Capture from S-VHS cam, edit and convert to high quality SVCD

[francisroy]

Hi all,

I'm planing to convert my S-VHS tape (from a JVC camera) to high quality SVCD. I need help because I'm very disappointed with the final movie quality.

I use virtualub to capture. I choose the 720x480 YUY2 format with the huffyuv codec at best quality. I have no drop frame.

Then I edit the avi file in Ulead VideoStudio 6. I keep the final project in the original format (i.e 720x480 avi)

I process the final avi file in DVD2SCVD (ver. 1.0.7 b4) using the AVI2SVCD option.

When I play back the movie on my standalone DVD (Sanyo DVD-7201). The quality is bad. I have a lot of blocks around people and in "action" scenes too. I have converted a lot of dvd movies using DVD2SVCD and I'm very happy with the final result, the quality is EXCELENT...

Why when I convert an avi file that I have captured from my cam the quality is so bad ?

Do I need to capture in 480x480 or another resolution to get better results ? I tried to apply some filters in Virtualdub (smart smoother, denoise and others) that's better but ....

Do I need to de-interlace ? Invert Telecine ? Is it better to edit the movie before applying some filters ?

Here is my Hardware:

Amd Thunderbird 900MHz
384MB ram
2 Maxtor harddisk (30 and 60gig)
WindowsXP pro
WinTV Go (with the universal WDM optimized driver)

Thanks
p.s. excuse my bad english !

[ulfschack]

Welcome to DV land, my friend. The land where no bitrate is high enuff and no hand too steady.

Ok, so you're using S-vhs which is not as sharp as but close to DV. Don't expect hollywood-rip quality! Ever noticed how the depth-of-field in movies is very shallow? Effectively making all but the area of focus (duh!) very blurry? Well, that doesn't happen in RL with consumer cameras. Add to that a constant bobbing, panning and shaking and there's no way to get it as good.

Try it yourself. Put the camera down on the table (still recording), walk in front of it and make some vow, pledge, joke or whatever ... and encode it. You'll see great improvement (except for maybe the motif) and this is just eliminating the hand-held effect.

I sometimes wonder if even DVD spec 9.8 Mbps would cut it entirely.

Hold the camera steady, run it trough some smoothing filters, add some borders, Keep interlacing (!), have a beer ... and you might be halfway pleased with the reslut :)

Oh, and use TmpgEnc at slowest possible settings. CCE is no good for motion of this kind.

Fat lot of help that did ya, eh?

cheers

[Faceman101]

Less motion the better, also if you shot your DV material in 16:9 you have a better chance of the SVCD coming out better. 4:3 SVCD never really look so hot. They look better than VCD, but still lack archive quality.