Taking DV and making SVCD

[hoops10]

I have done a lot of reading on the various forums and a lot of testing with my DV captured .avi (its 48 mins long). My end result is an svcd that is too blurry (its of a baseball game). I have tried encoding at 2100 avg. bitrate, 6000 max bitrate, 3-pass VBR using the 2-pass method described by robshot and doom9 (my Apex will handle the high max bitrate). I captured it using Ulead VideoStudio 4.0 SE Basic (came with my firewire card) and the .avi is type-1. I want to use avisynth to frameserve to CCE. Can anyone help me get the highest quality svcd possible? I have not used any filters in avisynth yet so if you know of any that would get rid of the blurriness that might help. If you need some more info, ask away.

[ulfschack]

well, since it's DV we're talking about 2100 is not enough to make a sharp picture. It's one of the encoders tricks to make blurry what informantion it cant encode given the specified bitrate.

I'm sure that if you'd cut loose that 2100 avg restraint the encoder would bounce against the ceiling of the max nonetheless. Unless you're using a tripod when filming, you should really consider putting it on two CDs

Filters wont make it sharper (that brief statement is two levels deep ... maybe three even :) ). Just be sure to keep the interlacing, and use TmpgEnc for low BR encodes such as 2600.

DVD2SVDC in avi-mode will make it reeeeal easy for you. Just fiddle some with the minutes_per_disc numbers, and you'll enjoy high bitrate SVDCs.

cheers

[Mac Sidewinder]

I have been playing around with this very topic for quite some time now. I have a Sony digital camcorder and I use Studio 7 combined with DVD2SVCD and the results I get are pretty good to me. Here is my latest project, it was 58 mins of a military airshow. Lots of action (aircraft flybys) and some static panning. I use a single leg stand to help steady the shots (highly recommended).

1. Capture from camera via firewire and compose project (with transitions, titles, and special effects with studio 7.

2. Output project as avi file. Since its uncompressed, no loss. The file was 12.5 gb.

3. Using DVD2SVCD with the following options:
- Left as interlaced (otherwise motion was somewhat jerky on tv)
- Audio sample @ 192k
- Sharpness @ .60
- Tem Smooth @ 2,1 (helps with closeups of people's faces without losing background detail. Seems to help also with ringing on some objects.
- Quality @ 17
- 4 pass encode with cce v2.5
- Selected to edit the avs
- Avg processing speed was .571
- Final filesize was 799mb

Here are some observations/questions I have:

1. The only prob I encountered with DVD2SVCD was after I edited the avs(more on this in a sec) and pressed save, then continue, CCE would hang. Never tried to write the script files at all. Tried it 3 time with same results. Finally tried recover in DVD2SVCD which resumed at the edit avs screen and then cce started normally. Last entry in log file after error would just show that the audio was completed and nothing about video at all. (Still haven't figured this one out)

2. The reason I edit the avs was to change the video size. If I would select 4:3, DVD2SVCD would crush the video vertically and add borders (but this was not indicated in the preview frame option, it looked correct) - if I selected 16:9, it would crush it twice as much and add bigger borders. So I edited the avs script to set the res to 480x480 and deleted the add borders statement.

3. I read in another thread that you could save bitrate by setting the res to 352x480 and the dvd player would resize automatically. I tried this and it seems to work fine with no adverse effects. Any reprocussions from doing this?

All in all the video looks great. It kind of suprised me that CCE actually took the 12.5 gb file and didn't choke on it. I'm not very experienced with using filters and can't seem to find much on the actual settings for each, or WHEN to use each. Most of the time you see posts like use this one or that one without explaining HOW to use them. I have visited Donald Graft's page but more of the same.

Any thoughts/suggestions on how to achieve better encodes with DV sources?

Mac

[mrbass]

@Mac Sidewinder
Sharpness @ .60
- Tem Smooth @ 2,1
hmmm I'll have to screw around with those filters some day. Anyway here's my DV to SVCD guide which to me gives excellent results
dvd2svcd.org/dv (http://www.dvd2svcd.org/dv/)

[Mac Sidewinder]

@mrbass

Thanks for the tip. I'll try it out on my video I just made and see if there is much of a difference. It looks like you use a higher bitrate than mine. I let DVD2SVCD choose by the length of the source video. DV has always been a challenge to get looking good in svcd format.

As for the filters, I read in a post by Markb that he used them so I tried them out to see the effects. You can use the preview button to see the effect. I think they make it look quite a bit better.

When I read your guide, it didn't say how long your source video was. I noticed that you had two final svcds. How much time do you average on a single svcd?

Have you had the prob I discussed above with cce refusing to write the scripts after editing? I've never seen that prob before but got past it by selecting recover.

Mac

[hoops10]

@MrBass and Mac Sidewinder

Thanks for the replies. I will try both methods and let you know how it works out. Does it matter if I use Edit Studio to convert my
type-1 avi to type-2 instead of using the Canopus proggie? Do I loose any quality converting from type-1 to type-2? Once I've converted to type-2, can I delete the type-1 avi?

