corrupted picture on vcd lotr

[nettley]

I have followed the guide to convert an avi to vcd in the doom9 guides section,

I am trying to copy LotR the mpg file plays fine on my pc, but after cutting it to a cdrw (which is the only cd media that my set top will read)the playback is erratic even through my pc.

I have tried nero with the buffer set to default and 80mb

I have also tried prassi and adaptec easycd on different pc's and writers all have the same problems, I even tried vcdeasy and that did not work either.

What could be wrong?

or has any one got a finished vcd or dvd of lotr which I could download of the net?:scared:

[Mutable]

I had to quickly skim the guide.

Are you sure you made a VCD-compliant mpeg1? That is, did you load the correct template (VCD NTSC, VCD NTSC Film, VCD PAL) into TMPGEnc before encoding?

Also, when you say playback is erratic, do you mean the picture is jerky? If so, what is the frame rate of your divx(?) source. Did you select the corresponding template in TMPGEnc?

[nettley]

the original format is ntsc,

I have tried to convert as ntsc only and convert it to pal as well, using the correct templates.

as I said before, it plays fine on the pc before cutting it to cdrw.

when I say picture is corrupted, it is very blocky as in the picture breaks up. The sound is fine

I trying bbmpeg instead of tmpgenc to see what happens

[Mutable]

I've never used bbmeg so I hope you're successful with that. If not, I can help you with the settings within TMPGEnc.

With TMPGEnc, you should check 2 settings once you've loaded your template. Click on Setting. This will take you to the MPEG setting box. At the first tab Video, Motion search precision should be High quality slow. At the Quantize matrix, use the drop down box to select "standard MPEG." You should also check off "No motion search..." and "soften block noise" and use the default settings of 35 for both Intrablock and nonintrablock.

You should also consider darkening your output slightly. Under the the Advanced tab, double click "simple color correction" and drop down brightness and gamma, and push up contrast (just slightly on all three). This should help with hiding the blockiness especially in the dark areas of the film.

If you follow these settings, it will considerably lengthen the time of the process, but if you're going for quality, its worth it.

Hope this helps.

[nettley]

I have tried doing what you suggest and its the same outcome

It plays fine on my pc, but does not play back correctly on my cdrw

the picture breaks up, more so at the beginning 10 mins or so

[Mutable]

A few things to check. When you load the mpeg into Nero and select the VCD template, at the first tab, do you have NTSC or PAL selected? If you have a NTSC mpeg, you should select NTSC.

I remember one time when I had burned a PAL SVCD, and then burned a NTSC VCD, Nero remembered the setting for PAL and my NTSC VCD ended up with a lot of macroblocking. I wonder if this is your problem?

Another thing is to burn it at a slower speed. If you're burning at 4X, try lowering it to 1X or 2X. Some people have claimed that this works for them.

Also, check to see if your stand alone player/TV supports NTSC. For instance, I'm in the US and most dvd players here don't support PAL. I don't know how it is where you are or what you're using. (I happen to have an APEX 5131 which seems to play almost anything you throw at it. Ugly as all hell, but quite versatile.)

One more thing, some people have mentioned problems with playback when they use nonbrand name cdr/w discs. I myself use either Verbatim or Memorex and have never had a problem.

[nettley]

Cheers Mutable I think your suggestion of burning it at 1x has solved the problem.

I have burnt LOTR and Fast n Furious at 1x and the playback on my pc is perfect.

I will try a set-top dvd box tonight and let you know


fingers crossed..

[nettley]

Cheers Mutable, it played back perfectly on my dvd player.

thanks for your efforts.

:D

[smiller667]

Another hint: in case you are re-using a CD-RW sometimes it helps to do a "full erase" on the CD-RW prior to writing onto it ... fewer macroblocks etc.