I'm naive and I'm getting a lot of confusing answers when searching the net
but I so want to get this right ...

My DVD player plays VCDs, SVCDs (with the VCD header trick) and obviously
DVDs. I don't have a DVD player but I'm interested in getting the maximum
resolution onto my 4:3 TV as possible.

So, what appears to be a simple question: What is the highest compatible
resolution (X by Y) that I can put onto an SVCD and display it on my NTSC
TV? My recordings so far are looking quite 'boxy' and I'm sure I should be
expecting more of a DVD like quality? Or will I only get DVD like quality on
a DVD?

So far I've tried 720x480 and this appears to stutter somewhat and looks
boxier than I was expecting. I cut down on the bitrate using TMPGEnc and the
stutter is minimal but the picture still looks boxy. I need to split my
video and audio to do this next time around as it really messed up my audio.

I'm using Windows Movie Maker or Ulead VS6 that can create DV-AVIs, MPEG1/2
etc. - which one should I create that will be fastest to write to an S(X)VCD
and at what resolution? I've read the info here
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/xvcd.htm but I'm still worried that I'm doing
something wrong.

In short this has been my process so far ...

- create MPEG file 720x480 MPEG2 in Ulead VS6, modify header TMPGEnc to a
VCD header and burn as VCD in Nero
OR
- create SVCD MPEG 480x480 MPEG? in Ulead VS6, modify header TMPGEnc to a
VCD header and burn as VCD in Nero

The 720x480 appears to be missing the sides of the movie - duh, is this
format for 16:9 only?

The 480x480 is lower quality than I would like?

What can I do to improve on this? Is the only answer to move to DVDs?

All help appreciated.

Regards,
PK
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
mailto -----------------------------------------------------------------

"PK" wrote in message
...
I'm naive and I'm getting a lot of confusing answers when searching
the net
but I so want to get this right ...

My DVD player plays VCDs, SVCDs (with the VCD header trick) and
obviously
DVDs. I don't have a DVD player but I'm interested in getting the
maximum
resolution onto my 4:3 TV as possible.

So, what appears to be a simple question: What is the highest
compatible
resolution (X by Y) that I can put onto an SVCD and display it on my
NTSC
TV? My recordings so far are looking quite 'boxy' and I'm sure I
should be
expecting more of a DVD like quality? Or will I only get DVD like
quality on
a DVD?

So far I've tried 720x480 and this appears to stutter somewhat and
looks
boxier than I was expecting. I cut down on the bitrate using TMPGEnc
and the
stutter is minimal but the picture still looks boxy. I need to split
my
video and audio to do this next time around as it really messed up my
audio.

I'm using Windows Movie Maker or Ulead VS6 that can create DV-AVIs,
MPEG1/2
etc. - which one should I create that will be fastest to write to an
S(X)VCD
and at what resolution? I've read the info here
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/xvcd.htm but I'm still worried that I'm doing
something wrong.

In short this has been my process so far ...

- create MPEG file 720x480 MPEG2 in Ulead VS6, modify header TMPGEnc
to a
VCD header and burn as VCD in Nero
OR
- create SVCD MPEG 480x480 MPEG? in Ulead VS6, modify header TMPGEnc
to a
VCD header and burn as VCD in Nero

The 720x480 appears to be missing the sides of the movie - duh, is
this
format for 16:9 only?

The 480x480 is lower quality than I would like?

What can I do to improve on this? Is the only answer to move to DVDs?
Almost...
NTSC SVCD is MPEG2 480 x 480 for video and 704 x 480 for Stills
PAL SVCD is MPEG2 480 x 576 for video and 704 x 576 for Stills
Anything else might play on a PC but isn't SVCD.

Actually if you work it out, a SVCD at 4:3 is similar visual quality to
16:9 DVD on same HEIGHT of WS TV.

I did make an animorphic 480 x 576 PAL SVCD as an experiment, but since
my 8mm camera is 4:3 its a bit pointless.....

If converting 4:3 stills to 16:9 animorphic video (like stop motion
animation) by matte and stretch you need to start with at least 1024 x
768 to aviod loss of quality (The vertical 768 is simply cropped to 576.

