Dr. M: Non-standard VCDs?

[KRSESQ]

Dr. Mordrid:

Have you experimented with non-standard VCDs for DVD playback e.g. encoding at a higher bitrate than a normal VCD for max image quality?

I burned a VCD with an mpeg encoded at 2200 video and 192 audio (mono) and the image quality on my standalone DVD player (Toshiba SD2800) was excellent. Unfortunately the video still stuttered in places, so either it was choking a little on the higher than normal bitrate or else I had the audio/video interleaf set wrong (one second instead of one frame).

(Unfortunately this DVD player doesn't accept SVCDs and it's probably going to be awhile before I get a DVD burner ).

My thought was to use this method for archiving. Your insight, please?

Kevin

[Patrick]

I'm not the Doc, but...

The compatability list at VCDhelper states that your deck should be able to handle an XVCD with bit rates up to 5000kps.

My Pioneer deck will only accept XVCD disks with bit rates up to 2500kps, but even at that rate they look great after having been massaged by TMPGEnc.

[Flying dutchman]

I wouldn't use VCD for archiving of homemade movies, but I guess for archiving TV movies it might be OK.

Cheap SVCD compatible DVD players can be had for only $100-150. I have one (SEG2000/Yamakawa/KISS/Raite clone) with a hacked firmware that even plays so-called mini-DVD's.

At normal VCD resolution, 2200 kbps is unnecessary high, you won't get much improvement above 1500 or so. You might try XVCD at higher resolutions than 352x240. For mono audio signals, 192 kbps is wasting bandwidth too.

[Dr Mordrid]

I don't use VCD at all anymore. If the bitrate is going to be in the 2000's anyhow I prefer to use SVCD for the higher linear resolution it provides, which matters not a little when you're playing it on a big Sony WEGA. VCD stretched out on one of those looks very lame.

You can save a bit of space on the disk by using a lower audio quality as well. For anything but music more than about 128 is a waste.

As FD noted you can get decks with SVCD (and even xSVCD) capability for wsell <$100 USD these days. He's also correct in that more than about 1500 kbps is a waste with MPEG-1 as you really don't get the return on bitrate investment you would expect.

In the US the popular SVCD capable decks are by APEX. They sell more of those here than Sony does and they play SVCD just great. Can't beat the $65 price you get at Walmarts etc. either.

Now...this all changes this fall. That is when the first APEX (and other brand) decks with WMV playback will be released. APEX has also told me that when WMV Corona is released so will be a generation of decks that can play it as well.

Corona is a major implementation of MPEG-4 technology and has many profiles, some of which are intended for home theater while others will support the encoding of HDTV movies on conventional 650 nm DVD disks. There are even Corona profiles for theater projection. This is not your fathers MPEG-4.

IMHO this will put VCD/SVCD to bed for burning low bitrate video for playback on DVD decks.

Dr. Mordrid

[Flying dutchman]

Mpeg-4 is nice, but this is the only player that supports it. Most new low-cost dvd players that hit the market already support VCD, SVCD and MP3. Even the "big brands". Which I think is a great development.

[Snake-Eyes]

This is true. Even Sony has finally started releasing models of their DVD players that can play back VCD and MP3, though I'm not sure if they yet support SVCD. (Sony has been a big holdout until recently; if rumor is to be believed, primarily because of their movie, video, and audio business and the desire to protect sales of pressed materials.)

I also got my first glimpse of an Apex playing back a VCD two weeks ago while visiting my parents. My brother bought them one cheaply, so that they could finally watch movies on DVD. I had been making VCD formatted CDs of my children for them, since we live far enough away that they usually only see the kids once a year for two weeks. When I played back the VCDs on my own DVD players (I have two Sonys and a Magnavox right now- one of the Sonys is a jukebox changer, the other a newer single DVD model that claims support of CDR/RW and VCD, while the Magnavox is older than either, but appears to try to read VCD, xVCD, SVCD, and xSVCD) I was less than impressed with the quality of the output. I still sent the discs to them anyway, figuring even low-quality was better than nothing. Cutting to the chase, the Apex (cost them $70) played back the VCDs I'd sent them with a quality that was better than many VHS recordings I've seen.

