going on and on, you can optimize this and optimize that and even I that I only make VCD's tell you that SVCD has higher quality doesn't seem to change anything.

Those who prefer VCD will remain with VCD, and those who prefer SVCD will remain with SVCD, what's the big deal ? you do what you like and we do what we like.

The whole question was why VCD is winning, so that means VCD is winning, take a look at the pool, 43% prefer VCD, at exactly half of it at 22% people use SVCD, doesn't that tell you something ???

VCD was, is and propably going to be for a LONG time the prefered format, especialy if you take into consideration all the asian countries out there who use VCD!

SVCD is for those who have patience and alot of it, and don't mind wasting all those CDR's on a single movie, for them it's not a waste, and by all means! I have no problem with it, i'm sure nobody else has a problem with it too, so really now, what is this argument all about ?

you want to use VCD and AMD, go party dude!
you want to use SVCD and Intel CPU's ? fine by me, it's your money!

Those are all dead-end arguments, and no matter how technicly you get into it, no one is going to convince no one and each person will keep on using whatever they want to use, and by the looks of it, most of them will be using VCD's cause the poll said 43%! so smile and get on with it.

[adam]

I dont think ANYONE is arguing about which format is best, because as we all know they each serve different purposes. The poll has nothing to do with it anymore, we know why more people choose vcd over svcd and it has nothing to do with superiority.

What we ARE arguing about is the quality difference between the two formats and the serious misconceptions that people have about them. My point is that the people who say svcd doesnt look that much better than vcd have a serious flaw in their process and in their logic. Svcd DOES look much better but unless you are using a source and a process that fully takes advantage of it, the benefits of the format are negated. All I'm saying is that if you still dont think svcd looks much better than vcd then just do a simple dvdrip. Until then you CANNOT make an accurate assessment of svcd.

Svcd is not necessarily better than vcd, but it IS far superior in quality. THAT is what I'm trying to get people to realize.

[KoalaBear]

*sigh*

If you really must know, my equipment is probably more modest than power-users like you guys:

IBM PC 300GL, 500 MHz PIII, 128Mb RAM, ATI All-in-Wonder 32 PCI, SB16 PNP ISA, 13.5Gb IBM DeskStar 7200RPM UDMA/66 (dedicated), Sony CRX100E CD-R/W, 19" IBM P92 Trinitron display. The software is all garden-variety stuff we all use: VirtualDub, AviSynth, Panasonic [OK, I bought my copy, that's why I prefer to use it over TMPEGenc] and CinemaCraft. Oh, yes. Pioneer DV-333 DVD player connected via S-video.

Obviously it's not my hardware that accounts for anything. I like IBM and I like ATI, but so what? I guarantee you if brand loyalty were the secret of good compression practices, people would pay to read a spec sheet like mine.

In all honesty, if you want to understand where Gibbs artifacts (those ugly compression halos) come from, you need to start with the mathematics of DCT, which is what all versions of MPEG (and MJPEG and JPG too) are based on. You'll find out that the decoder is at least as responsible for them as the encoder. If you don't like to see them at all, it behooves you to figure out (a) what they are, (b) where they come from, and (c) what techniques are effective in eliminating them. Throwing more bits at the problem doesn't necessarily make them go away.

That's book study boys, and sharp pencils and plenty of paper, long before your video ever gets touched by the encoder. I've said before that people don't really want to achieve the best quality their hardware is capable of, they want to achieve the best quality they can get with the least amount of effort. And for me, that means buying the DVD rather than renting-to-rip it.

[KoalaBear]

But come to think of it, Adam, why don't you post a sample clip for us that demonstrates just how badly the "capture" versus "rip" method degrades the video to the point that any meaningful comparison between formats is impossible?

I want to see how a real man handles his encoding.

[Kdiddy]

LOL, and the beat goes on... no one has still said much about me using BBmpeg to mux a mpeg-2 stream & audio into a mpeg-1 style .mpg, and then burning that as a VCD...is that doing anything special??..is that just a waste of time?

[galdridge]

Does anyone know a way to make videos on CD today that will have a clear path to DVD-R when it becomes more affordable? It seems that using the DVD template with tmpgenc and a bitrate of 2500 or so and cutting it to CD would be most forward looking approach as long as they play on some players. I am going to try this on the Apex AD-500W soon. Any comments?

[kinneera]

Ummm, muxing an MPEG2 stream into an MPEG1 is basically just the same as what is happening when you convert a DVD-rip to VCD, so no, it isn't particularly special in any way.

