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

[eprunner06]

Why is vcd winning, all this time I have been making svcds, should i continue to do so? I capture from Hi8 tapes, and old video tapes. My results are usually only VHS quality, I dont know if I can even say that. Also the audio sucks.
Please reply,
Thank You
Eric

[vanillabox]

In my case it is just faster to convert to vcd. The quality increase that I get by going to SVCD is not that great when converting from a cam recording.

[BadAsh]

I think alot of people make SVCDs, XVCDs and XSVCDs for their own use but VCD is the only format that is compatible with the majority of all standalone DVD Players.

Personally I think that while CD-R may be cheap, burning anything other than VCD for myself will only cause me problems later when someone wants to borrow the disc. What should I do, burn my original captured AVI to multiple CDs just so I can remaster to VCD for friends and family later or should I create VCD and SVCD (or XVCD, etc) at the same time? Still waisting discs (in my mind).

I am happy enough with VCD. When it comes to movies, if the DVD is available I'll buy the DVD (if I really like it). Otherwise, a VCD is fine... I can view it on any computer and pass it along to friends and family usually without a problem.

But don't get me wrong, SVCD and the incredibly non-standard X variations are much better but if you look at the compatibility lists, there are more VCD compliant players out there than SVCD or X variants.

That is my $0.02

[Mrhide]

Simply because VCD is easy to make ...
SVCD is a PAIN ...

[timmy_boi]

MAn Im still playing with vcd's cause there's soo much too it, like xml...

Svcd is the next step but not for a while whiew

[homerpez]

<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 2001-08-20 10:18:04, Mrhide wrote:

Simply because VCD is easy to make ...
SVCD is a PAIN ...
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Hear, hear!

[Sefy]

VCD isn't as bad as some people would like us all to think, it does have great quality if it's done right, especialy when played back on the TV, also, you get alot more movie per disc, which is great for long movies, and it's more compatible, and there are alot more (and better) programs that support the creation of VCD, so i'd say those are the main reasons why VCD is winning over everything else, by the time SVCD will be half as popular, I think we will all use VCD on a DVDR

[Nomadxjl]

VCD's take only about half the time to encode as SVCD's, they are easier to edit and a movie will always fit on 2 CDR's. I still make only SVCD's though. I just can't except the picture quality of VCD next to SVCD, I wish I could, I would rather make VCD's anyday, but I just can't except it. Plus keep in mind DVD burners are going to be cheap soon, so will the DVDR disks, and your SVCD MPEG2 files can be easily joined back together so you can put 2 uncut movies on 1 DVDR disk. So I think when I get a DVD buner I will be damn glad I made SVCD's now instead of VCD's. You have to plan for the future

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Nomadxjl on 2001-08-21 00:11:24 ]</font>

[hvr]

I'm wondering whether this DVD-R/-RW/+RW hype will be justified in about 1 or 2 years, or whether it will turn into a disappointment due to royalties on DVD media and hardware, DMCA related political problems, incompatibilities with current DVD players, nero-like authoring tools which will take compliancy to it's limits...

I just don't think that a new technology is doomed to be the solution to all problems just because it's newer... SVCD's main technical drawback are CD-R media size limitation and the late adoption by DVD firmwares...

[Sefy]

If any new hardware, i'd say FMD will be much better, while DVD can reach a maximum of 17gb, FMD will start at 140gb, now, imagine how many hours of VCD you can put on that ?
also, I don't know if making SVCD's is planning for the future, you will propably re-do all your movies again in higher quality for the DVDR, I like my VCD's, they give me great quality, less discs, and this has nothing to do with money, especialy with the very cheap prices of CDR media now days, and it will still be ready for the future, because everything plays VCD, however, not everything plays SVCD, not even new equipment.

[KoalaBear]

I believe the SVCD format promises more on paper than it delivers in reality, and many people are intuitively aware of this even if they lack the technical background to explain it.

In the simplest terms, SVCD tries to handle too much picture (2/3-D1) with too few bits (2.4 Mb/s), so you get more compression artifacts in return for a sharper picture. Add to that the drawbacks of short play-time per disc, limited compatibility with standalone DVD players and higher PC playback requirements, and SVCD does absolutely nothing that VCD or miniDVD can't do better.

