Sefy's template, or TMPGEnc 12j?

[homerpez]

I have just tried a movie using Sefy's "updated" SeVCD template, and at the same time I tried it using TMPGEnc 12j. You know, the new one with "improved" Highest-Quality motion search. BAH.

I'm not yet sure who to blame (this wasn't the most scientific way to go about testing them both, sorry), so I'll put my experience out there and hopefully gather some info.

I just did an encode of a movie, where I had to lower the AVG bitrate to 726 to get it to fit on a CD. MIN was 300, MAX was 2350. 2-Pass VBR. Movie was 2 hours, 5 minutes.

( I should note that I have done this before, and fit a 2-hour movie on 1 CD, and quality was actually fairly nice. So a do have a frame of reference to compare to. )

OK. Using Sefy's "SeVCD NTSC FILM Enhanced",
"improved" template, the end result of my movie was strange. It was NOT blocky (usual symptom of TMPGEnc not having enough bitrate), but it instead had pixels flying around the edges of things (like CCE). I never noticed any macroblocks, just dirty pixels everywhere. And it was NOWHERE NEAR the quality of my other 2-hour movies.

There were subtle changes to Sefy's template, and it could be that. It could have drastically changes TMPGEnc's behaivior for encoding.

OR...

Could it be TMPGEnc 12j? They advertise as one of the changes "Improved motion search precision at "best" setting with MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 non-interlace". Could this have actually downgraded the quality of the encode? Maybe they overhauled the whole thing to try to emulate CCE's VBR behaivior? (Nah).

OR...

A weird combination of both?

Sefy's new template changes the encode mode (for output) from "non-interlace" to "interlace". 12j's improvements seem to be for "non-interlaced", i.e. Progressive video! (If I read right)...

Maybe I should go back to Sefy's old template? (I haven't done a full test of this yet, as the whole encode takes 12-14 hours 2-pass, I'll keep us all posted)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: homerpez on 2001-09-01 18:21:18 ]</font>

[Sefy]

Hi There, first, thank you for telling me about this, as you see, the only changes i've done in the new Templates are based on those in Shizzon's Template and I've followed his guide on what each does, and of course the fact i've optimized the encoding to TV (that's why it uses Interlaced, but that can be changed).

I've not yet tested the SeVCD fully, as I prefer my SxVCD more, and since my DVD Player can play them, then I barely do any SeVCD's.

Now, as you can see, the SeVCD uses MPEG1, so that automaticly does not let you do any changes to Interlaced/Non-Interlaced (I did not put those on ReadOnly, it's the MPEG1 usage that did!) and maybe MPEG1 can't handle the new changes very well.

What I would like you to try is to use the SxVCD instead of SeVCD and see if on the same movie, the quality is better, since it should handle the new changes much better.

[SatStorm]

Hi, I posted it and elsewere
I encode a lot this weekend, using the new SxVCD template. Well, I had to increase the bitrate at 1350, because there was artifacts and blocks for the very first time with 1150 bitrate!
I used also 12j, which is really very fast in my PC (duron 700).
See also my other post (Hey, I think tmpeg 12j is fast!)

[JJamez]

Homer,

Would it be possible to get a short clip (maybe 10-20 secs or so) of one you've done that you are happy with the quality? I personally haven't been happy with the quality of anything over about 50 minutes per CD, and I'm really curious if it's just a personal preference or if I'm doing something wrong and others are getting better quality at lower bitrates. I'd really appreciate it - you can email it to me at JimmiJames1@hotmail.com

Thanks in advance!

[homerpez]

I have been very pleased with the quality of Sefy's idea (MPEG-1 VBR), and like I said, I even had movies go about this low before. It's just I noticed that TMPGEnc suddenly changed its behaivior! (Blocks vs. dirty pixels)

Even stranger, this is coming off making an SVCD-res movie (480x480, VBR 1080) which looked just like the DVD, on one CD! (But that was using CCE)...

I still don't know quite what to make of it yet...

Maybe it's just this particular movie... I suppose there could be just something about this one that causes problems, there is a lot fo fluid motion...

[homerpez]

Did a test clip.

I think, maybe for the first time, I've found a movie that requires 2 discs. There's just so much motion, a 726 AVG bitrate (eve with a 2350 MAX) is not enough...

It seems that maybe they did improve motion search, too... there were blocks AND dirty pixels in this test (Sefy's old template, TMPGEnc 12i) ...

Hey, at least I started a decent forum topic for people's opinions of the new Sefy templates, and 12j! Even if I didn't think before I spoke!

[Sefy]

Hi Guys, i'm really sorry to hear all the new changes seem to have made the Templates worse, I thought that if I implemented the changes according to Shizzon's suggestions it would improve the quality like he said it would.

Basicly for anyone who wants to go back to the old Templates, i've included in the readme file all the changes i've made from the original Template to the updated one, so just reverse the changes and save the file again.

Right now i'm doing a test with TMPGenc 12j and an Enhanced Video-CD Template i've made in the past for myself (didn't think anyone would be interested in just VCD) and i've added to it the changes i've made to my SeVCD/SxVCD Templates, and i'll post the results of how the quality turned out, if it's worse, then it just might be a combination of the new changes and the new TMPGEnc 12j, I will also encode the movie with the default basic VCD Template to compare.

[homerpez]

In my apology, I hope I addressed this:

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>Hi Guys, i'm really sorry to hear all the new changes seem to have made the Templates worse, I thought that if I implemented the changes according to Shizzon's suggestions it would improve the quality like he said it would.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I believe I tried to make clear: I misjudged it! It seems your template isn't responsible, nor is 12j (though I'm trying to determine now if 12i is better than 12j still)...

This particular movie is a poor test of theory. It happens to be the anime movie "Akira". If you are familiar with it, it's known for its superior animation, as in fluid motion everywhere, almost all the time. Plus lots of detail.

It is so much so that I really think I should be making a 2-disc SVCD or VCD of this instead, 1 hour per disc.

Again, sorry for the confusion here... I should have waited until I had a better test for the new features of the template, and 12j...

[Sefy]

I'm now encoding Joe Dirt with the updated SxVCD to see if I get artifacts, i've already encoded it with regular VCD Template, so i'll be able to tell the diffrence, then will be able to see if it's 12j or the updates in the Template.

I'll keep you posted!

[SatStorm]

Well sefy? What your tests show?
I encode a small clip twice: with tmpegenc 12H and your old sxvcd template and 12j with your new...
Day with night!

[Sefy]

Well, the bad news is that you guys are defenetly right! i've encoded Joe Dirt with SxVCD and i've had problems playing it back, like playback freezing, although you can movie in the movie it just wouldn't play, never had that with my older Templates, but the question is, if it's the changes in the Template or TMPGEnc 12j, since like many of you, I just change a version when it comes out

So my next test will be using the new Template but with the 12i version, and see if the problem is there as well, if it is, then one of the changes i've made is the cause, if not, then something is REALLY wrong with the latest TMPGEnc! and I got no idea what that might be!

[SatStorm]

Yeh, I do that bad thing my self!
Always the newer versions.....

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SatStorm on 2001-09-05 08:04:33 ]</font>