svcd or xvcd?

[86peaches]

in terms of quality, on pc and/or tv screen, which is best, svcd or xvcd? or maybe i should say what are the advantages of each format? if you had the choice of an xvcd with higher bitrates, like 3000 or a standard svcd, which would you choose?

[Treebeard]

Depends on the quality of the source file.
if it was a dvd rip i would go with the SVCD b/c of the higher resolution.

if it was mid quality capture i woudl look into the xvcd method.

[guitar_george_skank]

I think it really is 50/50. SVCD has a higher resolution therefore a sharper, clearer picture, but needs a higher bitrate to avoid macroblocks.

SVCD = 480 * 480 (NTSC) = 230,400
XVCD = 352 * 240 (NTSC) = 84,480

As you can see, XVCD has only 36.6% of the pixels that SVCD has.

So an XVCD at say 1500Kb/sec has the same bits per pixel as a SVCD at 4080Kb/sec! This is purely comparing bits per pixel.
I personally use XVCD for downloaded .avi files and CVD for DVD rips. CVD uses a resolution of 352 * 480. It's kind of half way between VCD and SVCD but gives great quality because the vertical resolution is really what gives the picture it's quality.

Check out http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/userguides/98177.php for more info on CVD.

If your watching the film on a TV up to about 28-29" then XVCD will do fine. But give CVD a go. Try it with DVD2SVCD for ease of use. You'll be glad you did (IMHO of course).

Cheers.

GGS

[wulf109]

I use a resolution of 720x480 for all my XVCD and XSVCD. Given the same encodeing parameters I doubt anyone could tell the difference between XVCD and XSVCD.