As Sefy pointed out, a properly coded VCD can provide superb presentation quality, particularly for motion pictures. To begin with, MPEG-1 compression at SIF resolution is 20% less severe than MPEG-2 at 2/3-D1, but savings through IVTC and letterboxing can boost the effective bitrate another 20 - 40%. In other words, it is not only possible to achieve artifact-free reproduction within the VCD standard, but VCD will always tend to have fewer artifacts than SVCD because the compression ratio is milder (~2.2:1 vs. 2.8:1 per luma pel).

Furthermore, VCD and miniDVD can both be easily migrated to recordable DVD when the market finally shakes out to a universal standard -- VCD will require only an AC3 version of the soundtrack, but SVCD materials will have to be completely transcoded.

All things considered, if you want flawless quality and you don't mind trading picture resolution for play time, VCD is superior to SVCD. If you want maximum picture detail and you're willing to sacrifice play time to get it, miniDVD is superior to SVCD. SVCD is a viable format only on paper, and only then if you accept the specs at face value without thinking too hard about them.

[zzyzzx]

<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>
Why is vcd winning, all this time I have been making svcds, should i continue to do so? I capture from Hi8 tapes, and old video tapes. My results are usually only VHS quality, I dont know if I can even say that. Also the audio sucks.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
Mostly because alomst nothing plays SVCD's while almost everything plays VCD's and XVCD's and you can't tell the difference between SVCD's and VCD's when playing.

[zzyzzx]

<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>
In the simplest terms, SVCD tries to handle too much picture (2/3-D1) with too few bits (2.4 Mb/s), so you get more compression artifacts in return for a sharper picture. </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
What if you use an XSVCD and up the bitrate?

[KoalaBear]

<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>
What if you use an XSVCD and up the bitrate?
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Then you lose standards compliance, and sharply reduce the chances of anybody but you being able to play it back properly using anything other than a PC, now or in the future.

What most people want is the ability to play back their video CDs on the widest possible variety of equipment, but primarily on television using a standalone DVD player and not a computer. Otherwise there would be no point in making a VCD when a DivX-encoded video disc would do just as well, in fact better, because it supports arbitrary resolutions and bitrates whereas [S]VCD does not.

[danmanx]

I choose VCD over SVCD anyday of the week. It's more accepted that SVCD.

[vitualis]

<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 2001-08-21 10:34:37, KoalaBear wrote:
In other words, it is not only possible to achieve artifact-free reproduction within the VCD standard, but VCD will always tend to have fewer artifacts than SVCD because the compression ratio is milder (~2.2:1 vs. 2.8:1 per luma pel).</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Good theory, but I do not believe you are speaking from experience. A well encoded VCD looks very nice but in my experience, I have never seen a perceptually artifact-free VCD. Although the compression ratio is higher in SVCD, it also uses a more sophisticated compression scheme.

A well encoded SVCD has much higher visual quality than a well encoded VCD -- not only in the obvious increase in resolution, but also in a DECREASE in perceivable compression artifacts. Although there is a sacrifice in playtime length, this is not as great a problem as it may appear. Judicious use of VBR encoding with an appropriate average bitrate can yield not only excellent visual quality, but also minor functional impact of play length. That is, most movies fit on 2 CDs in VCD format. Most movies can be made to fit on 2 CDS in SVCD format as well (without sacrificing the video quality).

<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>All things considered, if you want flawless quality and you don't mind trading picture resolution for play time, VCD is superior to SVCD.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

For "flawless" quality, SVCD is definitely better than VCD. The main disadvantage of SVCDs is that it is less well supported than standard VCDs on stand-alone hardware. Playtime is obviously a factor too, but can be gotten around with clever authoring.


