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Old 16th February 2004, 15:05   #1  |  Link
r6d2
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Poor Man's DVD

With the recent price decrease of DVD burners and the quite consolidated state of DivX/XviD formats and players, a lot of people is moving towards that, leaving SVCDs in the trunk of the remembrances and thinking of them as something romantic and exciting that used to be the best way to safeguard your valuable DVDs.

However, if you’ve not made the move to a DVD burner, don’t have an MPEG-4 player or you can get CD media still a lot cheaper that DVD media, you may be interested in exploring this way of obtaining DVD-class backups on (X)SVCD format.

The Basics

Standard SVCDs are 480x480 (same reasoning applies to PAL), and chances are your player will not support an anamorphic flag on SVCDs; so most movies have to be encoded letterboxed thus reducing the vertical detail to 3/4. Horizontal detail is reduced also to 2/3. So, your 720x480 source is converted typically to 480x360, which is 1/2 of the original film pixel. (Forget the black borders, they just fill space and consume almost no BR at all).

Surprisingly, SVCDs look terrific on a standard TV since vertical resolution is just 480*70% (336, Kell factor) and horizontal resolution is typically on the 400 range (see here). So, DVDs can only be really appreciated at their best with a digital TV or a projector connected directly to a PC.

This is why DivX/XviDs look so much better than SVCDs on a PC. If you encode to a 4:3 frame size like 640x480 (it makes little sense to use anything above that, IMHO), keeping proper aspect ratio and original quality, you’ll keep as much as 704x480 from the original source (you have to crop 8 pixels from the sides to get 640x480 and minimize horizontal resizing artifacts).

On an anamorphic source, this means you keep 704x360, which equals 3/4 of the original film pixel (50% more than a SVCD).

The Move

But MPEG-2 has a comparable solution, if your player supports non-compliant SVCDs (quite likely). You can keep that 3/4 of the original source too by using the following method:[list=1][*]Launch D2Sroba. Let it handle the max video bitrates and set Total BR to 5200. Set Min audio to 128 and % of bitrate to 6 or 7. Other settings as usual.[*]On DVD2SVCD, select DVD as output frame size. Select AutoFitCD detect borders. Run preview mode.[*]On AutoFitCD, select XVCD as output.[*]Optional: You can save about 10% bitrate by setting overscan to 3. A typical TV has 4-6% overscan, so this value is quite safe.[*]Move the height arrow to have it match your source’s height cropped. (Multiply the film pixel height by 3/4 and you’re done).[/list=1]You can also use FACAR, which does all the resizing steps of this automatically if you set ResizeTo=6.

The Requirements

Your player needs to handle two things that are out of the SVCD specs to do this:
  1. Have a 4x CD reader (very likely these days).
  2. Support 704x480 frame size on streams (this is a VCD frame size, very likely too).
On everything else, the creation and burning with DVD2SVCD is the same as with a standard SVCD. You may want to use a couple of CD-WR media to test if your player supports this.

The Benefits
  • Quality: You can begin encoding MPEG-4 quality MPEG-2s right now, without having to buy a new player or DVD burner.
  • Portability: As a good side effect, these encodes can be played on PowerDVD too, should you decide to use a projector connected to your PC. It will be much better than watching normal TV, and also than being at the movies.
  • Cost: CDs are (and likely will continue to be) cheaper than DVDs.
  • Comfort: You keep the popcorn & restroom pause!
I’ve been doing this for a while now and I’m very happy with the results. I usually get Qs is the range of 20 for a 2 hour letterboxed anamorphic movie, and I still use the same 2 CDs I'd get with 480x480 or if I encoded with AutoGK.

Hope you find this useful.
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MPEG4 quality with MPEG2? - Try the Poor Man's DVD.
FACAR - As seen on TV! - The Complete Idiot's Guide to a good DVD Conversion.
Time is money. Try D2Sroba for DVD2SVCD (FAQ) and save both. All electricity bills supported!
Do you know how much overscan and which resolution your TV has? Find out if NTSC.
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Last edited by r6d2; 21st February 2004 at 09:39.
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Old 21st February 2004, 18:21   #2  |  Link
Crackhead
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hi r6d2,

first, thank you for this little cool guide, i will give it an intensive shot this week, but beforehand I got a few questions:

I just tested this method quickly with Starship Troopers and ended up with 3 cds in D2SRoba auto-mode (even with AutoQ=60! w/o KISS), so i stopped the process, cause i don't like having more than 2 cds. actually i am a 1-cd-encoder , but this guide got my attention!

