Low Quality VCD to Hi Quality SVCD?

[whoreable]

I have a crappy low quality VCD. I want to edit the movie into SVCD. I know how to do this, but im new to video editing. I was wondering since its such a shitty rip even if I change the bit rate and resolution will the picture still suck because of the original rip? The sound is allright but I would like to show my friends this new rip but its imberassing quality. Thanks. Links to places also, but i already know how to make SVCDs and VCDs and burning and all the crap.

[blindy]

Well sorry to say but yup it is not going to look any better. Starting out with a low quality source pretty much means whatever you try to do with it it is always going to look crappy. can't make a great tasting apple pie with rotten apples.

[hp_lovecraft]

Sometimes you can use the tricks the small studios use when they release a DVD by using the VHS master, instead of making a new HD master. (like alot of low budget kung-fo movies):

Upscale to a higher resolution.
then use high-frequency noise filters ('smoothers, temporal,spatial,etc') to hide all the low-quality artifacts, and do some color correction.
Then, hit it will alot of edge enhancement ('sharpness', both horizontal and vertical), to create the 'look' of extra detail.
Then, encode with a high bitrate, and high quality settings.

Personally, I think it makes it look worse, and adds worse 'ringing' artifacts while reducing actual detail. Especially for large TVs.... But, for small, and medium size TVs, you might be able to get away with this.

nick

[vhelp]

whoreable,
like you said, "crapy" even what hp_lovecraft said won't do you any
good - don't know why he even added it in the first place, but who cares.

The bottom line here is this, you can't take something low-res as a VCD
(esp. if it's "crapy" as you said) and raise things like bitrate, resolution,
etc. and expect it to be better. It just wont happen that way.

If you source was good quality like a VHS movie ie, maybe you could get
away then, w/ this this kind of technique, but VERY doubtful in your case.
-vhelp

[hp_lovecraft]

VHELP-
The sad thing is alot of studios try to "improve quality" to major DVD releases as well.

The best example can think of is StarWars:Phantom Menace.

The compression facility was UNABLE to create a MPEG @9MBPS because the length of the movie, and the extras on disc one.
So, they had to use a 6.5MBPS to make it fit. But, the high level of action created alot of compression artifacts.
So, they filtered out alot of detail using NR filters, so it would compress without artifacts at a much lower bitrate. Then, they ARTIFICIALLY created more detail with horizontal and vertical edge enhancement.

The result had a reverse effect, and StarWars #1 is usually considered one of the WORST looking DVDs in the last couple years.
So many people complained that they used a completely different process for #2, but many studios still use the NR/EE process to try to make a MPEG look better then it really is.....

Nick