<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>If you want maximum picture detail and you're willing to sacrifice play time to get it, miniDVD is superior to SVCD. SVCD is a viable format only on paper, and only then if you accept the specs at face value without thinking too hard about them. </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I disagree. miniDVD is not a standard at all and unless you are one of the lucky few with a DVD player that will play these, they are a PC format only. Although you can get DVD quality video on a miniDVD, the playtime issues are much more signficant when compared to a SVCD. Even on equivalent quality video, the playtime is significantly longer on a SVCD (as MODE2 Form2 vs UDF).

SVCD is not only viable on paper, but in reality. Anyone who has made a few well encoded SVCDs will agree with me that the difference in quality between SVCDs and VCDs is day and night. To say that VCD quality is superior to SVCD quality as a generalisation is wrong.

The main problem faced with SVCDs is the relative difficultly in its authoring and poor or inconsistent hardware support. It will probably have a short user adoption path in light of afordable true DVD authoring and creation in the near future.

Regards.

[KoalaBear]

Well, speaking of experience, Mr. Tam, we're still waiting for you to show us The Holy Whitebook. But I digress...

At any rate, I've made SVCDs. And I've made VCDs. And miniDVDs. Speaking from my own experience, if SVCD was what it's cracked up to be I might still make them from time to time today. But they're not, so I don't.

Now, I've never seen a wildebeest myself, but I can't use that as a basis for presuming the animal doesn't exist, right? By the same token, if you've never seen a VCD without visible artifacts, that doesn't mean flawless reproduction is impossible.

Any good DVD player contains circuitry that minimizes the appearance of certain distortions, particularly Gibbs and aliasing artifacts. If the nature and severity of the artifacts in a particular recording are below a particular threshhold, they will not be seen because the player will mask most of them itself and the low areal resolution of the TV screen will take care of the rest.

Thus, if flawless television playback is the objective, what you need to do is either (a) increase the bitrate to the level that compression artifacts are no longer present in the recording, or (b) reduce the artifacts in the recording below the DVD player's threshhold of masking them.

Note that playing a VCD on a computer is an entirely different experience than playing it back on TV. For one thing, the MPEG decoder is implemented in software with no hardware assistance like a good DVD player would have. It may not only fail to mask certain artifacts, it may actually generate them. So if the MPEG-1 decoder in Microsoft Media Player isn't the gold standard of video fidelity, you can't just assume the recording is "stuffed up" just because MMP plays it back imperfectly.

MPEG-2 is essentially an "extended superset" of MPEG-1. All MPEG-2 decoders are capable of decoding MPEG-1 datastreams because the algorithm is the same in either case. Where MPEG 1 and 2 seriously differ is in the way they handle interlacing, multiplexing multiple programs into a single stream, semantic issues such as whether each GOP has to be closed, and so forth.

MPEG-2 recordings do tend to have a higher bitrate than MPEG-1, and this can certainly reduce the presence of compression artifacts. But that by itself doesn't make MPEG-2 superior. In fact, all things being equal, you'll get better results with a high-bitrate MPEG-1 than a low-bitrate MPEG-2.

If you want to convert your MPEG-1 recording to standard VCD you can't alter the bitrate, so throwing more bits at the recording isn't an option. But you can effectively boost the bitrate through pre-processing techniques such as noise reduction, IVTC and letterboxing. All of these things preserve bits for motion encoding which is where you really need them, and a 20% reduction in noise is equivalent to a 20% increase in bitrate.

The SVCD specification was chosen by the Chinese government not because it was technically superior, but because it served a convenient political objective. The specs look very impressive when compared side-by-side with DVD, but only because they were explicitly intended to. By producing a standard which could be seen as a credible alternative to DVD for Asia's billion-plus domestic consumers, they created an incentive for the DVD Consortium to give them a break where their notoriously restrictive and greedy licensing and royalty schemes were involved.

Take SVCD's multichannel audio, for example. It's right there in black and white, you can it to both columns of a SVCD-vs-DVD comparison sheet. But in reality, you can only produce multichannel MPEG audio with great difficulty and if you do, good luck finding a device that will play it back. Multichannel audio isn't really a "feature" of SVCD at all, but being able to legitimately say you have it creates FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) on behalf of those who'd like to sell DVD discs in countries where VCD is a well-established consumer media.