[Maniacal]

Why not just buy a new Mac with super drive, rip the dvd you want and remove all the stupid extras, this usually gives you a files that add up to around 4 gigs, and then burn it to a $10 dvd-r disc. It should be easy using apples DVD software and a freeware ripper.
If you still want to make vcd's the 12+ hour mpeg2 to mpeg1 conversion only takes around 2 hrs on a mac G4. It should be even less using the new dual 800mhz systems.
I dont even have one of these systems but I'm waiting till january when there should be the new quad 1ghz processor On a single die, all four processors on the same chip. Add OS x a unix based OS, and you get multiprocessing, multitasking, protected memory and we're talking serious power. Ripping, burning, downloading and playing a game all at the same time hmm... Its nice to be able to do all these things at the same time and not wait for your machine to finish ripping. Right now I'm ripping this dvd using dvdx on an amd 1.13ghz processor with ddr ram and radeon video with ddr ram. 18 hours, thats a long wait.
just a suggestion, but I'm gonna try macs, sounds simpler, and faster.
just my 2 cents, and maybe some of you might think about it. dvds that you burn that play on any dvd player. simple drag and drop dvd's. easy to make dv home videos.
Anyone who is willing to spend 2 to 4 grand on a home theatre system will probably want to spend money on a machine thats quality built.
At my work, PC's create 98% of my work load. Most mac service calls are just user error. These people that make all these user errors should never touch a computer, imagine them on a pc, they'd wreck it.

Anyways ciao

[kinneera]

Wow, has Apple contacted you about being a sales agent?!

[adam]

A real man realizes that certain formats work better in certain situations. I honestly dont understand your argument. You have a source which is higher than vcd, barely, and much lower then svcd. Yet when you encode in each format you claim the svcd looks only marginally better because of the limitations of the format? Don't you think the source might have something to do with it? You might as well be comparing RM files and dvd, according to your logic dvd is only slightly better than RM because an RM file converted to 9MB/sec mpeg still looks about the same. You keep saying throwing more bitrate at it isnt the answer but dont you see, this is exactly what your doing when you encode low quality video to svcd. Yes your video was low quality and no you should not have even bothered using the svcd format on it. Yes I am saying your test holds no weight because you captured your video, ESPECIALLY since it was obviously not that high a quality of capture.

You honestly want me to do a comparison between captured material and a digital rip to prove this point? Isnt the difference in quality pretty obvious? I mean you said yourself you captured your dvd right? well look at your dvd, yes the actual dvd and now compare it to the video you captured. The difference should be quite clear. Now THIS is a HUGE difference in source quality and is the determining factor in deciding which format to encode in. Your captured material is about vcd quality, at best, and would gain almost no increase in quality by converting to svcd. But the dvd is higher quality than svcd and that quality will be PRESERVED much more so in a svcd than a vcd. It has nothing to do with one format getting more bitrate thrown at it, it has everything to do with quality lost before you even get started versus the preservation of quality. I'm not going to prove it to you, JUST TRY IT.

Please just rip one vob from that dvd to your hard drive, then encode 5 mins of it in 2-pass vbr with a decent bitrate setting and the same clip in standard vcd settings. 5 mins of video will not take you very long to do. THEN if you can still tell me, HONESTLY, that svcd only looks marginally better than vcd I will praise you and never post here again.

All I'm saying is that I think you have only seen a small fraction of what svcd has to offer, and until you actually do a proper rip you have no right to make comments about the quality of svcd. Its like me trying to give a review of a movie I have never seen. For your purposes you should just stick to vcd, its all you need. If you want higher quality then like you said, buy the dvd. But if you take this position and have never actually made a high quality svcd then you cannot rightfully post that svcd doesnt look that much better than vcd because its incorrect and spreads ignorance.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: adam on 2001-08-24 17:39:02 ]</font>

[Kdiddy]

Hoenstly the only good thing about the 500w...is that it uses a regular IDE DVD-rom in case the original dies..which in most cases it does...you can just replace it with a normal DVD-rom drive...other than that..the machine is piece of junk

[thebach]

I worked on Macs for a living, owned 4 all together and I went to the PC. You better give serious thought to buying a Mac, everything new and cool is not for Macs, or you have to wait, Apple is barely staying in business, Mac OS X is so far a big joke, I finally got tired of these seriously over priced machines and all of the limitations and bought a PC with Windows 2000. On an 800 mhz Athlon I can compress video, burn CD's, and work in Photoshop all at the same time. I also don't have to wait for the new cool games, software, and harware. 95% percent of the world is PC, Macs have dropped to 2.2% of the market, so now there below even Linux. I was the most die hard Mac finatic around, I've almost gotten into fist fights defending Apple, but I really don't think there the way to go. If things are taking that long on your machine something is wrong, I can convert a 2 hour movie to SVCD in 12 hours on my 800mhz Athlon. You get multitasking, protected memory, and multiprocessing with Windows 2000 and XP. Don't buy a Mac because of the DVD burner, you can buy a DVD burner and put it in the computer you have now or any other computer. But like I said, you better give serious thought to buying a Mac, I wouldn't even consider it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: thebach on 2001-08-25 09:04:44 ]</font>