"such as real, Windows .." Why then when i use Nero to make a SVCD i can't put in .rm format because its not MPEG/MEGG 2 format

SVCD is capable of making better quality. These are the main differences:

VCD: non-interlaced.
SVCD: interlaced

VCD: 352 x 240 pixels
SVCD: 480 x 480 pixels

VCD: 1150 kbs bitrate
SVCD: up to 2520 kbs bitrate

VCD: About an hour per CD
SVCD: About 35-40 minutes per CD

VCD: MPEG-1
SVCD: MPEG-2

Me thinks you are right SVCD is a defined format, only mpeg-2 in specified format. Looks reasonable, maybe a little better than VHS. With both these format I find the quality of the source has a big impact on the final ouputas does the quality of the encoder.

With good source I can see no difference between the VV MC encoder and TMPGEnc but with a poor source TMPGEnc outperforms MC.

Anyone who uses VCDs/SVCDs may be interested to go here - http://www.kvcd.net - and check out their templates for TMPEGEnc.

VCD: Around 72 minutes on a CD.

KVCD (which is VCD quality, and adjustable as to how compressed you want the video): I've heard just over 4 hours is possible. And yes, it plays just fine in 99% of DVD players. (Though if you burn disks with Nero, Nero bitches vociferously. Ignore it!)

I've not yet tried these templates myself yet - only just been told about em - but I have been informed by reliable sources that they really DO work well!

After reading your post on KVCD, I tried out a sample. I encoded with TMPGEnc, including encoding the audio. It created a CD disc that did indeed play on my set-top DVD player (Pioneer DV-525). However, I didn't get anything near the compression ratios that were claimed. The "120 minute" template gave me about 78 minutes on a 650 MByte rewritable. Since the 120 minutes is based on 700 Mbyte disks, I should have gottten (650/700) * 120 = 111 minutes. I got only 70% of this.

I am trying one more disk, this time with much longer video, and with the audio compressed using 96 rather than 128 kbs.

John,
How did it turn out? Have you tried it again yet?

John

I had a very brief look at this, it seems the 'magic' is in reducing teh resolution to about half. I guess if you've only got a postage stamp size screen that would be acceptable.

John, How did it turn out? Have you tried it again yet?

Yeah, I went ahead and let it burn a much bigger project. I was using a CD-RW, so this has only about 650/700 of the capacity of an "80-minute/700 Mb" CD-R. I got about 72 minutes on this using a template that claimed it would give me 120 minutes. I figure on a regular CD-R I'd therefore get about 80-85 minutes. I used the volleyball video I have, which has tons of movement.

The result was reasonably sharp, considering the resolution and deinterlacing, but the pixelization was nasty.

Based on my tests, if I ever had to create a VCD for some reason, I would not be tempted to use KVCD.