Feature for feature, miniDVD beats SVCD because it *is* DVD, it's just recorded on a different media. True, very few DVD players recognize it for playback on television, but tell me, how is that substantially different than the situation with SVCD?

MiniDVD has approximately the same play time as SVCD, more or less depending on the combination of resolution, bitrate and audio format you choose. 352x480 encoded at 2-3 Mb/s VBR will yield 20 to 40 minutes play time. Need more than that? Encode 352x240. Fifteen minute Three Stooges short just begging for full-frame, eye-poking, hair-pulling action? 720x480. AC3 is the DVD audio standard, and it's actually more compact than MP2, but you don't have to limit yourself to that because you can have up to 8 of them simultaneously. DTS anyone? How about Spanish AND French? The possibilities are endless.

The point of all this is that:

(a) VCD is a higher quality format than most people give it credit for, and (b) SVCD is a lower quality format than most people give it credit for.

This *just* might explain why VCD trounces SVCD in the poll, huh?

[thebach]

VCD's or XVCD's DO NOT look anywhere as good as SVCD's. I've been doing this for 2 years and I've made tons of both and there is no comparison. VCD's are just quicker and easier to make. Plus alot of people have slower computers so they make VCD's. You guys can talk technical jargon forever but common sense is good enough. VCD's look like video tape, SVCD's look like DVD's. Yes SVCD's take twice the encoding time and most movies have to go on 3 disks and I don't like this either, but think of the future, these files can be joined back together and put on DVDR like someone said above. Someday we'll all have DVD burners and you guys making VCD's will be wishing like hell you made SVCD's then instead of watching movies that look like video tape

[next]

<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 2001-08-22 11:01:10, KoalaBear wrote:
Well, speaking of experience, Mr. Tam, we're still waiting for you to show us The Holy Whitebook. But I digress...
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Speaking from experience, and simply from a laymans perspective, I am squarely with Mr. Tam on this one. I believe he makes a much stronger argument.

<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>
At any rate, I've made SVCDs. And I've made VCDs. And miniDVDs. Speaking from my own experience, if SVCD was what it's cracked up to be I might still make them from time to time today. But they're not, so I don't.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Gee, I've done the same. And the only thing I make are SVCD's. XSVCD's as well if I choose to wave the white book.

<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>
Now, I've never seen a wildebeest myself, but I can't use that as a basis for presuming the animal doesn't exist, right? By the same token, if you've never seen a VCD without visible artifacts, that doesn't mean flawless reproduction is impossible.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I stopped wasting my time trying to find the wildebeast. My (x)SVCD's are artifact free. Something I was never able to do with mpeg1. The Holt Grail could be out there somewhere too I guess.

<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>
Any good DVD player contains circuitry that minimizes the appearance of certain distortions, particularly Gibbs and aliasing artifacts. If the nature and severity of the artifacts in a particular recording are below a particular threshhold, they will not be seen because the player will mask most of them itself and the low areal resolution of the TV screen will take care of the rest.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

But you forgot to add "only when the cows come home".

<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>

Thus, if flawless television playback is the objective, what you need to do is either (a) increase the bitrate to the level that compression artifacts are no longer present in the recording, or (b) reduce the artifacts in the recording below the DVD player's threshhold of masking them.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Increase the bit rate? I thought we were talking about VCD here.

<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>

Note that playing a VCD on a computer is an entirely different experience than playing it back on TV. For one thing, the MPEG decoder is implemented in software with no hardware assistance like a good DVD player would have. It may not only fail to mask certain artifacts, it may actually generate them. So if the MPEG-1 decoder in Microsoft Media Player isn't the gold standard of video fidelity, you can't just assume the recording is "stuffed up" just because MMP plays it back imperfectly.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I've never seen an artifact on PC playback.

<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>
MPEG-2 is essentially an "extended superset" of MPEG-1. All MPEG-2 decoders are capable of decoding MPEG-1 datastreams because the algorithm is the same in either case. Where MPEG 1 and 2 seriously differ is in the way they handle interlacing, multiplexing multiple programs into a single stream, semantic issues such as whether each GOP has to be closed, and so forth.