The MPEG2 compreesion settings are important and your source video for
encoding to get good results. Noise in the video creates a problem. I
use a Virtual Dub noise filters inc temporal noise.

For NTSC the vertical can only be 480 ever. VCD is 240 because it
repeats each identical field for the 480 line interlaced frame.

Though VHS is horizonatally about VCD horizonatally, it is twice the
vertical resolution. Also due to aliasing, even for VCD or SVCD (320 or
480 respective X direction) you want to capture any analog at about 640,
704 or better and downsample in SW to 480 afterwards,.

If 4:3 SVCD does not look as good as 16:9 commercial DVD on same height
WS TV, then your video source is poor or encoder settings are poor. You
are unlikely to get more that 35 to 40 minutes on a 700Mbyte CD at a
decent SVCD setting

Use 2 pass VBR with 1200 average and 2600 peak bit rate


XVCD mini DVD , etc are not standards
Standards are
On a CD

VCD and CDi: MPEG1 1/4 resolution NTSC or PAL
CVCD: (very poor support and little imporvement over VCD)
SVCD: 480x480 NTSC or 480 x PAL MPEG2

All these support menus, hotspot images, menus with sound, nested menus
and almost full resolution (704 x 480 or 704x 576) stills. But I haven't
yet seen any author package except the Philips VCD 2.0 / Cdi package
that does everything. The Philips author tool can't do SVCD and produces
non-Standard CD Image File. I'd like to know how to burn it!


On a DVD
DVD 720 x480 NTSC, 720 x 576 PAL

I use Virtual Dub, an ancient Win3.1 vintage Adobe Premire Video Editing
on XP, Tmpgenc (bought for the MPEG2), Nero 5.9, Paint Shop Pro7.

Had some fun making Claymation by capturing stills from a Webcam and
making video in Premiire (make 480 x 576 AVI encoded with Huffy Codec),
Encoded MPEG by tmpgenc and Neroed on SVCD.

--
Watty
Ireland

Watty,

thank you kindly.

To paraphrase, 480x480 is the best I can expect (the standard) on my NTSC
SVCD but the MPEG2 encoder may be my issue and I need to tweak that somehow.

720x480 is the standard in DVD for NTSC.

To ask one more simple question ... will a video captured from my MiniDV
camera ever have the same quality as a purchased DVD movie? I'm not
referring to the lighting effects, noise, grain etc. - just that the video
looks so good played from my DV camcorder - can it ever look this good again
played from a disc (CD or DVD)?

Regards,
PK
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
mailto -----------------------------------------------------------------
"Watty" wrote in message
news

"PK" wrote in message
...
I'm naive and I'm getting a lot of confusing answers when searching
the net
but I so want to get this right ...

My DVD player plays VCDs, SVCDs (with the VCD header trick) and
obviously
DVDs. I don't have a DVD player but I'm interested in getting the
maximum
resolution onto my 4:3 TV as possible.

So, what appears to be a simple question: What is the highest
compatible
resolution (X by Y) that I can put onto an SVCD and display it on my
NTSC
TV? My recordings so far are looking quite 'boxy' and I'm sure I
should be
expecting more of a DVD like quality? Or will I only get DVD like
quality on
a DVD?

So far I've tried 720x480 and this appears to stutter somewhat and
looks
boxier than I was expecting. I cut down on the bitrate using TMPGEnc
and the
stutter is minimal but the picture still looks boxy. I need to split
my
video and audio to do this next time around as it really messed up my
audio.

I'm using Windows Movie Maker or Ulead VS6 that can create DV-AVIs,
MPEG1/2
etc. - which one should I create that will be fastest to write to an
S(X)VCD
and at what resolution? I've read the info here
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/xvcd.htm but I'm still worried that I'm doing
something wrong.

In short this has been my process so far ...

- create MPEG file 720x480 MPEG2 in Ulead VS6, modify header TMPGEnc
to a
VCD header and burn as VCD in Nero
OR
- create SVCD MPEG 480x480 MPEG? in Ulead VS6, modify header TMPGEnc
to a
VCD header and burn as VCD in Nero

The 720x480 appears to be missing the sides of the movie - duh, is
this
format for 16:9 only?