So do you apply any filters to your encode?
Also tried applying KISS but wasn't much help actually. Seems to be a hard-to-compress-movie since it's "only" 2h long.

and my second question:

Do you use this method with every source or only with anarmophic 2,35:1 movies?
Starship Troopers is 1,85:1, so maybe this is a bad source to start with?

thx in advance

Greetz, Crackhead
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Old 21st February 2004, 19:22   #3  |  Link
r6d2
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Quote:
Originally posted by Crackhead
actually i am a 1-cd-encoder , but this guide got my attention!
It's difficult you get 1 CD with this method.

Anyway, I apply UnDot()+Deen() (aka KISS) from time to time, when I'm going to have tight BR conditions. But it is also not uncommon you to get 3 CDs with this method. Some movies I've done this with:

T3, KISS, Q=26, 2 CDs
Alien, KISS, Q=15, 2 CDs
Aliens (Alien II), KISS, Q=29, 3 CDs
Alien3, Q=13, NO KISS, 2 CDs
Quote:
Also tried applying KISS but wasn't much help actually. Seems to be a hard-to-compress-movie since it's "only" 2h long.
I haven't done that one, I cannot not tell you if it is.
Quote:
Do you use this method with every source or only with anarmophic 2,35:1 movies?
So far, most of them, but the taller they are, the harder it gets.
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MPEG4 quality with MPEG2? - Try the Poor Man's DVD.
FACAR - As seen on TV! - The Complete Idiot's Guide to a good DVD Conversion.
Time is money. Try D2Sroba for DVD2SVCD (FAQ) and save both. All electricity bills supported!
Do you know how much overscan and which resolution your TV has? Find out if NTSC.
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Old 22nd March 2004, 02:02   #4  |  Link
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The Magic of KISS

For those interested, I did a small test to test the effect of KISS on any MPEG2 source.

(For those unaware, KISS is the nickname for a compressibility enhancer filter pair, UnDot()+Deen().)

I could never tell, when merely comparing two different encodes, the visual impact of KISS, which is good since a denoiser typically reduces bitrate a lot and you tend to think it does by reducing visual quality.

So I made this small AviSynth script you may want to try to do the test yourself:

Quote:
# -= KISS Test =-
LoadPlugin("<replace with path to your Mpeg2dec DLL>")
MPEG2Source("<replace with path to your DVD2AVI project file (D2V)>")
Trim(1000,2000) # Trim whatever part of the movie you want to test

c0 = last
c1 = Crop(c0, 0, 0, c0.width, c0.height / 2)
c1 = Subtitle(c1, "Source", 10, 20)
c2 = Crop(c0, 0, c0.height / 2, c0.width, c0.height / 2)
c2 = UnDot(c2)
c2 = Deen(c2)
c2 = Subtitle(c2, "Source + UnDot() + Deen()", 10, 20)

StackVertical(c1, c2)

ConvertToRGB24() # For TMPGEnc or VFAPI
Load this script with TMPGEnc and encode.

Play the result in full screen. The top part will be as the original. The bottom part will have the filtered version. See if you can notice any discontinuities, particular softness, or any artifacts in the bottom part. You may conclude, as I did, that KISS does not cost any visual quality, and is perfectly suited when BR is scarce.
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MPEG4 quality with MPEG2? - Try the Poor Man's DVD.
FACAR - As seen on TV! - The Complete Idiot's Guide to a good DVD Conversion.
Time is money. Try D2Sroba for DVD2SVCD (FAQ) and save both. All electricity bills supported!
Do you know how much overscan and which resolution your TV has? Find out if NTSC.
Moderator: 1: one who arbitrates 2: one who presides over an assembly, meeting, or discussion
3: a substance (as graphite) used for slowing down neutrons in a nuclear reactor (Webster)

Last edited by r6d2; 22nd March 2004 at 02:37.
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Old 23rd March 2004, 23:34   #5  |  Link
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r6d2, I would appreciate your opinion and your eyes. Could you use the above technique, but instead of deen(), use aharp(1,4). I am interested if you see a decernable difference. This is not about compression as it does cost a few points of Q, but I am interested if you feel it enhances viewing. I'm mixed on the subject.
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Old 24th March 2004, 01:35   #6  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally posted by DDogg
I am interested if you see a decernable difference.
I don't see any.
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MPEG4 quality with MPEG2? - Try the Poor Man's DVD.
FACAR - As seen on TV! - The Complete Idiot's Guide to a good DVD Conversion.
Time is money. Try D2Sroba for DVD2SVCD (FAQ) and save both. All electricity bills supported!
Do you know how much overscan and which resolution your TV has? Find out if NTSC.
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Old 24th March 2004, 17:14   #7  |  Link
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Thanks for trying it.
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Old 25th March 2004, 00:32   #8  |  Link
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Re: The Magic of KISS

Thanks, r6d2 and others for pointing out this little trick. For the record, I also can't tell the difference after treatment with KISS.

