SVCD help

I just recently produced an SVCD andI noticed that the quality was very similar if not the same as a VCD.I used FFMpegx 0.0.4.d (0.0.4e wouldn't install the components correctly.) Anyway I read that it's supposed to be near DVD quality and it isn't. It's still blocky, sounds a lot better though.Does this happen to anyone else? what should I do?

Matt

[AntnyMD]

SVCD is *near* DVD quality, in that it uses similar compression and resolution. However, since SVCD uses 2.5Mbps and DVD can use 4 times that at a maximum, SVCD can't really compete with DVD.

To make SVCD look exceptional, you'd need a source with moderate motion, preferably 24 frames per second utilizing 3:2 pulldown, and encoded with 2 or more passes to ensure intelligent usage of the available bitrate.

[bilestyle]

you dont *need* multiple passes for SVCD to look good. I've encoded plenty of SVCD's and a few multiple pass ones, and the multiple pass doesn't look that much better to warrant the extra time and effort needed to do so. Once its on my 42 inch tv downstairs on my dvd player it doesnt even matter cuz the increase in quality is so slight that it doesnt matter.

[AntnyMD]

Need is a strong word, but I stand by it. I find SVCD quality via tools available to Mac OS X inferior (but acceptable) to the quality of SVCDs made with tools available to Windows operating systems. In my experience, its because of the option for multiple pass encoding in those non-Mac tools.

Still having trouble. I exported to what all of you said and it still won't look very good. It looks just like a regular vcd exported from iMovie. Any tips? Please tell me what you do to get a "high quality" movie onto a cd-r that plays on a dvd player.

thanks,
Matt V.
PS. I read all those rules at the top of the screen. Is Warez similar to Surfers Serials?

[AntnyMD]

Before doing your whole project, my suggestion would be to do some test clips playing around with the bitrate (using a higher bitrate than is allowed in standard SVCD) and looking a the differences. You may be just displeased with the bitrate allowed in SVCD.

Also, just wanted to ask, you're doing full 480x480/576 right? Not 352x240/288?

Last night I encoded what I thought as a "high quality" SVCD. But if it's possible I'd like better quality. What's this mulitiple pass thing? Is it only in 0.6.e?


Matt

[AntnyMD]

Multiple pass encoding is a technique employed by some encoders to examine the entire source file before encoding to enable better bitrate allocation to scenes of higher motion. With that, the theory is that you end up with a higher quality MPEG-2 in a smaller file size. The MPEG2 encoder utilized by ffmpegX, mpeg2enc, does not support multi-pass encoding.