The 480x480 is lower quality than I would like?

What can I do to improve on this? Is the only answer to move to DVDs?
Almost...
NTSC SVCD is MPEG2 480 x 480 for video and 704 x 480 for Stills
PAL SVCD is MPEG2 480 x 576 for video and 704 x 576 for Stills
Anything else might play on a PC but isn't SVCD.

Actually if you work it out, a SVCD at 4:3 is similar visual quality to
16:9 DVD on same HEIGHT of WS TV.

I did make an animorphic 480 x 576 PAL SVCD as an experiment, but since
my 8mm camera is 4:3 its a bit pointless.....

If converting 4:3 stills to 16:9 animorphic video (like stop motion
animation) by matte and stretch you need to start with at least 1024 x
768 to aviod loss of quality (The vertical 768 is simply cropped to 576.

The MPEG2 compreesion settings are important and your source video for
encoding to get good results. Noise in the video creates a problem. I
use a Virtual Dub noise filters inc temporal noise.

For NTSC the vertical can only be 480 ever. VCD is 240 because it
repeats each identical field for the 480 line interlaced frame.

Though VHS is horizonatally about VCD horizonatally, it is twice the
vertical resolution. Also due to aliasing, even for VCD or SVCD (320 or
480 respective X direction) you want to capture any analog at about 640,
704 or better and downsample in SW to 480 afterwards,.

If 4:3 SVCD does not look as good as 16:9 commercial DVD on same height
WS TV, then your video source is poor or encoder settings are poor. You
are unlikely to get more that 35 to 40 minutes on a 700Mbyte CD at a
decent SVCD setting

Use 2 pass VBR with 1200 average and 2600 peak bit rate


XVCD mini DVD , etc are not standards
Standards are
On a CD

VCD and CDi: MPEG1 1/4 resolution NTSC or PAL
CVCD: (very poor support and little imporvement over VCD)
SVCD: 480x480 NTSC or 480 x PAL MPEG2

All these support menus, hotspot images, menus with sound, nested menus
and almost full resolution (704 x 480 or 704x 576) stills. But I haven't
yet seen any author package except the Philips VCD 2.0 / Cdi package
that does everything. The Philips author tool can't do SVCD and produces
non-Standard CD Image File. I'd like to know how to burn it!


On a DVD
DVD 720 x480 NTSC, 720 x 576 PAL

I use Virtual Dub, an ancient Win3.1 vintage Adobe Premire Video Editing
on XP, Tmpgenc (bought for the MPEG2), Nero 5.9, Paint Shop Pro7.

Had some fun making Claymation by capturing stills from a Webcam and
making video in Premiire (make 480 x 576 AVI encoded with Huffy Codec),
Encoded MPEG by tmpgenc and Neroed on SVCD.

--
Watty
Ireland

"PK" wrote in message
...
Watty,

thank you kindly.

To paraphrase, 480x480 is the best I can expect (the standard) on my
NTSC
SVCD but the MPEG2 encoder may be my issue and I need to tweak that
somehow.

720x480 is the standard in DVD for NTSC.

To ask one more simple question ... will a video captured from my
MiniDV
camera ever have the same quality as a purchased DVD movie? I'm not
referring to the lighting effects, noise, grain etc. - just that the
video
looks so good played from my DV camcorder - can it ever look this good
again
played from a disc (CD or DVD)?

If you transfer via Firewire/Ilink, that is not video capture in Analog
sense, it is simply file copy, quality is unimpaired.

If the camera is a moderate one and your SVCD / tempgenc settings are
correct, it should look almost as good. You'd best experiment with how
to resample the 720 x 480 DV as 480 x 480. Virtual Dub might do it
better than Tmpgenc. But the "Output codec" on Virtual Dub should be
Huffy (2:1 compression, lossless) or none as recompressing to DV will
increase artifacts, especially "ringing" on edges.


With 4:3 format DVD format on a DVD it should be a bit sharper and no
resampling problem, just re-encoding.

DV format used by camcorder is a varient of MJPEG, at about 5:1
compression. Compress various BMP still images that are 640 x 480 to
JPEG at 5:1 to see effect of DV compression.