MPEG-2 recordings do tend to have a higher bitrate than MPEG-1, and this can certainly reduce the presence of compression artifacts. But that by itself doesn't make MPEG-2 superior. In fact, all things being equal, you'll get better results with a high-bitrate MPEG-1 than a low-bitrate MPEG-2.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Says who? After probably 3,000 to 4,000 test captures over the past 4 months I have found the exact opposite to be true.

<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>
If you want to convert your MPEG-1 recording to standard VCD you can't alter the bitrate, so throwing more bits at the recording isn't an option. But you can effectively boost the bitrate through pre-processing techniques such as noise reduction, IVTC and letterboxing. All of these things preserve bits for motion encoding which is where you really need them, and a 20% reduction in noise is equivalent to a 20% increase in bitrate.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I think it would probably take less time to raise the funds, hire the actors, and shoot the movie myself.

<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>

The SVCD specification was chosen by the Chinese government not because it was technically superior, but because it served a convenient political objective. The specs look very impressive when compared side-by-side with DVD, but only because they were explicitly intended to. By producing a standard which could be seen as a credible alternative to DVD for Asia's billion-plus domestic consumers, they created an incentive for the DVD Consortium to give them a break where their notoriously restrictive and greedy licensing and royalty schemes were involved.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Watch out for those black helicopters too.

<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>
MiniDVD has approximately the same play time as SVCD, more or less depending on the combination of resolution, bitrate and audio format you choose. 352x480 encoded at 2-3 Mb/s VBR will yield 20 to 40 minutes play time. Need more than that? Encode 352x240. Fifteen minute Three Stooges short just begging for full-frame, eye-poking, hair-pulling action? 720x480. AC3 is the DVD audio standard, and it's actually more compact than MP2, but you don't have to limit yourself to that because you can have up to 8 of them simultaneously. DTS anyone? How about Spanish AND French? The possibilities are endless.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I get no difference in file size based on resolution.

<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>

The point of all this is that:

(a) VCD is a higher quality format than most people give it credit for, and (b) SVCD is a lower quality format than most people give it credit for.

This *just* might explain why VCD trounces SVCD in the poll, huh?

</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Okay, now I get it. Inside is out and outside is in. It all seems so simple now. How about VCD being more popular simply because it just happens to be more popular. It offers the path of least resistance. Do you really think VCD is more popular because of all of the things you list above? I hardly think so. VCD is the default. Anything beyond it is generally experimentation by those who feel comfortable experimenting. As a result the ranks will thin out considerably when taking a poll which include niche formats.

Very eloquent, but real world has proven the exact opposite for me, simply from a laymans perspective.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: next on 2001-08-22 11:41:23 ]</font>

[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>
KoalaBear wrote:

Now, I've never seen a wildebeest myself, but I can't use that as a basis for presuming the animal doesn't exist, right? By the same token, if you've never seen a VCD without visible artifacts, that doesn't mean flawless reproduction is impossible.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

But if your the only person who can create vcds without artifacts then what good is the standard to others? Top quality studio produced vcds still have artifacts. Why? Because no matter how you look at it the bitrate for vcds is just play low. In high detail or fast moving scenes you WILL see artifacts.

<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>
KoalaBear wrote:

Note that playing a VCD on a computer is an entirely different experience than playing it back on TV. For one thing, the MPEG decoder is implemented in software with no hardware assistance like a good DVD player would have. It may not only fail to mask certain artifacts, it may actually generate them. So if the MPEG-1 decoder in Microsoft Media Player isn't the gold standard of video fidelity, you can't just assume the recording is "stuffed up" just because MMP plays it back imperfectly.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

This is completely irrelavent and I'm sure Vitualis was not even considering vcd/svcd playback on the pc. Vcds and svcds are intended to be played on a television and their benefits and drawbacks should judged with this in mind. Do you judge the visual quality of divx by how it looks through tv/out? No because thats not its intended use.

