How can I improve my VCD picture quality

Jideogu wrote on 8/29/2003, 9:38 AM

When I render my video to MPEG1 and burn it to a cdr, the picture quality is far worse than the original source. I captured the video from my DV camcorder using a firewire. After editing it on Vegas video 3, I render it to a VCD compliant MPEG 1 and burn it to a cdr using NERO or Vegas video. In both cases, the video quality is very poor.

I recorded the original unedited video from my dv camcorder directly to a VHS and compared the VHS quality to my VCD. The VHS quality is also far much better than my VCD's quality.

How can I improve the VCD quality to match or at a minimum, come close to the quality of the original source?

Thanks.

Comments

farss wrote on 8/29/2003, 9:47 AM

You cannot simply because the resolution is much lower, also the bitrate is lower so not only do you have a lower resolution result but more artifacts.

If you have very clean video, not much fast motion and no noise you can get reasonable results. Try using the TMPGEnc encoder, its free for mpeg-1 and in my opinion does a better job than the one that comes with VV on less than optimal video.

To get better results try SVCD, it will play in DVD players but not VCD players. Downside is less video fits on the CD due to higher bitrate. You can squeeze it a bit by using VBR and most DVD players will play it but its outside the specs.

Jsnkc wrote on 8/29/2003, 9:52 AM

If you want equal quality, make it a DVD, VCD's are usually less than VHS quality which is the primary reason they never took off and there isn't a real big market for them (at least in the US). DVD Burners are so cheap these days, we just picked up 3 of the brand new Pioneer A-06's for $229 each, and I know you can get DVD burners even cheaper than that. If you spent the money to get a MiniDV camera at least do your videos justice by putting them on DVD instead of VCD.

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John

DGrob wrote on 8/29/2003, 11:58 AM

Burning your VCD in Nero you might be "transcoding" a mpeg1 file of a mpeg1 file. Try rendering to *.avi and routing through Nero for a VCD or (preferrably) their SVCD. I get in excess of 30 minutes of excellent quality video on a 700MB CDR using their SVCD template. DGrob

seeker wrote on 8/29/2003, 2:29 PM

Jide,

I agree with what DGrob said. While the lower resolution of MPEG-1 does limit your video quality, it should be about as good as VHS which is ordinary TV quality. Rendering as AVI should prevent Nero from recompressing MPEG-1 to MPEG-1 if indeed that is what is happening.

"How can I improve the VCD quality to match or at a minimum, come close to the quality of the original source?"

For the maximum quality that you can put on a CD-R, the MiniDVD format is what you should use. Not all DVD players can play MiniDVD, but many of the newer ones can. What make and model of DVD player do you have?

MiniDVDs are just short DVDs that are burned to a CD-R or CD-RW instead of a DVD blank. Because they are full DVD quality, MiniDVDs get only 15 to 18 minutes of playing time on a CD-R. Nero can make MiniDVDs. You will need to render as MPEG-2 for a MiniDVD.

EDIT: I am editing this message to specify that you not use Nero to do the MPEG-2 encoding. I agree with the statement by others than Nero's MPEG-2 encoding is not good (although I have not tried the new Nero 6 yet.)

-- Seeker --

filmy wrote on 8/29/2003, 3:08 PM

If you don't want to upgrade to VV 4 than I would suggest using TMPGEnc for your encoding. Until VV 4 that is what I used exclusivly. Never use Nero to encode as the results are very poor in my opinion, and many others if you read posts on other forums. For burning I had good results always with Nero 5.x however since upgrading to Nero 6 I have to say there are many issues with various features that make me regret the "upgrade". I used VV 4 for the VCD encoding and the results were great and I burned it to VCD using Nero 6.0.0.11 and it was extremly poor - digital garble, stutters, audio drop outs. I actually burned 3 of them and all results were the same. I burned the exact same file with VV and it was flawless. (So don't use nero 6 to burn VCD's, use VV 4) Keep in mind VCD is supposedly = to normal VHS and from what I have done over the last few years this is true, however it also depends on many factors when you encode. Fast motion will require tweaking settings in TMPGEnc, you can *not* tweak anything in VV 4.
SVCD is better quality however you are limited to about 35 minutes on a CD-R.

farss wrote on 8/29/2003, 6:53 PM

If Nero is going to transcode it does let you know. I've done hundreds of VCDs using TMPGEnc to encode and Nero to author as I need menus.

Results starting from Beta SP master tapes are better than VHS IMHO, starting with crappy video and it gets worse than VHS.

Going to SVCD results are much better BUT then you have to pay for an MPEG-2 encoder. Definately steer clear of the Nero one, total crap.

Jideogu wrote on 8/30/2003, 5:59 AM

Thanks guys for the wonderful suggestions.

I have tried some of them and still experiencing problems. My Dvd players are Daewoo DVD5700 and Toshiba SD2705. I encoded to SVCD using TMPGEnc. I attempted to burn it using VideoEasy but received error messages. I switched to Nero without transcoding it. The CDR burned successfully but it will not play on any of my DVD players. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

farss wrote on 8/30/2003, 6:16 AM

I don't have any experience with either of your DVD players but have yet to have a problem with any DVD player playing a SVCD.

