vcd seems to have better quality than svcd

[esojmc]

I ripped a 84 minute movie from DVD and comverted it using tmpgenc to both vcd and svcd. I converted it so that they would fit on one 80 minute cdr. I was comparing the quality on the vcd copy and the svcd quality and found that vcd had less "blockyness" during fast action scenes. Picture on the svcd was much sharper but the blockyness was really bad. Is this normal? Any way I can get rid or lessen the blockyness in svcd?

On both vcd and svcd I used 2 pass VBR with motion search precision set to "highest quality (very slow)" option in tmpgenc. The average video bitrate on both were about 1041 Kbits/sec.

Thanks for your help.

[johneboy]

I ripped a 84 minute movie from DVD and comverted it using tmpgenc to both vcd and svcd. I converted it so that they would fit on one 80 minute cdr. I was comparing the quality on the vcd copy and the svcd quality and found that vcd had less "blockyness" during fast action scenes. Picture on the svcd was much sharper but the blockyness was really bad. Is this normal? Any way I can get rid or lessen the blockyness in svcd?

On both vcd and svcd I used 2 pass VBR with motion search precision set to "highest quality (very slow)" option in tmpgenc. The average video bitrate on both were about 1041 Kbits/sec.

Thanks for your help.

if you VCD was 352x240 and your SVCD was 480x480 and they both had the same bitrate.. right there is your answer

more bitrates allocated to each bit in the vcd.

[roach76]

You can't compare the two. At the same bitrate, of course you will get more macroblocks on the SVCD version because it is a higher resolution.

Try and encode a high action scene from a movie in VCD, SVCD and DVD.
DVD will have alot more macroblocks than any of them. SVCD and especially DVD will look ten times better than VCD at higher bitrates.

[Heavensent]

first of all, the whole point of making a svcd is to
use the option to make the bitrate higher.
so if you made an svcd with 480x480 and 1023 for bitrate,
its no wonder that you get a better picture
with vcd 352x240 with the same bitrate.

the blockiness you are talking about is because you set it to have
a high resolution (svcd) ,and didnt give it much bitrate.

i whould make an svcd with 2 cd's and set the encoder to CBR
then you will see how it should really look like.
and in any way, for the price of cd'r today, go for svcd.
you will ENJOY the movie and not just watch it

[telemike]

I find that a VCD recorded at about 1750K gives great quality. I made a DIVX -> VCD copy of ICE AGE at 1800K and it looks awesome on my widescreen HDTV

[vitualis]

I find that a VCD recorded at about 1750K gives great quality. I made a DIVX -> VCD copy of ICE AGE at 1800K and it looks awesome on my widescreen HDTV

Not to be down on you, but this doesn't have much to do with the original question. BTW, you've made an XVCD, not a VCD.

As for the original poster, as others have stated, the whole point of SVCD is that you can use much higher bitrates than VCD (which is CBR 1150 kbit/s for video BTW, so you've made an XVCD as well). A SVCD has a framesize over double that of a VCD. If you encode a SVCD to the same bitrate as a VCD, the VCD will probably look better in most cases as the SVCD will be starved of bitrate --> MPEG artifacts.

Regards.