Ask help : VCD to DVD enlarge resize filter

[ookzDVD]

Dear Forum,

I really want to ask which is the suitable resize for enlarge
the VCD to DVD resolution ?

I'm using Bicubic atm, is that any good ?

Btw, is there any tips for such enlarge converting,
like VCD to DVD ?

Thank you.

[G_M_C]

Dear Forum,

I really want to ask which is the suitable resize for enlarge
the VCD to DVD resolution ?

I'm using Bicubic atm, is that any good ?

Btw, is there any tips for such enlarge converting,
like VCD to DVD ?

Thank you.

Psst, there is something mentioned in Doom9's forum about "what's best" ;)

The installer-package AviSynth comes with a short manual, that has a overview of most AviSynth's commands. It'susually accessable thru the startmenu -> avisynth etc. Look up bicubicresize, and you'll find other resizers in the same paragraph. Try a few yourself, and see which suits you needs best ;)

[Awatef]

Guess what? you don't have to upsize it in the first place!
The DVD standard supports VCD resolutions, say 352x240 for NTSC and 352x288 for PAL.
You just have to re-encode to MPEG-2 (2-pass VBR recommended), because using original VCD streams is not compliant to the standard.

[Nikos]

The DVD standard supports VCD resolutions, 352x240 for NTSC and 352x288 for PAL and MPEG-1 video.

You just have to re-encode the audio because VCD audio
have 44 KHz.

[Awatef]

Nikos, it's not about MPEG-1, it's about the way VCDs are encoded, it's not DVD compliant. So you have to re-encode if you want to stick to the standard, and you better use MPEG-2, since it's better than 1.

[ookzDVD]

Ok,

I think I have to dig more and more :)
Upsize and re-encode to MPEG-2 use CCE at CBR @3000 give a nice shot! :)
Use Be-sweet to re-encode the MP2 audio to AC3, not bad. :)

[IanB]

Yes DVD supports VCD resolutions, so a direct 1:1 re-encoding to MPEG2 at generous kbits/sec would be easiest and avoid any resizing artifacts.

However you have the opportunity to spend some CPU cycles and use a higher order resizer in the process.

Higher order resizing has a sharpening effect. Not all material looks good when sharpened and not everyone likes sharp images on their TV screen, so do some test encodes of a few scenes to see what you like best.

Resizer order is

0 PointResize
1 BilinearResize
2 BicubicResize
3 LanczosResize, Spline16Resize
4 Lanczos4Resize, Spline36Resize, GaussResize
5 LanczosResize(taps=5), etc

Bicubic and Gauss have some tuning parameters that effect compromise of sharpness versus ringing.

Lanczos tries to be as sharp as humanly acceptable.

Spline tries to be sharp without any ringing.

Gauss tends to be quite soft and compresses well, many consider it blurey.

Use the Interleave and or StackVertical/StackHorizontal filters to make a script to do some comparison.

[foxyshadis]

And the slow old saw, EEDI2().Turnleft().EEDI2().Turnright(). ;)

If you want to spend an enormous number of cycles, you can look up MultiSWAR or EKG enlargement filters. Prepare to encode for a couple days for that though, unless you have a killer processor. And it may not really be that much better than a simple Lanczos.

[trolltuning]

Is he really likely to see a quality improvement after doing all this work? Will it look better than a vcd on the computer screen or TV, or is the main object to put more minutes on a bigger disk?

[Awatef]

In my opinion, he'll be just wasting his time, especially with so crappy sources as VCD, if he's going to sharpen something, it will be macroblocks and other annoying artefacts.

Btw ookz, you better get miles away from CBR encoding. I get artefacts even at very high bitrates over 7 Mbit/s. So you better stick to the original VCD resolution, and encoder to VBR. It doesn't have to be 2-pass if your time is limited, One pass VBR at around 3 Mbit/s should look almost identical to the source.

[Blue_MiSfit]

definately don't waste your time scaling up a VCD source. If anything deblock it a bit (if the MPEG-1 encode introduced blocks), keep it at VCD res, and use half D1 MPEG-2 at high-ish bitrates. 3mbit should be enough for a half D1 resolution, though you will likely have space to burn on the DVD-R depending on how much content you squeeze in there.

Still, no harm in trying... maybe some deblocking, a lanczos4resize, and some sharpening would help, but I wouldn't think so. Fun project though :)

~MiSfit

[ookzDVD]

Ok, thanks guys with the update.

Btw, I'm not looking for improvement over VCD to DVD quality,
since it's just impossible :)

The idea is to keep long VCD movie (3 dics) into 1 pcs DVD,
that's all, I've lots of Bollywood movie which mostly over than 3 hours :)

Thank you.

[Nikos]

The VCD resolution and specs are almost compliant with
DVD-Video specs. The only problem really is the audio,
which uses a different sampling frequency in VCD (44.1kHz).

You may read the link: "How to put VCDs on DVD"
http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/vcd_to_dvd-r.cfm

[Awatef]

@ Nikos
You have to pray that your DVD player(s) do(es)n't strike, when you use original VCD streams. I definitely do not recommend it, since you never know what player you'll be using next...

[Nikos]

Awatef you are right.
Sometimes the VCD have GOP longer than 15 frames (PAL)
or 18 frames (NTSC) and some DVD-player doesn't accept
the DVD.

Usually the cheap DVD/DivX players doesn't have any
problem to play anything :)

My player play fine DVD with VCD/SVCD resolution
(352x288/480x576).

[Trixter]

Still, no harm in trying... maybe some deblocking, a lanczos4resize, and some sharpening would help, but I wouldn't think so. Fun project though :)


Okay, I'll jump on the bandwagon :-) What filter(s) would be a good place to start for deblocking? I'd check the wiki/avisynth pages but they're still down.

[foxyshadis]

Depends on how bad. Deblock_QED is good for all but the worst, for those you might need Deblock.