MPEG2 as used by SVCD and DVD varies hugely in quality according to the
source material (more panning and movement lowers the quality) and the
final results depend on good 2 pass variable rate encoding.

A "domestic priced" real time MPEG2 encoder is particularly poor. If
your encoding is much faster than 10 hours per hour at a 1 GHz CPU then
your settings aren't the best. It should take almost 5 hours to encode 1
hour DV even on 2GHz CPU. Cinema Craft encoder is faster but much more
expensive.

These estimates are based on taking 8 hours to encode 20 minutes "huffy
encoded" 480 x 576 AVI video as MPEG2 for SVCD in tmpgenc on a 933MHz
Dell Precsion 220

--
Watty
Ireland

To ask one more simple question ... will a video captured from my MiniDV
camera ever have the same quality as a purchased DVD movie? I'm not
referring to the lighting effects, noise, grain etc. - just that the video
looks so good played from my DV camcorder - can it ever look this good again
played from a disc (CD or DVD)?

If you save to disk without going through any compression process
(which means you won't get much video time on a CD :-) it will look
exactly as good again.

The DV computer link isn't analogue capture in the old sense. It's
a digital link. You transfer full quality.

Watty,

I sincerely appreciate your post as I think I'm on the verge of getting this
right - I have 80+ GBs of DV-AVI on disc and I need to move it sooner rather
than later ...

Is there any chance you could summarize how *you* capture DV onto disc.

DV - Firewire - DV-AVI? using which application?
Then DV-AVI to MPEG2? or ? Virtual Dub or TMPGEnc
Then which app are you using next? I think simply knowing what someone else
is doing is where I need to start ... I wish there was a Dummy's Guide to
this stuff because I am that dummy.

My problem is that I *think* I'm encoding and further encoding more than I
need to and I definitely have my encoders set incorrectly because I can
encode 20 minutes in about an hour on a 900MHz Athlon w/ 256 MB RAM and the
results seem to show I'm getting it wrong - the video 'rings' from start to
finish like a ReadyBrek ad.

PK
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
mailto -----------------------------------------------------------------
"Watty" wrote in message
...
"PK" wrote in message
...
Watty,

thank you kindly.

To paraphrase, 480x480 is the best I can expect (the standard) on my
NTSC
SVCD but the MPEG2 encoder may be my issue and I need to tweak that
somehow.

720x480 is the standard in DVD for NTSC.

To ask one more simple question ... will a video captured from my
MiniDV
camera ever have the same quality as a purchased DVD movie? I'm not
referring to the lighting effects, noise, grain etc. - just that the
video
looks so good played from my DV camcorder - can it ever look this good
again
played from a disc (CD or DVD)?

If you transfer via Firewire/Ilink, that is not video capture in Analog
sense, it is simply file copy, quality is unimpaired.

If the camera is a moderate one and your SVCD / tempgenc settings are
correct, it should look almost as good. You'd best experiment with how
to resample the 720 x 480 DV as 480 x 480. Virtual Dub might do it
better than Tmpgenc. But the "Output codec" on Virtual Dub should be
Huffy (2:1 compression, lossless) or none as recompressing to DV will
increase artifacts, especially "ringing" on edges.


With 4:3 format DVD format on a DVD it should be a bit sharper and no
resampling problem, just re-encoding.

DV format used by camcorder is a varient of MJPEG, at about 5:1
compression. Compress various BMP still images that are 640 x 480 to
JPEG at 5:1 to see effect of DV compression.

MPEG2 as used by SVCD and DVD varies hugely in quality according to the
source material (more panning and movement lowers the quality) and the
final results depend on good 2 pass variable rate encoding.

A "domestic priced" real time MPEG2 encoder is particularly poor. If
your encoding is much faster than 10 hours per hour at a 1 GHz CPU then
your settings aren't the best. It should take almost 5 hours to encode 1
hour DV even on 2GHz CPU. Cinema Craft encoder is faster but much more
expensive.

These estimates are based on taking 8 hours to encode 20 minutes "huffy
encoded" 480 x 576 AVI video as MPEG2 for SVCD in tmpgenc on a 933MHz
Dell Precsion 220

--
Watty
Ireland