Mjpeg to good quality svcd conversion

[dodydigital]

Hi people i,m using a pinnacle dc30 mjpeg capture card for capturing laserdisc movies then converting the clips to svcd using tmpge encoder the quality is good im grabbing at 2800kbts 640X480 res then converting to tmpge svcd with mvbr 2520kbts max but i cant help feeling the quality could be better can anyone offer any pointers and possibly explain this interlacing setting to me as i am new to this capper i know it has something to do with the fields that make up the picture but my encodes to svcd still suffer from blockiness in high motion scenes any help would be appreciated thanks.

[Dr Mordrid]

If you're getting blocks in high motion scenes then I have some suggestions, one of which is a left-fielder ;-))

Just remember that much of the reason for these blocks is the transcoding of an already compressed stream into another compression. More on that later....

1. on the TMPGEnc Configure/Video menu turn the Motion Search Accuracy all the way up to "Highest quality".

2. what quality setting are you using? If you're using the default "CQ" then either try turning the quality in the CQ "Settings" menu up to 100 or try using "CBR".

3. This is the left-fielder. Even though you're not using DV go to the Options/Global Settings menu and turn on "interpolate YUV from 4:1:1 to 4:4:4". Just try it on a problem clip to see what happens. Normally this interpolation helps reduce block artifacts in shadows created by a reduced colorspace as in the DV codec, but you never know....it might help here too.

4. the BEST way to get rid of block artifacts is not to capture using a codec at all. Capture using YUV and the HuffYUV lossless encoder and a good capture program like AVI_IO (it can capture serial *.AVI's without a drop between, thus defeating the 2/4 gig limit). These HuffYUV *.AVI files run about 8 mb/s for 640x480, but encode into GORGEOUS MPEG's.

Dr. Mordrid

[Anatoly Neverov]

I captured some musical clips from my home VCR (VHS, PAL and NTSC) with PC VCR, best quality MJPEG compression (704x480 for NTSC or 704x576 for PAL, maximal bitrate). After I insert the clip to the timeline of Premiere, and output to mpeg1 file through Panasonic mpeg plugin, PAL standard mpeg (352x288, stream 1150 kbit/ sec for video; 224 kbit/ sec for audio). Just WONDERFUL quality! I make full-screen view, and almost don't have blocks or any other artifacts. If I gaze very critically and very close to the monitor, some defects are seen, but if I am in distance of 1.5-2 meters - perfect! And, NTSC captured clip transcoded to PAL is very nice.

I burned a CD in format SVCD 2.0 with WinOnCD, and a simple data CD with normal *.mpg's. I played SVCD with Matrox DVD player, and *.mpg's with Mediaplayer. First and second - from CD, not from HDD. And I should admit that the playback of SVCD's through Matrox DVD player is much worse than *.mpg's through Mediaplayer. DVD player isn't smooth, the picture rather often twitches, whereas Mediaplayer gives very smooth playback. I don't understand why? If it is normal - what for that DVD player is needed? It only corrupts the clip.

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Anatoly Neverov
Minsk, Belarus

[Sciascia]

The best SW DVD player is probably WinDVD. You can I try the demo version and compare it to whatever else is out there, but I think that you will find the quality beats everything else out there.

[Anatoly Neverov]

Sciascia: Really! Much better. Thank you. However, it is not better (and not worse!) than *.mpg's in Mediaplayer, and it gives possibility to tune colors and brightness.

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Anatoly Neverov
Minsk, Belarus

[Anatoly Neverov]

I see that the software bundled with Matrox g400TV is a real unpleasantness. Avid, LSX, DVD player... Collection of monsters.

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Anatoly Neverov
Minsk, Belarus