The Best Template Out There for TMPGEnc?

[double7007]

I was recently looking through some posts here on vcdhelp.com and I found a reply to a question about MVCD. It said that KVCD was better. So I decided to check it out. The website is www.kvcd.net and it seems to be able to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. It lets you burn up to 180 minutes of video & audio onto one cd-r. The quality is great too, the MPEG1 120 minute template gave me near DVD Quality.

The only problem i could find on the site was where to download, so i just clicked on the link and the code for the template came up which i copied and pasted into notepad and saved as a .mcf file in my tmpgenc directory.

I guess all I'm really trying to say is, what do you think? I'm wondering about how other people like it. The site again is http://www.kvcd.net
. So answer the poll and feel free to reply with suggestions, other templates that may be better, things like that.
^*~~Peace ~~*^

[double7007]

Oh yea, I've taken the liberty of voting YES for the poll, so 1 of the votes is mine .

[hwoodwar]

I (my opinion) don't necessarily think Kwag's templates are real close to DVD quality (I have tried many of them), but I do think he has some of the best XVCD and XSVCD templates around. Furthermore he answers questions quickly, frequently and politely. His LBR template is the only template I now use for VCDs (yes, I know technically it is an XVCD template.) I also use a slightly modified version of his SKVCD NTSC film template to encode all of my CVDs.

[sterno]

I don't use Kwag's VCD templates because my DVD player won't play them.

I might go ahead and use them if I were making something strictly for computer viewing. MPEG-1 support is pretty much ubiquitous (even on older computers), so I wouldn't have to tell computer-ignorant people to install DivX or something similar to fit a decent amount of high-resolution video on one CD.

[double7007]

Ive used the LBR one but obviously it is a Low Bit Rate so the quality stinks. I finished encoding something in the SKVCD NTSC Film format but it is way to big to fit on a 700mb cd-r. But I could probably mess around and get it to work the way I want. Anybody have any info on a template that provides great quality and still fits on a cd-r? I'd like to know of at least one, it would be nice.
Peace

[kwag]

Ive used the LBR one but obviously it is a Low Bit Rate so the quality stinks. I finished encoding something in the SKVCD NTSC Film format but it is way to big to fit on a 700mb cd-r. But I could probably mess around and get it to work the way I want. Anybody have any info on a template that provides great quality and still fits on a cd-r? I'd like to know of at least one, it would be nice.
Peace

Do it the right way
http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=27

-kwag

[SansGrip]

Anybody have any info on a template that provides great quality and still fits on a cd-r?

I recommend the KVCDx3 template, which uses a resolution of 528x480, if your standalone can play it. I find it a nice balance between sharpness and compressibility.

Regards,
SansGrip

[energy80s]

Bloody weird resolution there! The only horizontal resolutions I would touch would be 352, 704 and 720.

[SansGrip]

Bloody weird resolution there! The only horizontal resolutions I would touch would be 352, 704 and 720.

It's weird but it looks good and plays on my standalone, as well as the standalones of all my neighbours . It's really no weirder than 480x480...

Regards,
SansGrip

[vitualis]

Except 480x480 is a standard resolution for SVCDs...

Regards.

[kwag]

Except 480x480 is a standard resolution for SVCDs...

But 528x480, if it plays on your standalone, makes just that "extra" difference in quality
( Plays fine on my 5 DVD players, and also on my neighbours too 8) )

Regards,
-kwag

[Frank Mario]

Bloody weird resolution there!

Except 480x480 is a standard resolution for SVCDs...

I fail to see the point your trying to make... Whatever the resolution, standard or otherwise, these templates produce excellent results and my DVD player has no problem in playing them.

[vitualis]

Obviously you've missed the point entirely... It's what happens when you try to generalise your own experience to everything else.

528x480 is an "weird" resolution insofar that it isn't a standard resolution for anything. SansGrip stated "It's really no weirder than 480x480... " Well, IMHO, it is. 480x480 is the standard NTSC SVCD resolution and it is more likely to work (if you use it to say make an XVCD) than 528x480 on a stand-alone player. That was my point. Not that 528x480 is inferior or superior to 480x480 in terms of video quality.

You will also note that kwag and SansGrip qualified their statements with "if it works" on your player. Being non-standard MPEG settings and making XVCDs, they don't work on all players -- there is a compatibility list on kwag's site.

Regards.

[SansGrip]

Except 480x480 is a standard resolution for SVCDs...

