Output quality

ramayes wrote on 2/11/2002, 7:25 PM

I'm new to using VF and am having troble with the output quality. I thought at first that it was the video input (analog caputre) but I made a clip using samples from the SonicFoundry content CD and the quality was still bad. I've also had problems with inserting hi-res stills.

I now think the problem may be in the way I "make movie". I'm writing in a MPEG-1 format to a VCD (only option for VCD). Even when I build my project to be 640 x 480 NTSC, it only allow me to write out at 320 x 240.

Am I doing something wrong on the output?

Comments

wvg wrote on 2/11/2002, 9:18 PM

Burning a VCD is already "old" technology using MPEG-1 which limits the bitrate. Therefore quality isn't that high and frame size is predetermined with 352x240 being the standard for NTSC which applies to the states.

Video Factory doesn't have a template for SVCD (super VCD) which is the next step up. You can get around it by rendering to AVI, then use another application like TMPGEnc to render a SVCD at a higher bitrate. Higher bitrates give better quality.

Vegas Video, Video Factory's big brother uses the Main Concept encoder and VV also has an improved DVD encoder which can give you better results using MPEG-2 which supports higher bitrates and higher resolutions. The ideal solution is to make a DVD, however for most of us the price of those burners is a little steep yet.

You can make decent VCD's, I've made a bunch already (hundreds) the best shot is to fine the "sweet spot" as it pertains to your particular DVD player assuming you play the CD's your burn on a set top DVD player. Doing that you end up making what's called a XVCD which just means it is a non-standard bitrate that may play on one DVD player and not another, so not that good a method if you plan to distribute. However for your own use, perfectly acceptable. Learn lots more over at http://www.vcdhelp.com