VCDs from Analog Camcorder with Dazzle DVC2

[kalani]

Does anyone have any recommendations on how to increase the quality of VCDs I make?

I have no interest in SVCDs, first off... I need to be able to distribute disks that are compatible with the widest variety of platforms.

I have a series of tapes ranging from 30 to 60 minutes in length that I would like to be able to convert to VCD for distribution to friends, relatives, etc. I have had no problem hooking my Hi-8 camcorder up to the board, capturing using the included Dazzle MovieStar software's (v.4.22) standard VCD template, and then burning to VCD with Nero 5.0.3.8. Problem is the quality is not quite what I had hoped for... a good bit less than VHS, and way lower than the Hi-8 source. Audio is great, but video not quite so much.

I've read a good bit on these and other boards about increasing the bitrate, etc., in the default template, or capturing it at a significantly higher setting (or even MPG2 levels) and running it through another program to reduce it to the VCD standard, and this sounds great, but I really don't know where to start.

Does anyone have any good step-by-step directions on how to do this? Links to any necessary programs I'd need would be appreciated as well. (I downloaded TMPGEN but have no idea what to do with it now.)

I found some great instructions on making SVCDs (http://www.lmrgroup.com/ke3ht/dvc-ii-svcd.html) but I don't know enough about this to adapt these instructions (if that even would apply) to VCD creation.

Can anyone help?

-K

[aldus4]

I'm slightly confused as you said in the beginning you don't want to make SVCD's as you want to distribute the clips on a wider platform. Yet in the end you do seem more interested in quality and are interested more in SVCD's.

Anyhow - before I forget you can find alot of help and tips on a forum especially for the DVC2 and moviestar software at
http://stop.at/dazzle2

To improve your VCD's here something that a few people use. They capture their AV feed on DVC2 with either the DVD settings or higher SVCD settings. The finished product is then put into TMPGEnc/Panasonic Mpeg Encoder and then transferred into a compliant VCD stream.

As for how to go about this 1.)there are great guides on this website 2.)in the moviestar software its very easy to change the template. Change it and see which format looks better.

[kalani]

I'm very interested in quality, but SVCD support at the standalone hardware level isn't sufficiently there yet in this country. Therefore, I want to make the most out of VCD quality. The VCDII defaults have left me less than thrilled thus far... but I can see it has potential, so I'd like to realize that potential. Another problem with SVCD is that of capacity... I want to avoid having to swap disks on puny one hour shows (I don't mind for movies, but for a one hour show?). Thanks for the tip, I'll check out the page.

-K