[mrbass]

yes I did mention how long it was
"Make sure you have about 13GB for 60mins of DV (60secs x 60mins = 3,600seconds x 3.6Mbps = 12.65GB) " for 2 cds

IMHO I stay away from Temporal Smoother stuff cuz it's like the blur effect on Playstation 2. It's masking the problem. Remember I said that's my opinion no flame war intended at all.

Have you had the prob I discussed above with cce refusing to write the scripts after editing?

no I have never encountered that problem.

yes delete your type-1 file after it's converted to type-2.

[hoops10]

@MrBass

I read your DV2SVCD guide and installed the caopus file converter and the codec. I went to the newest dvd2svcd and followed your guide. I went to the MISC tab to convert the file to type-2 but there is no convert button there. There is no convert button anywhere in dvd2svcd. Where is it? or did I read your guide wrong?

[Mac Sidewinder]

@hoops10 - actually I think he mrbass is referring to the GO button on the conversion tab.

@mrbass - yeah now that I re-read your guide I see where you mentioned the length. I just thought you were just giving a calcualted file size based on a normal 60 min tape - sorry

No flame war? You won't get that from me. I'm just interested in the best visual from home video that I can get. I plan on trying out your guide this weekend and compare. If its better than mine, I have no problem using it instead. I just wish that there were more users discussing converting this type of video.

I realize that tem smoother is masking the problem, but since I don't have a dvd recorder and so can't leave the video uncompressed and unaltered, I want the best looking video I can get, and I realize that this is in the eye of the beholder. To me, for close ups of people's faces this seems to work.

If you have any more ideas, I'd love to hear/try them. Thanks

Mac

[hoops10]

@Mac

The 'GO' button is grayed out. When I try to open the .avi file, it says that it is type-1 and to use the canopus file converter. Doesn't make any sense. MrBass, can you help me out?

[1loser]

Originally posted by mrbass
Sharpness @ .60
- Tem Smooth @ 2,1


I was reading your guide and noticed you use BicubicResize with b value 0.00 and c value 0.60. I've been using SimpleResize(fast) and would like to know the difference and what advantage one has over the other. I guess the 0.60 represents the sharpness you mentioned above. I'm using DVD2SVCD to convert DivX to SVCD. Also all my conversions have been set to Linear quantizer, zigzag scanning order, progressive frames, Intra DC 10. I don't have any idea what these are for but I left them that way and so far they came out very good.

I'm only having a problem with 1 conversion where I didn't use DVD2SVCD. I used CCE and followed a guide "Getting the best out of CCE" from Doom's site. The audio breaks up when there's a lot of explosions. I tried two different sources for the audio and determined the audio is not the problem. Now I don't know what I'm talking about but I think it could be that it's not interlaced. When I open it in FlaskMpeg is says the video structure is progressive and the bitrate 9800. The bitrate is not really 9800 but the guide tells you to use 9800 for the 1st pass. When I play the CD on my PC the sound doesn't breakup. Any thoughts by anyone as to why the sound is breaking up would be greatly appreciated.

[mrbass]

bicubic has always been the default in dvd2svcd up until 2 months or so ago. In my own tests simpleresize is acceptable but I prefer a little higher quality. Thus the 20% reduction in encoding speed is acceptable to me since I got an AMD 1700. Do your own one chapter test and compare yourself. .75 is based on a study a few years back...honestly can't remember the names involved, etc. Anyway many suggested .60 DDogg and others so I trust them and use that instead of .75.

it makes sense...you sure you installed both the codec and the converter (both are canopus). That's most likely your problem.

[1loser]

Originally posted by mrbass
it makes sense...you sure you installed both the codec and the converter (both are canopus). That's most likely your problem.

I didn't know what Canopus is but found the website from one of your documents. Is it for Digital video? I'm only converting DivX to SVCD, will I still need that?

[hoops10]

@MrBass

Am I supposed to hit convert in dvd2svcd in order to convert to type-2 avi or do I have to do that first in the acutal converter program and then load the avi into dvd2svcd? Im a little confused on your guide. Thanks.

[Acide ascorbique]

I'm surprise that nobody here speaks about deinterlacing (decomb).
I understand it is not necessary for viewing on TV, but isn'it easier to compress, and thus improve overall quality @ identical bit rate?
I found out that CCE was sometime freezing with no-deinterlaced video and blamed it on bit-rate (probably too high).

[Mac Sidewinder]

I've tried deinterlacing my DV home video but no matter which method I try, it always produces jumpy video on the titles and transitions that I put in my movies. Since I am making them to play on tv anyway, I leave them interlaced.

Mac

[mrbass]

I've tried all dv interlaced options...I think it doesn't do good with dv material too. I prefer never to watch it on a computer anyways and looks just great on the TV.

[Ookami]

Make a search for DV & SVCD and mb1 . Hope those threads haven't been pruned...

mb1 is one of the SVCD gurus out there :) .