SVCD vs. MPEG-4?

[Mike777]

Hello guys!

This may sound like a newbie question but please suggest me what is better. I recently bought a DVD-writer and currently think to put all my video tapes library onto DVD media. Most of my records are wrestling records from TV. When I did capture it in SVCD resolution and later put it onto DVD using dvdpatcher and tmpgenc i didnt like how it looked on tv, it was very nasty looking and pixellized when the image is not still even that I used maximum quality SVCD (20 Mbyes/minute). But i remember seeing wrestling VCD (or SVCD) some time ago which didnt have such problem. yes, the picture was much less sharper but no pixellation was evident. Is it because the SVCD was put onto DVD media and played on DVD player instead of using CD media?
Am I doing something wrong?
Maybe I should try MPEG-4 encoding but I am afraid my DVD player will not be able to play back such format from DVD-disc.
I am looking to find a way to put 3-4 hrs of video onto single disc without nasty looking video pixellation.

Any suggestions maybe?

I was using Pinnacle PCTV card and Pinnacle Studio 8 for capturing and my PC is P4-2600.

Thanks in advance,

Mike

[mrlipring]

i think pretty much everyone will tell you NOT to capture in the resolution you're wanting to export to.

capture in as high a res as you can, in as high a bitrate as you can, THEN resize and reencode to svcd, or divx, whichever you choose.

if you're at all unsure, then your dvd player WON'T play back mpeg-4. they're not at all common, and you have to make an effort to buy one that does.

if you want to play back on your standalone, go for svcd.

i can't see the problem being that you burnt it to dvd, but try it on cd anyway - stranger things have happened.

if you're taking stuff off vhs, i'd be inclined to say capture at as high a res as you can, then output it as dvd-standard mpeg-1, which has a higher bitrate than vcd. you'll get a hell of a lot more on a dvd as vcd, and it'll be dvd-standard, which svcd ain't, afaik.

[JoeShrubbery]

Actually I'd say aim for standard Half D1 resolution as the final resolution, but definitely still capture and edit at Full D1 specs until you're set to do your final encoding. SVCD resolution is generally overkill for a VHS source anyway, you wont lose any detail you didn't have by dropping down the little bit to Half D1 while the final outcome is actually standards compliant, and will have fewer of the compression artifacts at the same bitrate. Plus keep in mind the content, wrestling, can get fast paced at times and maintaining the full interlaced height would be beneficial in this situation IMHO. If you're desperate to cram as much onto each disc then, as mrlipring suggested, DVD compliant mpeg1 might be the way to go, but if you can spare the extra bits I'ds say do so.

Anyway, just hit up the Doom9 guides if you haven't already, they'll tell you everything you need to know from capturing, filtering & encoding, through to authoring and burning.

It's probably not gonna be cheep to move over a pile of tapes to DVD, and depending on the size of that pile it could take a while, but good luck!

[Tuning]

If u use Standalone Video DVD players,Convert to MPEG-2 and burn in a DVD.Other wise encode to MPEG-4(DivX,XviD...)with optimum bitrate to the resolution and burn as dataDVDs.The advantage to second way is that u can burn several more hours of MPEG-4 than MPEG-2.

-Tuning