Maximum XSVCD Quality using Standard Bitrate (2.5Mbps)?

[Feoman]

Does anybody has a TMPGEnc Template, or a list of parameters for converting a DV Captured AVI file into a Full Size(720x480) Highest quality XSVCD compatible MPEG file.

I'm trying to reach the best quality regardless of the size (I don't care if it only fits 1 Minute in a CD-ROM, in fact 1 Minute it's an eternity to me).

Target is a DVD Standalone player (Sharp DV-740), I dunno the Device max bitrate capability.

Are all the XSVCD Compatible Standalone players capables of playing back a 3000Kbps Bitrate file?

[Nelson37]

There is no such thing as an XSVCD compatible player; as an answer to your question, EXACTLY how tall is someone who is NOT six feet?

Test to determine what your individual player will handle and encode to that spec - XSVCD is totally undefined.

[Feoman]

Sorry if I was misunderstood, It just that my natural language is not english, so I'm trying to translate everything, but some times, translation doesn't make the same sense.

by XSVCD compatible(I know there is no such regulated standard like XSVCD) I mean, Standalone players that have been proven to play XSVCD discs, I just want to know if Most of these players can play 3Mbps bitrates? if this is a normal bitrate, very common one? I know some players would and others wouldn't, but in average, is it a common bitrate? and which is the highest common bitrate?.

And among the bitrate, which others parameters could I variate to get the best possible quality (like Quantize matrix, GOP structure, etc...)?

[the_macman]

My Pioneer DV-444 starts choking on anything above 2.6Mbs, but again - it depends on the player. Create a XVCD with the same stream in different bitrates, pop it into your player and see how high can it handle.

An alternative is to look at the DVD Players section on this site, look for your player and see whether other users have provided more info on this, but I have a feeling 2.5-2.6Mb is going to be the max.

http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdplayers.php?DVDnameid=891&Search=Search&#comments

An alternative is to use CVD format instead of the SVCD which will not only give you higher quality, but produce a DVD compliant (1/2 D1) stream in case you want to burn to DVD-R later.

Hope this helps.[/url]

[edsmith77]

Feoman,
Another data point for your quest is my Daewoo 5800 will handle at least 4.0 Mb/s in xsvcd (480x480 and 224 Kbs audio) without any problems at all. I have not tested above this rate but I think it will go up to 8 Mb/s.

Ed

[Feoman]

I already check the comments on my DVD-Player model, but it seems nobody has any idea of which is the Higher bitrate it could handle. I've seen it works wit 2.5Mbps, so I will asume this is the maximum then.

But do you really think using 2.5Mbps in CVD format would give me a better quality than a XSVCD (720x480-MPEG2-2.5Mbps)? I mean, it really worth decreasing the video resolution to 352x480?

I downloaded several samples of XVCD and XSVCD's, and some of them are really impressive, i'm just wondering, what parameters they use to code those videos(I've seem, pretty good 480x480 NTSC videos).

[Nelson37]

Another problem is that many players are significantly changed without a change in model number. A new drive or firmware update could make a huge difference, yet the same player will show both success and failure for different users.

Many players will not go over 2MBPS, some will hit 3MBPS, few will surpass 4MBPS, and this could vary with the media and file structure.
There are just too many variables. You also may find that while you can play the first 10 or 15 minutes of a 4MBPS clip, the last half starts skipping and stuttering, or maybe a lo-motion clip will work.

As for CVD, which is better, a SLIGHTLY less detailed clip that has no pixelation or macroblocks, and plays perfectly, or a SLIGHTLY more detailed clip with blocks, pixels, and skipping and stuttering? Or hit the middle and use standard SVCD, perhaps with a very slight bitrate increase. Test and evaluate.

[andie41]

My Electrohome EH8181A and Norcent DP300 will play 5.0 Mb/s 480x480 224 kbps audio without problem and even 6.0 Mb/s depending on subject matter.

[Feoman]

Ok, let's say maximum bitrate for most of the Standalone players is 2.5Mbps, and let's use the 352x480 (CVD) resolution as the Optimal one for normal TV set(NTSC) display.

What else can we variate to minimize the pixelation, appereance of artifacts, macroblocks, skipping, low-motion, flickering, and all the bad-things a computer-generated video could have.

I've seem that some advance TMPGenc users use to play with the GOP Structure and the Quantize Matrix, among other combination of MPEG features.