Need info on SVCD 2 DVD

[DJuan.Houston]

I have searched and not found info on what I am trying to do and that more than likely means I just over looked it so here goes.

I have recorded .avi files that are 400 mb and up which is to big to make an SVCD on a CDr but will burn as a dvd; however, my problem is as I get up a little larger they wont even fit on a DVDr (like a 700mb .avi wants to build a 7gb dvd). Im looking for help on how to make SVCD burn on a DVDr (700mb avi builds to a 1.2gb dvd) or info on another way to burn it to my disk. I have Roxio 6 and I'm looking at nero 6 but most programs say for SVCD to a DVDr not a cd disk or something close to that.

thanks for any help or redirection to the proper forum,
DJuan :mad:

[Erik_Osterholm]

You didn't say what program you were using to convert. Proper forum is probably either SVCD or MPEG-2 forums, but I'll answer what I can.

You can usually set your bitrate when converting from AVI to MPEG-2. TMPGEnc, for example, will let you just drag and drop a .avi file and it will calculate the bitrate needed to fit the file onto whatever media you like. If the quality isn't sufficient, you can double the bitrate and split the resulting mpeg file, and then burn the mpeg file(s) using VCDEasy for SVCDs or your favorite authoring program for DVDs.

If you want to put a SVCD file onto a DVD, the authoring tool DVD Lab ( http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/ ) will do the trick nicely.

Incidentally, both of these answers could have been found in the other forums, but I know that sometimes it's hard to wade through the crap :)

[dwflo]

@Erik_Osterholm

DVD-lab will give errors from svcd files created with DVD2SVCD. It indicates they are not DVD compliant.
It will allow you to add them to your project, but they may not play on older standalone DVD players.

I am attempting, at this moment, to find a utiliy that will convert my svcd files to be dvd compliant. But I haven't found one that will do both audio and video streams, without going through several steps.

Even then, when expiermenting with ultilites, such as ReEncode, I have been uhsucessful in getting the proper combination of audio and video into a VOB. The video in the VOB, itself is pretty crappy, after reencoding. Have to play with the settings to find what might work.

When I find one that will do all-in-one conversion, I will let you know where.

[Erik_Osterholm]

You're unlikely to find a solution that sastisfies you, unfortunately. The reason that DVD Lab produces non-DVD compliant .vobs when importing SVCDs is because SVCDs have a resolution of 480x480, which is invalid for DVD. Any solution, then, that yields a compliant DVD will have to have reencoded the video to either 352x480 or 720x480 (or, I think 352x240 is ok, too). The reencoding process is almost always going to make the video look crappy, because SVCDs are already fairly heavily compressed.

You probably already knew all this :) But I think that it's the reason you won't find many, if any, one-click utilities. You get crappy video, period.

Also, most audio on SVCDs is 44.1khz, I believe, whereas DVDs like 48khz. DVD Lab fixes this for you, so at least you have compliant audio. Otherwise, you need sound editing software that can upsample well. BeSweet usually works ok for this, but again, there just don't seem to be any one-click audio+video solutions. BeSweet is pretty one-click for the audio, and it isn't hard to set up an encoding project for video (though you'll get craptastic results). Then import into your favorite authoring program.. I think 3 clicks is the best you're going to get ;)

If you must reencode the video, don't upsample to 720x480...I think you'll find that you get better quality if you encode at 352x480. But to me, either solution is unacceptable. Better to get a copy of the DVD and back that up than to try to convert SVCDs.

[DJuan.Houston]

Thats pretty much what Im trying to do though some belong to a friend, i.e. I love 5th Element and instead of keeping the 4.9 gigs I ran through (I could use DvD Shrink but) the way Ive saved the few I have is a great avi @ 700mb up to 1.2 gb. My problem I have is to burn DvDs in roxio is it of course tries to make 700 mb 7gb, so Ive been trying the DvD2Svcd and am looking into DvD-Lab. It would be nice if Roxio DvD builder would just let me build an SVCD and do the burn onto a DvD+r because the SVCD looks great when I try my avi backup of Farscape @300mb to a single episode as an SVCD.

thanx again Im looking too since you guys helped point me in the correct direction.

DJuan:cool:

Oh if you know of a hack or just a way to make my Roxio burn the SVCD to a DvD+r disk that would fix my problem, when I try an SVCD job it just says "disk in drive is not a cd" if I use a DvD+r.

[Erik_Osterholm]

Some people have reported success using DVD Patcher (just search the forums here) to fool various programs into thinking they are receiving DVDs when really what you're giving them are SVCDs. You can try that and see if it works, though I've never had much luck. I don't use Roxio, so I have no idea whether it will work for you.

As for a more general bit of information on the subject....
You should realize that almost all video encoding is lossy. That means that you cannot take the new encoding and perfectly recreate the original files. The reason that DivX files look so good is that the human eye is imperfect and oftentimes doesn't notice what's changed. To us, it looks just like the original. But the computer notices things..lines that are slightly more jagged, pieces of the background that are slightly off in color, etc. When you try to reencode something, those imperfections (we call them artifacts) are exaggerated due to the way the encoder works. Each time you reencode, it gets worse. That's why I suggest finding the original DVD and copying it from there. If you go back to the original source (the DVD), not only will you get a better quality copy, but you also won't have to deal with the headaches of resizing, reencoding, reauthoring, etc. Just Shrink it and dump those files in your DVD burning software (as a DVD-Video project, of course).

If you absolutely must reencode, it's best to use software like TMPGEnc (there is a free trial available). This lets you do a multiple-pass encoding, which means you can create a file to the precise file size that you want. TMPGEnc also tends to give better quality than Roxio or Nero, though it might take a little longer.

[DJuan.Houston]

I actually have TMPGEnc but have not found how to turn my 700mb into a SVCD on a dvd or make a DVD using it.....I have had to do a lot of other work though,, I should say actual work, so havent been able to dig into it very much. Ill look at it more in depth. My Sony DvD
is supposed to play mpeg 2 but I have found it doesnt seem to want to do that either.

thanks,

DJuan

[Erik_Osterholm]

Which version of TMPGEnc do you have? Newer versions have a wizard that lets you select a project (say, SVCD) and drag a .avi file to use, then it will calculate the max bitrate for the size of the media you are using. If it calculates it at considerably too high, you may need to demux the audio and convert it to a .wav file, then use the video from the .avi and the audio from the .wav file to get the correct size. Most of this can be found in the guides on doom9 or in the forums....

[DJuan.Houston]

I have 2.5 + , does a wav work better than AC3 or MP3 for conv back to dvd?

[Erik_Osterholm]

If you have AC3, you may be able to demux and just encode the video.... AC3 will be better than .wav for the most part, if you're doing DVD. What you /don't/ want to do is transcode the AC3 in TMPGEnc...you'll just end up with mp2, which isn't in the NTSC spec (didn't catch whether you were going for NTSC or PAL) and is of lower quality, it's generally considered.