I meant 480x480 is a weird resolution in the sense that it's not in the CCIR-601 specification. TBH I think the SVCD committee made a bad choice, and should have gone with half-D1 like CVD, which is barely distinguishable in terms of sharpness and requires fewer bits.

What's more a standalone that doesn't claim SVCD compatibility is as likely to support 528x480 as it is 480x480, since neither are valid VCD or DVD resolutions.

In that sense 480x480 and 528x480 are equally weird .

Regards,
SansGrip

[vhelp]

hmm, 528 x 480 resolution.. would that play in an Apex AD-1500 ??

I should go a try it out.. curious to see if it plays at all.

I don't recall seeing a list at kwags site though on this resolution.
I do know that 640 x 480 WILL play perfectly fine on the AD-1500.
..ad that to the list of resolution for AD-1500's

be right back
-vhelp

[Dodzzz]

In that sense 480x480 and 528x480 are equally weird

480 is simply an SVCD that all SVCD capable players support it (duh!), while 528 isn't anything (yet?)..

currently, I use 480 x 480/576 for my home movies to SVCD.
I don't care if it's being DVD/VCD compliant resolution or not because most DVD players supports SVCDs (at least it's easier to find whether a player supports SVCDs or not rather than X/S/VCDs) and that's the thing!

[MOVIEGEEK]

I don't care if it's DVD/VCD compliant resolution or not because most DVD players supports SVCDs and that's the thing!

I disagree,MOST DVD players sold in the US do NOT support SVCD.

[Dodzzz]

sorry MOVIEGEEK, I just edited my post, I meant all SVCD capable DVD players would play it, sorry again!

MOST DVD players sold in the US do NOT support SVCD

woa.. I didn't know that! 'cos most DVD players/system sold in my country supports both SVCD and VCDs..

[vitualis]

Who knows what was really going on when the Chinese gov't selected the current SVCD specs over CVD. The decision may well have been more political than technical...

Regards.

[Dodzzz]

And for not being off-topic..

Yes, KVCD is a great template, but I wouldn't use it for distributing my home movies. I've been tweaking the GOP structure as well, although the results was very surprising, but I find it very incompatible with many of my friend's VCD players (sync-ing problems)

I prefer compatibility over everything, so.. standard SVCD with VBR tweaking is my choice

[vhelp]

ok, back to what I was trying to do here..

I tried two resolution (that I found kwag's FORUM discussoin area using)
* W528, and
* W544

I re-enocded a clip I found at kwags FORUM:
(kvcd) - (by rendalunit) - lotr528x576cq72.28.m1v
in TMPG to xSVCD (CQ mode) w/ W528 and W544 x 480

Apex AD-1500
* At first start, the player played the W528 in a small window, centered to
.. the left.
* then, when the W528 clip was finished, the W544 played perfectly.
OK.. .. .. so I hit the play button again on the remote, and the W528
clip played again, but this time full screen (including boarders) and only
this time, it pixelated heavily. Probably due to the weird Width resolution.
-- -- -- when I put the AD-1500 into REPEAT mode, -- -- --
* pressed skip, and plaed the W544 clip (which still played perfectly) the
.. W528 began to play fine (as good as the W544 clip) But, when starting
up from scratch, the clip either pixelates, or plays in smaller centered to
left, window, but in good quality.

W528 - There you have it on the AD-1500. Will play, but w/ a bit of
hicupps.
W544 - Perfect!! on the AD-1500.

..as for home-movies, I've ben leaning towards some divX samples. Those
that I gave samples to (co-workers, etc) have claimed they look great.
MPEG-2 clip are good too of course
-vhelp

[RigRMortis]

KVCD Rocks!
while it does not play on my mintek without slight modifications (29.97 fps and 22 VBV), I've used several KVCD templates on many occasions. From DVD back-ups to VHS home movie captures It Just Looks Great!

...and as mentioned before the KVCD forums are not just newbie/user friendly, the overall support is tremendous, not only from KWAG but from SansGrip and all the forum posters...and they are constantly working together to improve all aspects of VCD creation.

My first VCD was created using information/guides I found here at VCDHelp (including information on KVCD)...now when I give out VCD links to friends I give out this site and the KVCD site.
KVCD has my vote!

[vitualis]

For personal backups on current equipment, feel free to experiment all you want. Be aware, however, that making a non-compliant disc can have a nasty sting in tail -- especially if you play for your discs to work flawlessly on tomorrow's hardware.

As long as you understand this compromise, you won't be up for any nasty surprises in the future. I suggest that you stick to compliant formats for anything that is important to you.