So can we go through the process one step at a time.

1) You produced an AVI file in VV.
2) Then you encoded it to mpeg-2 in TMPGEnc using the SVCD template
3) Started up Nero and selected New, SVCD
4) Dragged the file(s) produced in (2) into Nero
5) Nero checked the files for SVCD compliance
6) Burn CD within Nero
7) Put disk into DVD player and....

What did the DVD player (not) do with it?

DGrob wrote on 8/30/2003, 8:09 AM

You can also go here:

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.php

to see if your DVD players are listed for various format compatibilities.

re Seeker, "EDIT: I am editing this message to specify that you not use Nero to do the MPEG-2 encoding. I agree with the statement by others than Nero's MPEG-2 encoding is not good (although I have not tried the new Nero 6 yet.)"

I'm rendering an *.avi w/V4d, transcoding and authoring SVCDs w/Nero 6, and playing with Norcent DP300 DVD players (I bought each grandparent a Norcent player for $40.00 with $10 rebate through Amazon). Results are excellent IMHO.

Happy Labor Day to All! DGrob

Jideogu wrote on 8/30/2003, 9:53 PM

Thanks. It worked. Picture quality is a whole lot better.

p_l wrote on 8/30/2003, 10:07 PM

I don't know if this really answers your question, but I'd like to share my process with you. It's given me great results without a DVD burner.

1. Encode using TMPGEnc's DVD NTSC template. Just use the Wizard and set a bitrate to fit your video onto a CD.

2. Take that file into Ulead DVD Movie Factory 1 or Nero, and author an SVCD. MF1 will ask you if you want to make an XSVCD; say yes. Or if you are authoring/burning with Nero, turn off standard compliance.

I often burn 20 to 50-minute XSVCDs with DVD or near-DVD specs, e.g., 720x480, MPEG2, 2000-4000 kbps video (CBR or VBR). The only thing is I downsample the audio to MP2 224kbps 44.1 kHz.

In other words, it's like making a low-bitrate DVD in an SVCD file structure, so you can burn it on a CD. It looks pretty much like DVD, and my Norcent DP-300 stand-alone DVD player (as well as my RCA 5240P, and computer CD drive of course) plays it flawlessly. It's like a little DVD that can be played on my stand-alones and any computer, but without the compatibility problems of a miniDVD file structure.

jaegersing wrote on 8/30/2003, 11:00 PM

If you do a lot of VCDs you should consider getting Procoder for the MPEG encoding. It gives really good results especially when the input AVI is clean.

Richard Hunter

RexA wrote on 8/31/2003, 12:59 AM

Just for reference, I have a Daewoo 5700 and it played both VCDs and SVCDs that I tried on it.

Side note: It is a player that has problems with stutters when playing the Class on Demand tutorial DVDs about Vegas 4. There were many discussions on this forum about that problem, but never a good explanation of why.

farss wrote on 8/31/2003, 2:57 AM

Me thinks TMPGEnc does as good a job for a lot less money.
I'm not Knocking Procoder but it's a bit of overkill if all you need is mpeg.

DGrob wrote on 8/31/2003, 7:26 AM

Given that Nero 6 is doing just fine, where do I link to investigate this TMPGEnc?? TIA DGrob

farss wrote on 8/31/2003, 8:23 AM

Dgrob,
here's the link to their main page:

http://www.pegasys-inc.com/e_main.html

from memory you can get the mpeg-1 version for free or download the full kit for a 30 day free trial.

It does a bit more than just plain mpeg encoding, it will also restream m2v to mpg, pan and crop and join mpeg files. Being able to mask out crappy edges on stuff coming off VHS is pretty handy as well.

Be warned the instructions are in jinglish, but you get the hang of it after a while, its a bit like VV, it seems to have a sort of cult following.

Thing I like about it is being able to batch multiple encodes and then have it shut the PC down, one day I'll work out how to make it ring the alarm clock and make coffee when it finishes at 3am :)

I bought it about 9 months ago and so far the lifetime free upgrades are still living up to the promise, although there doesn't seem to be much to improve on.

Maybe one day they'll add mpeg-4 to the soup.

seeker wrote on 9/2/2003, 11:48 PM

Jide,

Apparently your Toshiba SD2705 cannot support miniDVD/cDVD according to Toshiba SD2705 user forum

However, your Daewoo DVD-5700 can: Daewoo DVD-5700 user forum

For maximum video quality you could experiment with the miniDVD format on your Daewoo. Do you happen to have DVD Architect?

-- Seeker --

kameronj wrote on 9/3/2003, 6:33 AM

Speaking of VCDs....which application would somone suggest to use to make VCDs where you can create menus (and is it possible to put chapters in a VCD?)

Thanks

sdmoore wrote on 9/3/2003, 7:26 AM

VCDEasy will let you add menus & chapters to VCD http://www.vcdeasy.org

Scott