I was stunned at just how well the Apex was working for this, and planned to purchase one (and sell the second Sony ), but then my brother rented the movie 'AI', and halfway through playback the image went to a blue screen (totally, nothing there), with the counter frozen, and 'PLAY' on the player's front panel. At this point it refused to respond to anything we did. We couldn't stop, eject, or anything. Even after powering it off and back on (including one attempt where we disconnected it from power and then reconnected it) it refused to do anything. Contemplating the task of disassembling the player to get the rented disc out, my brother picked up the player and turned it over. When he did, the disc slid free of the carrier, and he was able to slide it out. The player itself is still toast though, but is under warranty. I haven't heard whether he got it replaced yet.

After that last experience, I've decided to hold off on purchasing the Apex. All I want is a fairly cheap DVD player capable of playing back my recorded movies with good quality. I use the jukebox for all my bought DVD movies anyway. But I don't want to buy something that won't last, since the odds are good that if I get one, it'll get used quite a bit. (My daughter in particular seems to be developing a strong case of vanity, and loves to watch movies of herself as a baby )

[Dr Mordrid]

What model APEX deck had the playback problem? My older AD-660 plays AI perfectly.

Dr. Mordrid

[Snake-Eyes]

I'll have to get back to you with the model number. I should be talking (on the phone of course) with my family sometime this weekend, and I'll ask, then post it back here.

[hippie91]

my friend has an apex 1500, (~$80) and while it looks fairly ugly and the case is of cheap plastic, it's taken every disc he's ever thrown at it with no problems.

the general consensus with APEX is that if you get one that works it will for a long time, but you may have to return it a few times to get the one that works

[Frankie G]

I dunno, I have had two bad experiences with APEX:
1. Videotaped a friend's son's high school graduation, edited then
converted to VCD compliant MPEG-1 (TMPGenc). Then I used VCDeasy and
vcdxbuild to insert chapter points (so they could cut to the
chase and see him get his diploma) and burned with vcdxbuild
and cdrdao. It played fine in my Philips DVD-825 but the chapters
didn't work at all on their AD-660. It just went to the end when
they pressed the "next" button.
2. I capture TV shows and encode to MPEG2 (TMPG) and make SVCD's
out of them. The Philips plays them OK even though this is an
undocumented feature. FF and RW work OK, though you have to hit
pause and play sometimes to get the audio back in sync after
FF or RW. So I got an AD-1500 to give as a gift and tried an
SVCD. Plays OK but as soon as I hit FF, it goes back to the
beginning and continuously loops over the first 10 seconds or
so. This 1500 has had the firmware hacked for macrovision and
region, so this may be a side effect. The AD-660 is stock.
But you can't beat the price on them, and the MP3 playback
is great.

[Snake-Eyes]

The Apex was the 1500. As far as playback went, the VCDs I made for my parents were simple, with only a single movie on it, no chapters created, etc. (I'd give better details, but I basically used TMPGEnc to encode a simple DV AVI into MPG1 VCD standard format for one of the discs, and used the built-in StudioDV VCD option to convert another). Since I didn't have anything to skip forward / backward to, I didn't see the problems on this particular player. Playback quality however, was very good.

My Philips player is the DVD825AT (I had an 815AT, but sent it in for a firmware upgrade when the X-Men DVD wouldn't play properly, and Philips sent back the 825 instead. Sort of a bummer, since I lost the zoom functions and such, but so far the 825 has played every DVD / VCD I've thrown at it..). As you mentioned, the 825 plays SVCD that I've made. Unfortunately the quality of playback was no better than VCDs of the same scenes (I experimented quite a bit), though maybe I need to learn some more about using the encoders. In one instance, where I ripped the music video from 'O Brother Where Art Thou' and tried both, VCD format actually was cleaner!