Regards.

[syk2c11]

I personally rank it (KVCD) as the template of the year. This is the biggest bonus I have in 2002.

[energy80s]

As long as you understand this compromise, you won't be up for any nasty surprises in the future. I suggest that you stick to compliant formats for anything that is important to you.

Regards.

I agree. I have used the KVCD templates in the past and they do work well. However, they are not standard for DVD players and I always try to keep to recognised DVD standards. The only deviation is that I normally encode audio at 48k. This is easily changed back to 44k if needs be.

[kwag]

This is my personal recommendation. I never make my KVCDs, and then find our which DVD player supports playback. It's the other way around! I take KVCD samples to the store, and then I buy a DVD player that can play my CD-Rs/CD-RWs. Then, in the future, I will do the same thing. As for future players not playing KVCD encoded MPEG-1s, I doubt that, because the history I've seen is that DVD manufacturers have widened their non-standard support, both in MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 as time goes on. Any manufacturer who doesn't follow this, will probably shoot themselves on the foot. This market is strongly dictated by users. And if users can't play their home made stuff and backups, they will just buy another player that does. This is in strong contrast to something like "Microsoft", where they dictate the path they want, and users are forced to follow because there's no other choice ( At least on the mainstream Windows arena ).
There are many DVD/VCD/SVCD manufacturers in the world, so it's a "horizontal" market, and the only logical step is to go forward. And that means more added forward and backwards compatibility. Take APEX for example, which decided to stop VCD suport on their product line. I personally know at least ~40 people that have bought other brands that do play their KVCDs just because of that issue.

-kwag

[vitualis]

The worst thing, however, is to assume future compatibility.

What tends to happen as technology progesses is that the little known "formats" of the past become increasingly poorly supported. Ten years from now, DVD recording will have reached mainstream and possibily even be heading down the road of obsolescence. VCD authoring will probably be a forgotten skill and support of any VCD variants (indeed, VCDs themselves) will be increasingly less important in the minds of hardware manufacturers.

As such, I can easily envisage that in the not too distant future, it will be increasingly difficult to get a player with good S/VCD compatibility without severely limiting other features offered in those players. For example, try to get a player now that can natively play CD-i video discs. I've seen some stand-alone VCD players and DVD players that can do it, but there are a rare breed. Luckily, VCDs are a rather more popular format.

I personally intended for ALL my important video discs to be easily compatible for any players in the future (assuming they still use a video media disc with CD/DVD type dimensions!). IMHO, the only safe choices are standard VCD and DVD.

Regards.

[vitualis]

I personally know at least ~40 people that have bought other brands that do play their KVCDs just because of that issue.

I'm disappointed with Apex's decision too, but I think that the customers that Apex has LOST because of dropping VCD compatibility does not compare in anyway to the competitive pricing advantage it gains from having their player just those few dollars cheaper...

Unfortunately, home VCD creation just isn't a big time hobby...

Regards.

[SansGrip]

I personally intended for ALL my important video discs to be easily compatible for any players in the future (assuming they still use a video media disc with CD/DVD type dimensions!). IMHO, the only safe choices are standard VCD and DVD.

I personally think that most standalones (now and in the future) that support both VCD and DVD will also play KVCDs. What might happen is that manufacturers drop VCD support entirely.

As for important video, I agree with you. I wouldn't use anything other than high-bitrate MPEG-2 for something I want to make sure survives.

That said, one can always reencode. Of course there's a drop in quality, but it's not such a big deal when going to a high-bitrate format.

[vitualis]

I personally think that most standalones (now and in the future) that support both VCD and DVD will also play KVCDs. What might happen is that manufacturers drop VCD support entirely.

I disagree. KVCD is essentially a subset of XVCD (or if you like, a VCD with non-standard specs) and even NOW, not all DVD players can play off-spec VCDs (from the perspective of a hardware manufacturer, there is no reason why they should -- the players themselves only need to support S/VCD).

As VCD becomes increasingly obsolete, the hardware manufacturers are going to increasingly care less about supporting it well. As such, I would imagine that you should only rely on the core functionalities in the specs to be supported in future players. Thanks to the huge VCD base in SE Asia, I don't think we'll lose VCD compatibility an time soon in stand-alone players and Apex is probably the exception to the rule.

However, all good things will pass in time... As per my example before. How many players now can play CD-i video discs? If I made an "X"-CD-i video disc back then, my chances of it playing are even less now...

Regards.