Making a cartoon DVD rip look good

[crazyguy]

I thought converting a cartoon DVD to SVCD would look good even with a not-so-high bitrate, but alas, I'm getting a fair bit of blockiness. The type of cartoon I'm doing is Family Guy, not an old cartoon, same style as The Simpsons or Futurama, that type of cartoon. I'm doing a 22 minute video with a CBR of about 2200, giving me a 400mb file so I can get 2 files on 1 CD. Anybody got any tips on how I can clean up the blockiness and get it looking really nice without making the file any bigger? I've read about numerous filters, but haven't got a clue how to use them or even where they are. A small guide or a few pointers would be extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. Thanks anybody

crazyguy

[Super Warrior]

Are you useing TMPGenc to encode the DVD(vob) files? And if so,are you setting the quality to high?

I use TMPGenc to encode DVD files to SVCD.And even when encodeing to normal VCD,I hardly get any blockiness as long as the quality is set to high.

Although back when i was first testing stuff with TMPGenc,i'd alway set the quality to lowest so it would'nt take as much time for my test runs.Which resulted in a lot of blockiness.

[Gazorgan]

Your talking roughly 45 minutes ( 2 eps ) per CD, and that is right at the upper limit of bitrate for SVCD(192 kbps sound, it's a cartoon after all). You shouldn't have blockiness from bitrate. Check your quality settings, and try 2-pass VBR?

[macleod]

I know this sounds crazy, but you might want to encode the DVD down to a VCD. I have posted questions and whatnot for cartoons (older ones in the charlier borwn - great pumpkin era) and from what I have done (which is CVD, not SVCD), I get better results (not perfect) with encoding to VCD. The CVD looks much worse for macro blocks and mosquitoes areound the characters.

Not sure about your specific cartoon, but I believe that "older" cartoons weren't done to conform to any standard (i.e. 23.97 or 29.97 for NTSC). Also there is usually a lot of contrast in cartoons over "normal" movies.

Anyway, try coding VCD and see how it looks.

[crazyguy]

I'm using TMPGEnc, setting is High (slow). I'm encoding to CVD, since I read that there's less blockiness compared to ordinary SVCD because there's less horizontal lines, most of my films turn out very nicely like this. I've tried VCD but I'm not really happy with the results, they still look a bit crap. Cheers for the help so far people, much appreciated, any more tips???

crazyguy

[Super Warrior]

I'm using TMPGEnc, setting is High (slow). I'm encoding to CVD, since I read that there's less blockiness compared to ordinary SVCD because there's less horizontal lines, most of my films turn out very nicely like this. I've tried VCD but I'm not really happy with the results, they still look a bit crap. Cheers for the help so far people, much appreciated, any more tips???

crazyguy

You're encodeing to CVD? Since nothing in TMPGenc says CVD,i assume your useing some kinda custom template.You might not want to do that....

I recommend encodeing with one of the official TMPGenc templates,like SVCD NTSC.Try that on High quality and see what kinda results you get.

[DivXExpert]

Run the Noise Reduction Filter in TMPGEnc. It helps alot. Cleaner source, cleaner destination.

[crazyguy]

I'm using TMPGEnc, setting is High (slow). I'm encoding to CVD, since I read that there's less blockiness compared to ordinary SVCD because there's less horizontal lines, most of my films turn out very nicely like this. I've tried VCD but I'm not really happy with the results, they still look a bit crap. Cheers for the help so far people, much appreciated, any more tips???

crazyguy

You're encodeing to CVD? Since nothing in TMPGenc says CVD,i assume your useing some kinda custom template.You might not want to do that....

I recommend encodeing with one of the official TMPGenc templates,like SVCD NTSC.Try that on High quality and see what kinda results you get.

I just load an SVCD template and change the resolution to 352 x 480, and change the sound to 48,000hz.

[Rondo]

Crazyguy.

I'm new to this, & haven't done a cartoon yet, but I have a bit of experience on stop-motion stuff like Chicken Run, which may be similar?

Anyway, I found that if you go into TMPGenc Advanced tab (Other Settings on P3 of the Wizard) & double click on the Deinterlace line & select one of the cartoon options towards the end (forget which one, I'm not at my usual machine) you will only get the original alternate frames & TMPGenc will no longer have to work out the motion on the intervening frames.

Try it & see!