Help please, desperate! Poor resolution on svcd.

[Streakerman]

Hi everyone,

I just burned my first svcd with Nero using whatever specs were recommended for producing the cd. Unfortunately it is the same quality as my vcd and I understand a svcd should be much better. The video just fit onto the disc. I understand the more space on a disc, the better. Is this why it looked so poor?

Bonus questions ...I have been eagerly waiting to get this JVC SVCD player and now I wonder if I should return it? I also read here at VCDHELP that I can code SVCD's to be seen by your standalone dvd/vcd player as a vcd. Does that mean I could use TMPGenc to encode my svcds as vcds and not have to buy this new svcd player?

Thanks,

[snarfo]

If your source video is a VCD (low quality), converting it to SVCD will not make it look any better. You have to have a high-quality source for the results to look their best.

The encoding doesn't really matter (to a point--- I always use 2-pass vbr and best quality settings when i encode my svcds) so much as how you burn it. If you make a standard compliant svcd, you will have better luck down the road. There are plenty of DVD players out there that will play compliant svcds, so getting one that forces you to make nonstandard ones isn't really a good idea...

So what prize do I get for the bonus question?

[Streakerman]

Thanks for your reply.

You mentioned the video has to be of good quality. It is.
My source is a demonstrator video I downloaded. It is high quality.


The encoding doesn't really matter (to a point--- I always use 2-pass vbr and best quality settings when i encode my svcds) so much as how you burn it. If you make a standard compliant svcd, you will have better luck down the road. There are plenty of DVD players out there that will play compliant svcds, so getting one that forces you to make nonstandard ones isn't really a good idea...

I actually tried twice. I made a standard compliant one and a non standard. THe non-standard was terrible. I then made a compliant one that is the same as a vcd quality one. I think that I may simply need more disc space. What do you think? It was 695 mb on a 700 mb disc. I do have a 850 mg disc which I was considering trying. Anyones thoughts?

So what prize do I get for the bonus question?

Congratulations. Your prize is being couriered to you as I write this!
(it is the svcd that didn't work out, lol) Congratulations again anyway.

[snarfo]

Oh, sorry, I was thinking you meant you had downloaded something in vcd format and converted it to svcd--- which won't look any better than the original, obviously.

Your disc space is sufficient. You can cram a bit over 45 minutes of svcd video onto 1 cd... I do it all the time with tv show episodes. I just use TMPG (2-pass vbr at highest quality, as I said) and either Nero or DVD Workshop to burn the svcd... works great, and I can play them back on my dvd player. You're not letting Nero convert the files before burning it, right? Making a compliant svcd mpeg from TMPGENC should import into Nero without any issues.

I guess you need to figure out where you're getting the quality loss--- it is the converted svcd mpeg file, or is it after actually burning it to a cd?

[snarfo]

...and I eagerly await the bad svcd

[sterno]

I think that I may simply need more disc space. What do you think? It was 695 mb on a 700 mb disc. I do have a 850 mg disc which I was considering trying. Anyones thoughts?

A 700MB (80min) CD can hold a little over 800MB of SVCD video. 700MB is the data capacity, VCD and SVCD are written more like audio than data. A rough estimate is 10MB per minute of CD capacity.

Be careful with the 850MB/99min media. Some burners can't write very well (or at all) all the way out to the edge of the disc, and some players can't read all the way out to the edge either.

[crahak]

If your SVCD has more resolution and not really higher bitrates, it won't look really better... 99.9% of the time, CVD's turned out looking better in my case Good luck

[Streakerman]

I never hear much about CVD's. What programs do you need to burn them? I am currently using Nero 5.5.9.9 to make vcds and svcds. What do you look for when you are trying to buy a standalone dvd player to know if it will play CVD'S? I will do some investigating here at VCDHELP but perhaps you can summarize your experiences for me?

How do I tell how many bitrates the video is? I believe it might be 24 bit. That is what comes up if I check its properties. Should this file look better as a SVCD then as a VCD? Currently, it looks the same. Is it because the JVC player I have can't keep up or is it something else?