DivX...VS...SVCD

For me, when I make a movie from DVD, I make a SVCD and window box to 448x544. If it's NTSC moive then 448x448, and 24fps (Or does 24fps make it XSVCD?). For VHS tapes I make CVDs and WB them to 336x544 and 336x448 for PAL and NTSC respectivly.

I usually put no more then 40-42min per disc. 45min if I have to. But Generally I try to keep it on 2 discs. Worst thing is to have two full discs, and then an exta disc with something like only the last 10 min of the movie....

I don't do any DIVX movies because I want to watch the movies on TV, I hate watching movies on my computer...

[Sefy]

adam, making an SVCD is not as easy as VCD, sure you "basicly" just load a
SVCD Template instead of VCD, but if you don't do "tweaking" the end result
in alot of the cases comes out as pure crap.

And if you want all the SVCD VBR, it's even more complicated, and requires
a lot more optimizing then a VCD would, not to mention, VCD's done with 48k
Audio (non-standard, I know!) can be burned into a DVDR media and will be
completly DVD Compatible, SVCD's will not be!

mpegobsession, forgive my curiasity, but those resolutions are completly non
standard, how are you even capable of playing them on a DVD Player ?

Sefy:

I said "window box". That is, encode at 480x576 and have the movie in smaller size with black borders around it. Helps to avoid TV cropping, and also makes picture quality better as there is less information to encode....

[Sefy]

Since most movies are already in Wide Screen and include the Black Bars,
what is the difference in what you do ? if I have a full screen movie, I keep it
full screen, cause quite frankly, sometimes I like seeing the whole TV full of a
picture

That would be true in the ultimate TV, but since TVs have over-scan, the black border isn't seen, and on the viewable area you can see more of the picture...

Ever done a cropping/overscan test on your TV?

[Umen Pich]

Why do I prefer VCD?
(1) easy to make
(2) decent quality (done well, on par with VHS and that doesn't look that bad to me)
....

Well, I would say:
1) I prefer SVCDs instead of DivX, because I want to watch at the movies laying on the bed in front of the TV, instead of sitting in front of the PC screen. Besides, my home computer is Pentim-1 - 120Mhz It cannot even play divXs. I prepare the svcds at work
2) Regarding the quality - 80min CVD movie on 80min CD looks just perfect (provided that the source material is perfect !!!)
I always wonder when I read about 3-4 CDs, 2000-3000kbps and more..
Just for the experiment I encoded (with TMPGENC) one of my own movies (PAL digital camera) to a CVD with bitrates 1500, 2000, 3000
They looked absolutely the same, I mean the first one was just perfect.
That's why I dont see any point to use higher bitrates.
The above experiment, I should say was done in Equal Quality mode (high precision) by changing only the higest possible bitrate.
I swiched on the log ouput to see what happens. And for 3000 and 4000 there wes not very noticeable difference, i.e. it didn't go higer, there was no need.
Anyway, average of 1500-1600-1700 is just enough (especially in VBR mode).

[vitualis]

Although i'm pretty hurt you never direct people to my guides, you don't like my guides ?

Actually, your guides are great... But I never remember the URL and doom9's URL is simply easy to remember...

Regards.

[Sefy]

I've got over 8 places hosting the guide and you can't remember one ?

VCDhelp ? Kwag (well, not for the next few months) mpegnews, and others
which are more or less famous