half horizontal to reduce blockiness?

[toolman2k]

Hi all,

Ive been using cce for a long time now, however when i do reencodes of extra's they have to be low bitrate around 1.8MB or so....and i cannot get viewable results that way....its horrible with all the blocks.

Does enabling half horizontal resolution make it look better? I mean it has the same amount of bits on less information so it should be softer but less blocking, right ?

It should be still dvd compliant if im correct.I can also half vertical but i dont think thats compliant.

What effect will it have on the video? will the ratio still be ok? or do i need to half vertical also ? I hope it can stretch the half horizontal so it stays original aspect ratio.

I also wonder how all those groups get vcds looking so good, being also low bitrate mpeg2 ?

any other tips on how to get lowbitrate stuff better looking please let me know.

[Arky]

Well the most obvious method is to increase the number of passes. Most people using CCE to do SVCDs would use a minimum of 3 passes, but if you use more than 5 you will not really see any further benefit. Please read the following thread, for discussion of viable DVD framesizes:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30847&highlight=standard+interface+format+arky


Arky ;o)

[toolman2k]

ok thanks for that! however, what do i do when even 5-pass is till blocky? is it good to do half resolution ?

[auenf]

decreasing the frame size means there is less to encode, which means you should be able to use a lower bitrate to obtain the a similar quality result.

Enf...

[Arky]

Yeah, to be honest, if your Average BitRate is going anywhere below 2000kbps, I'd personally choose to use

• SIF (Standard Interface Format): 352x240 NTSC, 352x288 PAL

For DVD authoring, this particular framesize allows you to use either MPEG1 or MPEG2, but if you use MPEG1, then do not use VBR (TMPGEnc allows you to do this, but it's not officially part of the MPEG spec!). MPEG1 streams must also not exceed 1750kbps (or thereabouts - sorry I can't recall the precise figure). This restriction only applies to DVD authoring, and does not apply if you are using MPEG2 for your SIF footage.

In short, I'd suggest, if your ABR is less than 2000kbps, then use VBR MPEG2 at SIF resolution, with at least 2 passes, and preferably 3.

If using Cinemacraft for this, then be sure to untick the "DVD compliant" option, and to tick the "half horizontal resolution", and "half vertical resolution" options. Failing to uncheck the DVD compliant option will mean that CCE will ignore your request for half resolutions (oh, the hours of fun I had trying to figure this out a few years ago!! :confused: :rolleyes: ). TMPGEnc also does a very nice job of SIF, speed issues notwithstanding.

BTW, don't be concerned that 'half resolution' would mathematically not match the actual SIF framesize - CCE does actually do the maths correctly, so you do end up with 352x288, rather than 360x288.

Any problems, just get back to us here :)


Arky ;o)

[toolman2k]

ok thanks for this great info...i knew about not checking compliant stuff :) i will try this out with CCE (what else...) ans let you know the results.

[RB]

I'd suggest you do the resizing to half width/height in AVISynth because I'm not sure about the quality of the CCE resizer (if it actually resizes and not actually simply skips every other line/column...)

[toolman2k]

Originally posted by RB
I'd suggest you do the resizing to half width/height in AVISynth because I'm not sure about the quality of the CCE resizer (if it actually resizes and not actually simply skips every other line/column...)

well i tried it and it works great! it does resize it for real...and sure it does look a little softer.....but only if you compare it to the original.this is fast and easy way to get your extra's less blocky....i rather have them a little softer and less blocky then sharper with blocks all over.

[Arky]

I would caution you against encoding your extras at a different framesize to your main movies. Many standalone players will allow you to get away with this, but it's not good practice..! If it were me, I'd either drop the extras altogether, or encode EVERYTHING at the lower resolution, just to be on the safe side. It's up to you. If you're only ever going to play your disks on your own player, and that player doesn't mind, then I suppose there's no harm done :)

I know some members will disagree with me on this point, particularly where the VTSs are seperate (and most commonly they are).


Arky ;o)

[toolman2k]

Originally posted by Arky
I would caution you against encoding your extras at a different framesize to your main movies. Many standalone players will allow you to get away with this, but it's not good practice..! If it were me, I'd either drop the extras altogether, or encode EVERYTHING at the lower resolution, just to be on the safe side. It's up to you. If you're only ever going to play your disks on your own player, and that player doesn't mind, then I suppose there's no harm done :)

I know some members will disagree with me on this point, particularly where the VTSs are seperate (and most commonly they are).


Arky ;o)

thanks...but as far as i know...352x576 is a valid dvd compliant resolution....so any player messing is not truely dvd video compliant i think....

[Arky]

No, you missed my point. I was referring to the mixing of framesizes within one authored project/disk. Some players don't like this. It's not a really big deal, it's just something to be aware of.


Arky ;o)

[DDogg]

toolman2k, I don't know if you want to go to the hassle, but I would sure like to see your lower bitrate CCE encodes compared against ProCorder 2 pass vbr. I think there are some demos available. The reason I bring it up to you, is it sounds like you have spent a lot of time eye-balling certain examples. Any difference would probably jump out at you.

If you do deside to take a look at a ProCorder test, I would just choose a standard DVD res and change the bitrate to 1800 with maybe twice that for MAX (I only use it for SVCDs so I don't know exactly). If that did not look good you could always try the resizing route you mentioned above.

[quinn]

Arky - mixing sizes is perfectly legal as long as they're not in the same VTS.

Look at some of the DVDs out there - there are quite a few that mix 720x480 and 704x480 (not sure why, but they're there).

I've made a lot of DVDs with 352x480 extras and 720x480 main movie, and they play at least in (one model each of) Apex, Panasonic, Pioneer, and JVC.....

The only thing to remember when messing with 352x480 is don't do a 16:9 video at 352x480 - I haven't found a DVD player yet that will "fix" the aspect ratio at this size, so you need to do your own 16:9 to 4:3 conversion first.