<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>
KoalaBear wrote:

In fact, all things being equal, you'll get better results with a high-bitrate MPEG-1 than a low-bitrate MPEG-2.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

That is not true. MPEG-1 is optimized for lower bitrate ~1.6mbits or lower and MPEG-2 is optimized for higher bitrates. This includes both the format itself as well as the encoding software. At high bitrates, assuming everything else is constant, MPEG-2 will ALWAYS look better when viewed on the television.

<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>
KoalaBear wrote:

If you want to convert your MPEG-1 recording to standard VCD you can't alter the bitrate, so throwing more bits at the recording isn't an option. But you can effectively boost the bitrate through pre-processing techniques such as noise reduction, IVTC and letterboxing.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

These methods can be applied to any format. These are in no way a benefit of MPEG-1 over MPEG-2 or of vcd over svcd. Furthermore noise reduction should not be used on a flawless source such as dvd. If you are using noise reduction or other filters when converting a high quality source to vcd then it doesnt suprise me that you dont see many if any artifacts. What you have to realize is that the reason for that is that you are losing picture quality at the expense of preventing artifacts.

<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>
KoalaBear wrote:

The SVCD specification was chosen by the Chinese government not because it was technically superior, but because it served a convenient political objective. The specs look very impressive when compared side-by-side with DVD, but only because they were explicitly intended to. By producing a standard which could be seen as a credible alternative to DVD for Asia's billion-plus domestic consumers, they created an incentive for the DVD Consortium to give them a break where their notoriously restrictive and greedy licensing and royalty schemes were involved.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

No offense but how would you know? How would anybody know? Thats nothing but a conspiracy theory and there is no way to prove it. Thats not even an accurate assumption considering that svcd is not even a contender in ANY market in ANY country. Vcds and dvds outsell svcds exponentially in all countries. Svcd is a format that never took off like it was meant to, don't make more out of it than it is.

<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>

KoalaBear wrote:
Take SVCD's multichannel audio, for example. It's right there in black and white, you can it to both columns of a SVCD-vs-DVD comparison sheet. But in reality, you can only produce multichannel MPEG audio with great difficulty and if you do, good luck finding a device that will play it back. Multichannel audio isn't really a "feature" of SVCD at all, but being able to legitimately say you have it creates FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) on behalf of those who'd like to sell DVD discs in countries where VCD is a well-established consumer media.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

The fact that multichannel mpeg audio is only a theoretical benefit of svcd is not evidence of svcd being used as leverage over dvd manufacturers. First come standards then comes the hardware to support those standards. Svcd never took off like it was intended and as a result little hardware support was implemented in dvd players and few people cared enough to develop software to author the function in svcds. Multichannel mpeg audio COULD have been huge and could have made svcds rival dvds in the audio department, but it didnt. Just forget about audio when debating betwen svcds and vcds, its irrelavent since they basically are identical, except for the fact that svcd can have multiple audio tracks. Hmm, come to think of it, that is a HUGE benefit.

<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>

KoalaBear wrote: Feature for feature, miniDVD beats SVCD because it *is* DVD, it's just recorded on a different media. True, very few DVD players recognize it for playback on television, but tell me, how is that substantially different than the situation with SVCD?
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Are you kidding? Its different because many many dvd players support svcd yet only what...2 brands of dvd players support mini-dvd. That is a huge discrepancy.

<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>

KoalaBear wrote:
MiniDVD has approximately the same play time as SVCD, more or less depending on the combination of resolution, bitrate and audio format you choose. 352x480 encoded at 2-3 Mb/s VBR will yield 20 to 40 minutes play time. Need more than that? Encode 352x240. Fifteen minute Three Stooges short just begging for full-frame, eye-poking, hair-pulling action? 720x480. AC3 is the DVD audio standard, and it's actually more compact than MP2, but you don't have to limit yourself to that because you can have up to 8 of them simultaneously. DTS anyone? How about Spanish AND French? The possibilities are endless.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Mini-dvd only has a similar play time as svcd if encoded at the same settings. All the benifits of mini-dvd come at the expense of play time. So what is the point of completely throwing away hardware support only to achieve the same audio and visual quality? If you want to actually use the full potential, or even a fraction of the full potential then you are going to get a ridiculously low amount of movie on a disk. For the average movie watcher, this is not even remotely close to being a viable option.

