Archiving HomeVideos to SVCD

[SchmidbW]

Hi!
I finally got my Matrox G400/MSP6-system running with the help of DrMordid - thanks! - and a change of my G400 (hardware bud in TV-out section).

Now I am establishing a routine for capturing and editing my S-VHSc Videotapes.
My goal is to produce as a first step a master videotape (S-VHS) and then an archive file (I would like toi have a SVCD).
I must admit that I am for now a little bit short on hard disk space (20 Gigs free)- so I think raw video files are nothing for me ...
Nevertheless - could you give me some advice or improvements on the following routine:

1. Capturing from tape (MSP6 with 704x576, Pal (25 fbs), Field order B, maximum quality)
2. Editing with MSP6 (Projektsettings: 704x576, 25 fps, Frame order B, Interleave A/V 1 frame)
3. Output to tape via MSP6
4. Creating one or more avi-Files (if filesize of single file is greater than 2 Gigs)for MPEG production (the MSP6 MPEG2 encoder likes blue screens!)
5. Creating a SVCD file using TMPGEnc with
the settings for SVCD (or better manual settings?)
6. Burning the file with nero or WinOnCD

Sometimes the quality of the mpeg file ist not very good - there a a lot of artifacts during horizontal movements - but perhaps I am still using wrong parameters for TMPGenc.

Thanks in advance for your help

Werner

[salacious]

If you originally captured at 352x576 you would not need to do any rescalling which reduce the encoding time and stop any introduction of aliasing effects

Sal

[Dr Mordrid]

Yup. I usually try to capture in the rez I'm encoding for the same reasons.

Dr. Mordrid

[Phil Pugh]

Have you checked your field order settings in TMPGEnc? It should get them right from the source .AVI - but I have had one or two where it got the wrong field order. That would cause a "comb" effect on the edges of moving objects.

[SchmidbW]

I see that it makes sense reducing the resolution, but won´t that effect the qualitiy of the output to tape?

Still I am wondering if it makes sense to
re-render the project prior the conversion to MPEG2 from "Field Order B" to "Frame-based" (i.e. non-interlaced?).

So for thanks for your answers

Werner

[SchmidbW]

One thing more ...

Is a SVCD really the format-of-choice for a digital video archive or would you recommend a mpeg2 with a higher data rate - and maybe better quality?
Of course that file won´t be of any use in a player - but that is no real problem.

What is your opinion?

Werner

[Ghydda]

To my knowledge, the specs for a SVCD-compliant video stream (which most DVD-players can decode) is:

Res: 480 by 480
Format: MPEG2
Sound: Cant remember, but I would think it's the same as normal VCD.

Thus capturing into 352 by 576/288/240 would not yield the best result.

SchmidbW's way of doing it seems fine to me if he adds a deinterlacing filter to his settings in #4.


Ghydda

[Dr Mordrid]

Using AVI_IO 3.15 or over you can set a custom frame size for captures. I've set up the Format as 352x480 YUY2 with the HuffYUV compressor and captured direct to 480x480 video. These encode into excellent SVCD's using TMPGEnc.

Point of interest: on some of my Marvels I have to use 704x480 instead of 352x480. You'll have to try both & see what works on your setup.

Hint: a fast CPU sure helps

Tip: set up the custom frame size LAST.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 13 February 2001).]