what rendering settings are you useing? Also, what nero are you using (nero express, burner, v5.5?) I've burned SVCD's with nero and have never had it re-encode.

I have V4d and Nero 6. Nero "transcodes" my Vegas file regardless of whether it's an mpeg2 or avi file. The Vegas rendered to .avi, trancoded by Nero, and burned to SVCD by Nero is of excellent quality. The Nero "transcode" of a Vegas mpeg2 sucks. DGrob

First don't consider using any version of Nero to encode for VCD, SVCD or DVD - the results are pretty poor IMO.

I have never had Nero re-encode anything if it was encoded correct to start off with and even then, in the most recent versions (Starting with version 5 I think), it asks if you want to re-encode or "proceed as is" warning you that the resulting disk will not be compliant.

In the past I have used TMPGEnc to encode and result shave been great with just the default settings. I have not created a SVCD with VV yet but the VCD encoding is really nice so I wouldn't expect the SVCD to be worse, if you follow me.

As far as burning goes have you just tried to burn using VV? try it and see if you like it and if so there might not be any reason to go from VV to nero for burning.

I'd totaly agree with filmy, I don't know about teh latest Nero but the version I have really sucks at mpeg encoding, I've tried using the MC encoder in VV for both VCD and SVCD. WIth good source i.e beta SP results are as good as they get.
With poor source i.e. VHS off air TMPGEnc performs a bit better, mostlt related to noise reduction I think. Also TMPGEnc includes masking for getting rid of the grotty edges coming off VHS. Sure you can do that in VV but its much faster doing it in TMPGEnc. I aslo like being ablt to batch my encodes overnight and have TMPGEnc shutdown the PC.


I still use Nero though to author the (S)VCD, I don't think VV will create menus etc. for VCD. I've yet to find an authoring program that will use all the capabilites of either VCD or SVCD.

Since I got my DVD burner, I haven't created any SVCDs. However, I used to create lots of them and spent many hours trying to perfect the art. Here are a few things to try:

1. Use TMPGEnc for encoding. Capture as an AVI and do your edits in Vegas. Save as an AVI file (using the DV codec). Then, bring this AVI into TMPGEnc and encode (see my parameter values below).

2. If the original material is from film, definitely perform an inverse telecine (click on the TMPGEnc "Setting" button, click on the "Advanced" tab, and then double-click on "Inverse Telecine.") Click on Auto-Setting and then Click on OK. If you do inverse telecine, you must select "3:2 Pulldown when playback" in the Encode section (under the Video tab).

As for TMPGEnc settings, you can find thousands of posts giving you all sorts of conflicting information on what to do to get great results. If you are starting with something that was shot on film (like a movie from a DVD), 98% of the secret is doing the inverse telecine. Most of the other clues I'm about to give you will only help a little.

Start with the standard NTSC SVCD template. Then load the "unlock" template so you can change every setting.

Under the Video tab in TMPGEnc, change the following from the default:

Change DC Component Precision from 8 to 10 bits. This won't make much difference, but a lot of people recommend it.

Change Motion Search Precision from "Motion estimation search" to "High Quality (slow)." Again, lots of people claim this makes a big difference. It certainly slows things down quite a bit, but I'm not sure it really makes all that much difference. It certainly doesn't hurt.

Keep the bitrate at 2520. Anything more, and it won't play on many players. Any less and you'll lose quality. Don't bother with variable bit rate encoding. You'll find huge numbers of posts about using VBR and 2-pass VBR. These VBR encodes take an excruciating amount of time, yet most people seem to miss the point, namely that VBR is all about saving space, not about getting better quality. If quality is what you are after, you can't get any better than encoding the whole thing at the maximum bitrate that SVCD allows.

Under the Quantize Matrix tab, you can try changing the following from the default. Again don't expect huge gains, but you might get slightly better results:

Check "Use Floating Point DCT."
Uncheck "No motion search for still pictures ..."
Check "Soften block noise" and set both parameters below this box to 45.

The last suggestion usually gets lots of people upset (because it potentially throws away quality) but at the low encoding rates of SVCD (compared to DVD), you're going to have some blockiness, and this is the only way I've found to make this less objectionable.

Finally, make sure you have the field order correct. Getting this wrong will produce horrendous results, but a surprising number of people screw this up. You can easily check if you have it right or not. Go to the Advanced tab in TMPGEnc. Double-click on "Deinterlace." Then, set "Method" to any of the "Even-Odd" field methods. Click the right arrow on the scroll bar several times and watch the motion. If you have set the field order correctly, the video will progress from one frame to the next normally. If you have it backwards (top field first instead of bottom field, or vice versa), the motion will go forward and then back, forward and then back, like a stutter step. If you have it wrong, cancel from the Deinterlace dialog and change the Field Order in the Advanced tab. Make sure when you are finished that you don't select OK in the Deinterlace tab.

Hope this helps!

John,
if it helps I have found about the same as you, basically the TMPGEnc defaults work pretty damn well for both VCD and SVCD. I've tried adding more noise reduction and better motion estimation, apart from making the encode take much longer it doesn't seem to do much. Then again I mostly encode stuff without fast motion so maybe I have missed something.

The one thing extra I do is mask out the jittery bars on the sides, mostly because this uses up a lot of bandwidth. The other recommendation I had picked up bu thaven't tried is to align the masks with the quantizing matrix cells. This again reduces the amount of bandwidth being used to encode nothing.

I've taken to giving my clients who only want VHS a copy on SVCD, it costs peanuts to make one and they can duplicate them in any PC with a CD burner and they don't wear out as you play them.

Are you using the SVCD template in VV to encode the proper MPEG-2 settings for SVCD? They are different from the MPEG-2 settings for DVD.