<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>

KoalaBear wrote:
This *just* might explain why VCD trounces SVCD in the poll, huh?
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

No, not even close. Vcd trounces svcd for two very obvious reasons. Its more difficult to create and there is less hardware support. Simple as that. There is not some hidden consipiracy to explain it, it just makes sense. How good svcd looks on paper is irrelavent also since no one really looks at the specs much anyway. Ask anyone who encodes svcds how they look compared to vcds and you know what they will tell you. I'm sorry but like Vitualis said it is like night and day. At best vcd is comparable to vhs. It can be slighly better but not much. At best svcd can be comparable to dvd. That is a huge difference. You cant really argue that playtime is a determining factor either because disk for disk, svcd still looks better. a 2 cd svcd still beats a 2 cd vcd.

Do people underestimate the quality of vcd? Yes I'm sure of it because most people arent encoding them properly.

Do people overestimate the quality of svcd? Hell no! Do you honestly think that people who use CQ_VBR understand the full potential that svcd has to offer? Quite the opposite, the quality of svcd is vastly underestimated.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: adam on 2001-08-22 12:10:44 ]</font>

[thebach]

the only time I make XVCD's or VCD's is if my wife or little kid wants a movie done, because they don't care about the quality so much. For me I make only SVCD's, but VCD's are sure easy and quick to make, plus easy to cut or edit, but I can't except a VCR quality picture, for gods sake its the year 2001 and I'm not going to except picture quality of 30 years ago, I wish I could, but I just can't do it

[KoalaBear]

Guys:

Some of your points were well-stated and I think they add much to the discussion.

But if you have a point of view to express, even one in complete disagreement, it would greatly help if you could state them in the form of a coherent argument rather than dissecting mine on a sentence-by-sentence basis.

Because this is (supposed to be) a discussion, and not a zero-sum, win-lose, winner-takes-all type of standoff, deconstruction of virtually every statement isn't necessary. It just blurs the important issues and makes genuine communication much less likely for everyone -- you, me, and people who might have something interesting to contribute, but don't, because the atmosphere of conflict turns them off.

For what it's worth, I haven't experienced SVCDs being any more difficult to make than other kinds of video disc. I just think the standard sucks because it attempts to be the jack of all trades and ends up being the master of none.

[Anonymous65]

1) A correctly made VCD looks almost as good as a SVCD.
2) VCD's play in alsmost all DVD players.
3) VCD's will play on any PC without extra software (does not need a Mpeg-2 decoder installed like SVCD)
4) You can get almost 2.5 times as much video on a single CD-R
5) Since VCD is fixed bit rate, you know exactly how much video you can put on a disk.

[adam]

The only reason I disected your post the way I did was because quite frankly your ideas are pretty far out there. Everyone of your points, whether correct or incorrect, contradicted what the vast majority of people believe. I think statements like these deserve to be disected.

There is no need to debate the advantages of svcd over vcd and vice versa, they are obvious. Its one thing to say the vcd format has some advantages over the svcd format, which is true, but its another thing to try to justify the view that vcds yeild higher visual quality than svcds. Whether on paper or in practice, svcd is higher quality and you really can't make a case otherwise. And if you do attempt to, then you really cant be suprised when people start disecting your posts.

As far as a jack of all trades, master of none. I think that describes mini-dvd to a T. It attempts to emulate the highest quality standard (dvd) and ends up being useless to %99.99 of all people.

I find the svcd standard to be a perfect intermediate digital format that falls right in between the lowest quality (vcd) and the highest quality yet unatainable format (dvd.)

[DBG]

I think VCD is used more for 2 reasons.

First, mpeg1 format has been around FOREVERRRR, its just more accepted for video use because of this. More tools, more work, etc have been made for mpeg1 over the years.

And second, alot of dvd players play VCD, but alot fewer play SVCD format!

