VCD and SVCD quality.

[Andrew]

Now with all the latest drivers MMC 8.9 installed I am still running into a
quality issue. Any of the shows I record from the tuner look great played
back on my TV, however they all look like crap when converted to VCD or SVCD
.. I have the Ulead Visual Studio 6 that came with my All In Wonder 7500,
and I have Roxio Easy CD and DVD creator 6.

Is there some video sizes that when recorded look better than others? Any
tips or suggestions on how to recrd and make a good quality SVCD or VCD?

Andrew

 

[Kent_Diego]

Does this info help?
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

 

[Connor]

Now with all the latest drivers MMC 8.9 installed I am still running into a
quality issue. Any of the shows I record from the tuner look great played
back on my TV, however they all look like crap when converted to VCD or SVCD
. I have the Ulead Visual Studio 6 that came with my All In Wonder 7500,
and I have Roxio Easy CD and DVD creator 6.

Is there some video sizes that when recorded look better than others? Any
tips or suggestions on how to recrd and make a good quality SVCD or VCD?

Andrew

Andrew, did you ever answer if you're recording using the VCD or SVCD
setting under Personal Video Recorder in MMC 8.9?

If you are, then why the need to convert? Unless you're recording in
pure avi and wish to convert that to svcd or vcd mpg format, MMC
should give you an mpeg ready to burn to vcd or svcd. Go into setup
in MMC, Personal Video Recorder tab, and look at Recording Preset. If
Video CD or Super Video CD is not listed, clik on the Map Preset...
button and choose one or the other.
If you ARE recording to one of those MMC's vcd or svcd settings, Ulead
and Roxio should NOT be converting your already compliant mpg's.
Try tmpgenc if for some reason your MMC doesnt offer those settings
for some strange reason and you wish to convert whatever format you're
recording in to svcd or vcd. You can edit it with tmpgenc as well.
I use nero to burn the final mpg into vcd or svcd.

 

[BGrieb]

Does this info help?
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

That's a great start.

In a nutshell, To get the best VCDs and SVCDs, you'll want to capture in to
an AVI with a codec like HuffyUV or MJPEG. Then you'll need to post-process
with a program like TMPGenc for best results. The website mentioned above
will give plenty of guides for doing this with free software (probably
without using MMC at all). On the downside, the time involved in producing
the files will increase by quite a bit, but the quality difference will be
worth it if you're looking at storing something permanently.

If you capture directly in to VCD or SVCD MPEG compatible files you'll find
the quality will almost always be less if you're not using a Hardware based
MPEG encoder card (which you're not).

BG

 

[Andrew]

I've tried the VCD and SVCD settings and used Nero to make the CD. The
results were less than appealing. I'll be trying a few more settings this
evening to see what results I get.

It could be that my 1.1 gig Celeron just hasn't got the juice I need.

Andrew

 

[Andrew]

Thanks to you both, I'll check it out.

That's a great start.

In a nutshell, To get the best VCDs and SVCDs, you'll want to capture in to
an AVI with a codec like HuffyUV or MJPEG. Then you'll need to post-process
with a program like TMPGenc for best results. The website mentioned above
will give plenty of guides for doing this with free software (probably
without using MMC at all). On the downside, the time involved in producing
the files will increase by quite a bit, but the quality difference will be
worth it if you're looking at storing something permanently.

If you capture directly in to VCD or SVCD MPEG compatible files you'll find
the quality will almost always be less if you're not using a Hardware based
MPEG encoder card (which you're not).

BG

 

[John Russell]

Now with all the latest drivers MMC 8.9 installed I am still running into a
quality issue. Any of the shows I record from the tuner look great played
back on my TV, however they all look like crap when converted to VCD or SVCD
. I have the Ulead Visual Studio 6 that came with my All In Wonder 7500,
and I have Roxio Easy CD and DVD creator 6.

Is there some video sizes that when recorded look better than others? Any
tips or suggestions on how to recrd and make a good quality SVCD or VCD?

Andrew

Of course they look crap, if they looked good they wouldn't have developed
DVD. If you want good video on a CD you have to use the MPEG4/divx codec,
not video cd. Unfortunatly very few home dvd players support Divx.

 

[Connor]

I've tried the VCD and SVCD settings and used Nero to make the CD. The
results were less than appealing. I'll be trying a few more settings this
evening to see what results I get.

It could be that my 1.1 gig Celeron just hasn't got the juice I need.

I noticed a huge increase in quality when I upgraded my p3 1gig to a
p4 3gig. Also, try editing the svcd preset in mmc...up the '"motion
estimation quality" to 100.
or use the 'dvd high' setting, record in that, and use tmpgenc to
convert to svcd.
Or use programs like Virtual Dub and record in avi and then convert
with tmpgenc.
Good luck.

 

[Steve P]

Most $30+ DVD players will play mpeg files directly without SVCD or VCD
formatting.