Of course, I have tried it twice on a same source and still couldn't see the difference... but maybe it's only my eyes. Unfortunately, I have accidentaly deleted the source and do not have the time any more to make more tests, otherwise, the natural question arises: after how many "passes" does the quality drop visually... maybe even plot a graph of that function.

BTW, Undot () was always present in my scripts and I could never see the difference... I was wondering does it even work.

And just now came this thread... beautiful!

GL
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Old 25th March 2004, 17:06   #9  |  Link
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Quote:
Move the height arrow to have it match your source?s height cropped. (Multiply the film pixel height by 3/4 and you?re done).
I guess I am thick, but I don't understand this one.
1.)Is the height arrow the little button in the 'Resize' section of AutoFitCd?
2.) Does multiplying the film pixel height by 3/4 give me the source's height cropped?
3.) When I Try to increase the height to the value in the 'Crop' line the horizontal cropping values gets less, i.e., more of the source is horizontally cropped.
4.) Furthermore, when I select XVCD the image is no longer vertically streched. Will this be allright on TV?
5.) Do you KISS your source before or after resizing?

Now You may kick me ...
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Old 25th March 2004, 21:13   #10  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally posted by kilg0r3
1.)Is the height arrow the little button in the 'Resize' section of AutoFitCd?
There are two arrow buttons besides the resize section, height value, in FITCD: up and down.
Quote:
2.) Does multiplying the film pixel height by 3/4 give me the source's height cropped?
Yes, on an anamorphic source.
Quote:
5.) Do you KISS your source before or after resizing?
Before, but this is a matter of taste. I cannot spot a noticeable difference when doing it after resizing.

I don't understand what you mean in your other points, but if you are confused with FitCD, you may want to try FACAR which does all the required resizing for you as pointed out above.
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MPEG4 quality with MPEG2? - Try the Poor Man's DVD.
FACAR - As seen on TV! - The Complete Idiot's Guide to a good DVD Conversion.
Time is money. Try D2Sroba for DVD2SVCD (FAQ) and save both. All electricity bills supported!
Do you know how much overscan and which resolution your TV has? Find out if NTSC.
Moderator: 1: one who arbitrates 2: one who presides over an assembly, meeting, or discussion
3: a substance (as graphite) used for slowing down neutrons in a nuclear reactor (Webster)
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Old 25th March 2004, 21:46   #11  |  Link
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@ 3. This statement regards the preview window of AutoFitCD in D2S. You wrote "Move the height arrow to have it match your source?s height cropped." So
I thought I was to increase the height value in the 'Resize' line to the height value displayed in the 'Crop' line. But whe I do that in the AutoFitCd window the image is enlarged in both directions so that it is horizontally cropped, which is not what I want. However, reading your answer to my question 2, it seems that I simply misunderstood you. Perhaps you could edit the respective sentence, and make it dummy compatible

@ 4. When one selects SVCD as out in AutoFitCd the preview image appears vertically streched, which is normal for SVCD material. However when one selects XCD as output format the preview is no longer vertically distorted. Is this because XCD is a modified version of a VCD or ...?

Thank you very much for your patience

[Edit] I finally managed to do some thinking ( yeah, as if ) Now I understand that the regular TV (or the player?) always resizes to a 4:3 aspect ratio. Consequentially, an image that already has a 4:3 aspect ratio will not be squashed as a frame with an aspect ratio of 15:18 (SVCD) would be. I think I will change my nick to Pooh.[/Edit]
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Old 8th June 2004, 16:18   #12  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally posted by r6d2
I don't see any.
i don't knew this thread and was reading http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77580 that give the link to this place...
like DDogg posted: "This is not about compression as it does cost a few points of Q,but I am interested if you feel it enhances viewing." he is right about the size but the image have a big difference!