[flaninacupboard]

the way i see it, VCD standards suck. 1.15megabits sucks. so let's assume most people (i certainly) only use XVCD. now then, with a film thats, say, 90 mins long, i want 45 mins of video on each disc. using an audio bit rate of 192kbps, and 80 min cd-rs (these seem to be most common) i get 2198 kilobitsper sec left to play with. i hate to bring it down to this level, but:
352 X 288 = 101376
480 X 576 = 276480
so if i find a bit rate of 2mbps acceptable for 352x288, i will want over double that for acceptable performance at 480x576. i can't confirm this, as i dont have an SVCD supporting player. it just seems logical.
but then what do i know? my standards are
a) does it work
b) is it watchable
c) will it degrade every time i watch it
as XVCD fulfills all these, im happy.

[Anonymous65]

I don't see any problems at 1.15 Mb/s VCD video, so increasing the bit rate while having the same resolution is just a waste of bits to me. If there were lots of blocks at regular VCD bit rate, I would understand increasing the bit rate will help. But, when there are no blocks at 1.15 Mb/s, why increase the bit rate? The resolution will stay the same because the pixel size of the image stays the same as regular VCD standard.

[adam]

I don't want to dissect your post too skittlsen but I do have to take issue with some of those statements.

<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 2001-08-22 13:45:41, skittelsen wrote:
1) A correctly made VCD looks almost as good as a SVCD.
2) VCD's play in alsmost all DVD players.
3) VCD's will play on any PC without extra software (does not need a Mpeg-2 decoder installed like SVCD)
4) You can get almost 2.5 times as much video on a single CD-R
5) Since VCD is fixed bit rate, you know exactly how much video you can put on a disk.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

1) Here's my major disagreement. This could not be further from the truth. The resolution of svcd is much higher and the bitrate is much higher. A properly made vcd looks no where near as good as a properly made svcd. There is more to quality then whether or not "blocks" are present. Saying vcds are comparable to svcds is exactly like saying that vhs looks as good as dvd. There is simply no comparison. It really sounds like you arent using a good source here, if you were I dont know how you could make a statement like this.

2) Can't argue with you there, but...How many hours does it take to encode a vcd? Now how many minutes does it take to research a dvd player before buying it? Anyone who invests this much time into a hobby should take an extra 5 mins to research their dvd player before buying it.

3)Well your really making a case for mpeg1 versus mpeg2 here not vcd versus svcd. When you play your vcd in media player you are not playing a vcd. Anyway like I stated earlier vcds and svcds are literally designed to be played on a tv. If you watch your movies on a pc then you should not be using either vcd or svcd. Still a valid point though.

4)This would only be true if svcd was limited to cbr. Since its not, this statement isnt even remotely accurate. Svcd does not have to be bigger than vcd, it can be smaller. And even at maximum settings %99 of movies will never require more than 3 cdrs. Yes the typical svcd is 3 cdrs and the typical vcd is 2 cdrs, that is the size difference, not 2.5 times larger. And often there is no size difference at all.

5)Well svcd can be a fixed bitrate too cant it? Also by taking an extra 10 secs before encoding and using a bitrate calculator you can get an estimated filesize usually within 5MB's or so.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: adam on 2001-08-22 14:37:13 ]</font>

[thxkid]

Simple VCD on a 36in or bigger Screen, sucks, while SVCD looks good and sharp with very little or no artifacts.

[next]

I'm having a hard time following the logic here. It seems that many are taking the position that VCD is superior to SVCD. I've even read comments that the quality of the output is superior. If that is true would it not be a natural progression to then say that VCD is also superior to mpeg2 VBR digital cable or satellite feeds? Or even superior to DVD mpeg2 maybe?

I think the answer is obvious. An increased bit rate with a higher resolution will provide better results. If I push mpeg1 to for example 480x480 2.5 mps the results are excellent. The only problem I have is an occasional screen breakup. By moving to mpeg2 those screen breakups have been eliminated. This is probably related to my hardware but it works for me.

The position that if you tweak the heck out of VCD it will give good results is well taken. But apply those same tweaks to an SVCD and hey guess what? It just got better too.