[Patrick]

Unfortunately the quality of playback was no better than VCDs of the same scenes (I experimented quite a bit), though maybe I need to learn some more about using the encoders. In one instance, where I ripped the music video from 'O Brother Where Art Thou' and tried both, VCD format actually was cleaner!

This is what I've noticed also when I've experimented with (X)VCDs and SVCDs encoded at the same 2500kps bit rate using TMPGEnc and played back on a Pioneer DV-343 deck. I'm definitely no expert at this either, but I was surprised that the SVCDs didn't look as good as the (X)VCDs. It seems to me that doubling the lines of resolution to be displayed (therefore doubling the info to be compressed) produces more compression artifacts on SVCDs than would be seen on (X)VCDs (with half the lines of resolution) encoded at the same bit rate. Does that sound correct?

[Flying dutchman]

Producing good-looking SVCD's is an art. But if you do it right, it pays off. My SVCD's look better than VCD's because I do heavy filtering on them. 2500 kbps isn't much bitrate for a resolution as high as 480x576, so one has to make sure that the encoder encodes video and not noise...

Don't overdo the sharpness. Bilinear resizing is often better than bicubic and produces less artefacts. Do noise filtering so the bitrate goes into the video and not into encoding noise. Make sure the luminance levels are right. Crop off the overscan area which saves another 10% bitrate.

I use the following foolproof setup for SVCD in VirtualDub and then frameserve the output to tMpeg:

1) Levels filter (output levels: black=16, white=235)
2) DNR (strength 12 is mostly fine)
3) Bilinear resize to 480x576 (PAL) or 480x480 (ntsc)
4) mask off a the surrounding 16 pixels in black. They aren't visible on TV anyway and cost 10% bandwidth.

Encode this using tMpeg, using no further filtering in tMpeg.

For camcorder videos: at CBR 2500 or CQ 80 (bitrate 300-2500). You'll get some 40 minutes playing time.

For letterboxed movie material: CQ 75 (bitrate 300-2500). You'll get some 60 minutes playing time. CQ 70 will give you even more playing time.

You can gain some encoding speed by putting DNR last in the filter chain.

[Snake-Eyes]

Thanks for the tips FlyingDutchman. I'll have to put the software back on my PC and give your suggestions a try. (It's been about 6 months since I last burned a VCD, ugh).

I'm really looking forward to moving to a DVD writer setup, but thanks to feedback in other topics here, I'm holding off a bit longer (both for price and format compatibility issues, not to mention that what I'd buy right now if it were available isn't- the latest Philips internal DVD+R/RW writer, DVDRW228). In the meantime, VCD/SVCD (and the compatible offshoots of xVCD/xSVCD will have to tide me over. (My Sony NS400D won't play SVCD formats, but will handle VCD/xVCD fine, while my Philips Magnavox DVD825AT seems to play all of them I've tried so far. Now if I can get that good quality out of SVCD using your tips..)

[Patrick]

One thing I wanted to mention in regards to the Pioneer DV-343 deck is that there appears to be some controversy as to whether or not this particular model will actually play back SVCD disks properly. This is one reason why I was experimenting with (X)VCD creation in the first place. It's possible I suppose that the problems some people were reporting were because of improper encoding.

Flying Dutchman, thanks for your information. I have a couple of questions:

1) Do the settings you gave apply to both DV capture at 720x480, and analog capture (using the ol' RRS) at 704x480?

2) You mention the use of tMpeg for encoding. Assuming that all filtering is done using VirtualDub, is there any advantage to using tMpeg for encoding as opposed to TMPGEnc? (Edit: Ummm.... this may be a silly question, but tMpeg is not the same program as TMPGEnc, is it?)

I'm curious to try out these SVCD settings and see how it goes.