excuse me but Asharp(1,4) have big difference from Deen() cos give better contrast and i can see it easily with all sources,no matter if is cartoon or "real" images!
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Old 9th June 2004, 04:07   #13  |  Link
r6d2
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Quote:
Originally posted by jorel
excuse me but Asharp(1,4) have big difference from Deen() cos give better contrast and i can see it easily with all sources,no matter if is cartoon or "real" images!
Well, I tried my script above replacing KISS with Asharp and I did not notice anything. If you do, please post a sample image so we can notice it too.
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MPEG4 quality with MPEG2? - Try the Poor Man's DVD.
FACAR - As seen on TV! - The Complete Idiot's Guide to a good DVD Conversion.
Time is money. Try D2Sroba for DVD2SVCD (FAQ) and save both. All electricity bills supported!
Do you know how much overscan and which resolution your TV has? Find out if NTSC.
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Old 9th June 2004, 04:54   #14  |  Link
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make it simple:
load the 2 script in vdubmod(dvd source,not avis or divx,please)
load the same frame and paste each in paint..open the paint twice, one for each image from the differents scripts.....easy to see the differences ...asharp(1,4) give better sharpness and contrast(lots)!
if don't,encode a little sample and compare in powerdvd,windvd or another good player!
but, if you insist,i can send to you or anyone by mail cos i don't know how to post pictures here! your choice.
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Old 9th June 2004, 14:26   #15  |  Link
r6d2
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Quote:
Originally posted by jorel
but, if you insist,i can send to you or anyone by mail cos i don't know how to post pictures here! your choice.
Well, if you use my script you'll be able to see the difference on the same frame, so it should be very noticeable. Please do that, and post an attachment. I'll have it approved shortly after you do it. (You can also use the IMG button to link to a picture on a website you own.). Or even easier, send it to me by e-mail and I'll post it.
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MPEG4 quality with MPEG2? - Try the Poor Man's DVD.
FACAR - As seen on TV! - The Complete Idiot's Guide to a good DVD Conversion.
Time is money. Try D2Sroba for DVD2SVCD (FAQ) and save both. All electricity bills supported!
Do you know how much overscan and which resolution your TV has? Find out if NTSC.
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3: a substance (as graphite) used for slowing down neutrons in a nuclear reactor (Webster)
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Old 9th June 2004, 17:44   #16  |  Link
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thanks r6d2, i will send to your mail cos i really don't know how to do attachment !
using that scripts for 2 pictures with same frame are fine?

MPEG2Source("D:\....D2V")
undot()
deen()

and the other:
MPEG2Source("D:\....D2V")
undot()
asharp(1,4)

or do i need to change something? correct or change if needed!

please, pm to me your mail r6d2! thank you.

ps:
i knew,...you're a quality "catcher" and have open mind!
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Old 9th June 2004, 20:04   #17  |  Link
r6d2
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Quote:
Originally posted by jorel
or do i need to change something? correct or change if needed!
Nope, that's it.
Quote:
please, pm to me your mail r6d2! thank you.
You keep track of all those filter developments and you don't keep a contact database? Don't worry, I'll PM it to you again.
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MPEG4 quality with MPEG2? - Try the Poor Man's DVD.
FACAR - As seen on TV! - The Complete Idiot's Guide to a good DVD Conversion.
Time is money. Try D2Sroba for DVD2SVCD (FAQ) and save both. All electricity bills supported!
Do you know how much overscan and which resolution your TV has? Find out if NTSC.
Moderator: 1: one who arbitrates 2: one who presides over an assembly, meeting, or discussion
3: a substance (as graphite) used for slowing down neutrons in a nuclear reactor (Webster)
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Old 9th June 2004, 21:35   #18  |  Link
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yes,seems strange but i give my web space with round 50Mb to vmesquita post his programs, scripts and everything that he need.
thank you r6d2, you have mail with 4 pictures with 0,98Mb each !
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Old 10th June 2004, 14:18   #19  |  Link
r6d2
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Quote:
Originally posted by jorel
you have mail with 4 pictures with 0,98Mb each !
I don't have than much capacity on that account, so it should have bounced back. Please send just one picture (not PNG, but JPG). Choose the one with most differences in the top and botton sections.
__________________
MPEG4 quality with MPEG2? - Try the Poor Man's DVD.
FACAR - As seen on TV! - The Complete Idiot's Guide to a good DVD Conversion.
Time is money. Try D2Sroba for DVD2SVCD (FAQ) and save both. All electricity bills supported!
Do you know how much overscan and which resolution your TV has? Find out if NTSC.
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3: a substance (as graphite) used for slowing down neutrons in a nuclear reactor (Webster)
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Old 10th June 2004, 16:29   #20  |  Link
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guys, just go to http://www.imageshack.us/welcome6.php and then put the link in the post. Very easy and free.

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9749/PDVD_000.jpg

Note: The max size is 750k. That ought to deal with near anything in JPG format.







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