VCD quality?

[XB]

hi all,

i'm working with Studio DV and Roxio Platinum 5. when i burn VCD's and play them on my TV, the quality leaves a lot to be desired. it is much worse than VHS. the pictures are grainy and washed out, much like i've taken a little picture and zoomed it out quite a bit. what am i doing wrong?


thanks

[timmy_boi]

it Depends on how you captured the video before you created the VCD. or you are OVER compressing the cd, like squishing a whole movie into one cd. Its a fact that vcd should have better quality than vhs, but you must capture from a good source and allow the file size to be streched out to two disks for room for image quality.

hope that helps

[jtor]

...and how did you encode the DV AVIs to MPEG, did you use the encoder which is built-in on StudioDV? I'd suggest you use Studio for capturing (and some basic editing) only, and use some stand-alone encoders (TMPGENC is one, and is free), as standalones 'usually' does a better job in encoding AVIs.

hope this helps.

[XB]

yes, i used the encoder in Studio DV. i took the default settings for VCD, which is 352 x 240 at 1150 Kbits/sec. should i be using diff settings like 3000 Kbits/sec? would that make a diff?


thanks.

[jtor]

I'd suggest you try TMPGENC first, using the VCD template that comes with it. You SHOULD notice a big quality difference already. It's free, and you can get it in the TOOLS section on the left side of your screen.

[XB]

when making VCD mpegs, am i limited to the 352 x 240 size?

[jtor]

Yes, ...basically. If you change anything that's listed in the WHAT IS...VCD (bitrate, frame size), then you'll end up with XVCD (which is a non-standard VCD), which is actually something that you might want to look into.

[ktnwin]

Hi XB,

=== DO NOT USE StudioDV to encode to MPEG ===

The outcoming quality is HORRIBLE. I have StudioDV and only tried that once. It's a shame to show this to anyone.

Use TMPGEnc instead to encode your capture AVI into MPEG. You will a HUGE difference in quality.

[Vejita-sama]

For the best quaility you really need to use a xVCD, first look on the DVD Player list to the left to make sure you player supports xVCD (most do, SVCD and xSVCD is tricker). You can also see the max bitrate you player supports. Most will support up to 2700kbit/s (for both audio and video).

The standard VCD is 352x240 @ video=1150kbit/s and audio=224kbit/s. NTSC TV standard is 720x480. Most people find that 352x480 or 480x480 give much better results, than the default 352x2480 (not that the SVCD standard calls for 480x480).

As the for the video bitrate, the higher the better. You're limited my the max bitrate your DVD player can read and by the size of your video. At 1150kbit/s a 80min CDR can hold 80min of video. At 2500kbit/s you only get ~36min.

If you're using TMPGenc there are a LOT of settings take can affect the quaility of your MPEG. Let's say you want to put more than 36min. Say 60min, this gives a bitrate of ~1550kbit/s (at audio=224kbit/s). You have several different encoding choices:

CBR - constant bitrate, the same bitrate is used for the whole movie

VBR - variable bitrate, the computer will up the bitrate for high motion scences and lower it for low action scences.

For best results use 2pass VBR, this will take twice as long but give a MUCH better encode, also set motion search to high.

[XB]

great. i used tmpeng and got better results, although the quality still seems lacking. a couple more questions:

1. if i go xVCD, what's the highest resolution i can use?
2. which offers better quality xVCD or SVCD?

[TIbrO]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: TIbrO on 2001-08-30 17:41:16 ]</font>

[TIbrO]

720x480 is the highest resolution you can go in NTSC format for US Playcback... As for the second question, SVCD is suppsedly better than XVCD. I've made some XVCDs myself, and they sure do look better than VCDs. I've made no SVCDs, so I can only go by what people say, and they say SVCDs are higher quality than XVCDs. BUT... This is only true if your video source is of MUCH higher quality, such as DVD, LaserDisc, or Digital Cable/Satellite broadcasts. If your source is froma VCR, then VCD quality is all you'll ever need. Oh, and XVCDs also look much better from higher quality sources.

[raceman3]

Can you use TMPGENC to join multiple AVI files into 1 MPEG ?

[ktnwin]

"1. if i go xVCD, what's the highest resolution i can use? "
Answer: it depends on your DVD player. Some can support upto 720x480. You got to try it. More importantly is the max bitrate too.
"2. which offers better quality xVCD or SVCD?"
Answer: this is personal taste. For me, XVCD offer better quality (no blockiness) but the picture is not as sharp as SVCD.

[Vejita-sama]

Ok, for best results you must you multipass VBR. For TMPGenc that means 2pass VBR, or CCE I recommend multipass=3. 352x480 or 480x480 is good enough, the horizonital doesn't matter as much as the vertical (human eye/quaility wise).

As for MPEG1 vs MPEG2 (xVCD vs xSVCD) this harder to say. Despite what most people think MPEG1 and MPEG really use the same compression at and equal resolution and bitrate should produce the same quility.

However, the MPEG2 specs allow for more options than MPEG1: interlaced video source, multiple audio tracks, multiple subtitle tracks, streaming, etc. etc.

The higher the resoultion and the higher the bitrate the better. However, while you can have a high bitrate at low resolution you DO NOT want to make a high resolution MPEG with a low bitrate. This is because the higher the resolution the more data you need to main the same level of 'sharpness.' So encoding a 720x480 x(S)VCD normally isn't a good idea unless you really raise the bitrate.

The quaility of the source makes a HUGE difference, with a DVD rippped sorce using CCE and 3pass VBR (ie 4 passes) I get a DVD quaility MPEG2 file (bitrates from >1600).
Converting a DivX file will never make it any better than it's source. And since a lot of d/loaded DivX files take 120min and compresses them to 150MB, that's a lot of lost quaility.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that for 'the best' quaility, use Xpass VBR at your DVD players max bitrate at either 352x480 ot 480x480. But you'll only be able to get ~35min of video on each disc (20min if you can play miniDVD).

Since most people want more, there's a never ending debate about the best settings, encoders, etc. to put 40~60min on a 80min CDR Luck