First succesful SVCD but loosy sound

[vidaldan]

Hi everybody, this is to share my first succesful SVCD experience and to find out how to solve (if possible) some problem with the sound.
My main interest was to backup my VHS home videos on SVCD, so I've captured them using DV Studio (I've connected the VCR player to my DV camcorder and then to the PC through firewire, using the camcorder's passthru feature and making the AD conversion).
Then I've done some editing (including adding background music) and created some AVIs that worked great on PC (at this point the sound still was great).
After that I've encoded the AVIs using TMPeg (with SVCD NTSC template). I've done some tests encoding in CBR with different bitrates and found out that my standalone DVD player (Philips) worked fine with no more than 2400 kbps, so I've used this setting.
I've burned with Nero using CD-RW and CD-R without any problem.
The only issue I've found is with the sound, because it was some 'noisy' or 'metallic'.
I don't know if this is normal (because of the MPG encoding) or can be corrected.
Does anybody have any clue ??

[Dreassica]

Didu encode the audio sperately? Maybe u have encoded it at a low bitrate, try not to go below 192kb mp2 or else it will get mettalic like u mentioned!

[poopity poop]

Yes, you don't want to go below 192Kbps. Take the .avi's that you made and extract the sound using virtualdub. Then make the mp2's using tmpeg if you wish seperately. Then go to tmpeg>file>mpeg tools>demultiplexer. Extract the video from the mpg you originally made. Then go to the multiplexer, and add that video you extracted, and the audio you made by extracting it and making it though tmpeg, and make a new mpg. This should work.

[vidaldan]

I've encoded using the default audio settings (I can't remember if it was 224 kbps or 192 kbps, but that's for sure it wasn't below 192).
Anyway I'll try the demux/reencode audio/remux suggested by poopity and then I'll tell you how it was.
Thanks

[kris]

you also probably shouldn't use tmpgenc to encode your audio, as it's quite possible that the mediocre quality of the tmpgenc audio encoder is responsible for that "metallic" sound you're describing, especially if your source is clean.

look into using the toolame frontend for tmpgenc.

[poopity poop]

I think tmpeg is a great mpeg-2 video encoder and a great mp2 audio encoder. If you can tell the difference between toolame and tmpeg's internal audio encoder then you must have ears like a fox.

The fact that it takes tmpeg longer to encode a video does not make it bad, it makes it more precise. And when doing tests between CCE and Tmpeg I could not determine any difference of video quality. THat's just my complaint/2 cents

[chainsaw135]

I've done tests with tmpgenc and cce. The speed issue dosen't really factor in, when i came to the conclusion that cce is way better for making svcd's then tmpgenc. Now the other part of the story is, tmpgenc is better at making vcd's tho so either way you look at it both tools i think are needed in the scene.

[vidaldan]

As recommended by Poopity Poop, I've extracted the sound from the original AVI using VirtualDub and then reencoded it with TMPenc.
I've done several tests reencoding it at 32K, 44K and 48Khz with different bitrates (always above 200kbps) but the result was the same, the reencoded sound quality is still poor ('metallic').
One thing I've discovered is that the sound of the source AVIs was sampled at 32Khz (as I said previously they where created with StudioDV), but I don't know if this could be the problem.
Anyway I'll do some further testings with the toolame thing and with CCE (I don't have any experience with those yet)

Thanks

[poopity poop]

toolame is regarded as the best mp2 encoder. Its very good and I use that. You need 44,100Khz audio sampling. If that still does not work try upsampling using sound forge 5 on at least number 2 interpolation, then encode that using toolame through besweetGUI or something. If that still produces a metalic sound.. it may just be your speakers or something I don't know :(

[vidaldan]

I've found that the problem of the metallic sound it seems to be with the TMPGenc encoding.
I've tested extracting the WAV from the original AVIs and encoding the sound with BeSweet+toolame and it was a lot better than TMPGenc at the same bitrate (192, 224, and so on). Didn't have to use SSRC for resampling (I keep the original AVIs at 32000hz)
So my next move will be to reencode all the AVIs with DVD2SVCD (TPMG+Besweet/toolame) to test all the tools together in the same process.

Thanks for the help !