This is quite interesting. I made a VCD of a TV show using Dazzle at its best resolution for VCD. The show was quite dark. Even though Dazzles output is quite poor, it was better than I expected, so I took my DVD player to work to show off my new VCD. When I played it at work it looked terrible! I was quite surprised, because my home TV is a 36" Sony Wega and my work TV is a old 20" Toshiba. After a moment I had a theory. My home TV has been calibrated using Video Essentials, while my work TV had not been calibrated. I fiddled with the controls on the work TV and was suppressed how much it cleaned up the blockiness of the picture. The problems with my VCD was the TV itself. The TV just intensified the problems with the VCD.

So the moral of the story is, make sure your output device is calibrated properly before you start making judgments on how your VCD turned out. As a general rule, turn down the sharpness all the way, put brightness and contrast to the middle settings. If you don't have Video Essentials and a DVD player on hand, this is a good place to start.

Also, I made a high res capture with a Matrox Marvel G400 TV at 704 x 480. Then encoded with Panasonic MPEG1 Encoder and played it at work as well. Wow, the quality was amazing. Even playing with the brightness and contrast there was no predominant pixilation. Quite a good setup. Now if I only had a 2000GHz processor to speed up the encoding process, I'd be set =)

Take care everyone,

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), March 08, 2000

Answers

I too have the G400 with TV, and have a few questions for you on that if you could answer them for me. When I capture at the 704 X 480, the playback on the file looks like it is in slow motion. the quality is perfect as far as the look, it is just slow and the audio stays right in sync too. Any suggestions on this? Secondly, when i capture at a lower resolution, the picture looks pretty good upon playback, however, when i encode it using LSX 3.0 to vcd standards, there is a lot of blockiness. I have the Panasonic encoder if there are settings in it to fix this. Could the bitrate be changed to fix this? Would anyone else have experienced these problems and did they find it was a hardware problem or a software problem/setting? I would be happy to elaborate further if more information is needed!!! Thanks Michael, your post did help in other areas.

-- Buddy Stark (b-sstark@terraworld.net), March 08, 2000.

I have just one question. Why would you want to turn the sharpness down all the way? Doing that would make any crappy video material look decent. The reason sharpness is there is for picture clarity. Without it, you get rid of blocky pictures but you also get rid of detail. I would suggest keeping your video input settings at center and your output hardware (tv) settings at center. This way capturing your video will not contain very many deviations in contrast, saturations, etc...If you want to improve your video, get better hardware. A cheap PCTV (PCI Version for about $75) will get you better results by capturing to high quality AVI using PicVideo's MJPEG codec with quality set to 19 and subsampling at 1/1/1, then converting to VCD format with whatever encoder your interested in. The external, USB, parallel port capture boards just don't cut it as far as video quality is concerned. They're really only good for small captures to send over the internet. Quick & dirty is the best way to describe it.

HazyMind

-- HazyMind (hazymind@earthlink.net), March 08, 2000.

HazyMind, sharpness actually adds noise to a picture. That is why you want to turn it off. It actually "adds" material that is not contained in the original picture. For a more in-depth answer get a copy of the Video Essentials DVD. Digitized images are very sensitive to poor gamma values on NTSC displays. If your TV isn't calibrated properly, your VCDs can look worse than ness Cary.

I agree that getting better hardware is the best solution. And the readers here are mostly concerned with VCD capture and encoding techniques. But, for playback to an NTSC device, from DVD/VCD player to a TV, picture calibration is extremely important. I thought I had done something wrong in my capture or encoding process, but the truth is that it was the TV.

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), March 08, 2000.

I often wondered how many actually use a test chart to set up a TV TO SUIT THE VCD. Not many! Most will rely on the TV manufacturer being right, well.......!

Michael's experience just supports the need to put a chart at the front end of a presentation so that the TV OR COMPUTER being used can be adjusted to provide the best picture. Certainly the older the TV the more important that becomes.

If your using multi level menus it is very easy to use a chart as a 1st menu back drop so the necessary adjustments to brightness, contrast etc can be made to get back the losses in the VCD authoring process prior to actually playing. Not all software can be adjusted to provide a compliant file for viewing.

In relation to turning back the "sharpness" it is really akin to not playing a VCD svideo connected to a TV, they will look a lot better on a consumer TV than they do on a professional level TV. Its amazing what you see if the capability of the TV is to resolve 450 lines at the centre and not the consumer level at about 240 lines. As I said here long long ago, god help us and the home brewed VCD when we have digital TV to play on.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), March 08, 2000.

If you want REAL results from using the dazzle, YOU MUST capture at movie quality using a bitrate of 2900 or 3000. THEN from here use an encoder (panasonic HIGHLY reccomended) to reconvert back to vcd format. then you will not have to fiddle with any of your controls

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), March 08, 2000.

I think we can ask with older TV's is the set actually still set correctly? In the first place that is probably the case, but over the time there is a decay that goes un noticed and often needs periodic adjusting to see the best.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), March 08, 2000.

In response to Dougs comment on "getting really results from Dazzle", I captured a TV show on a DirecTV receiver using S-VHS cable at movie quality using a bitrate of 2800. Then used the Panasonic Encoder to get my MPEG1 file to burn to VCD. The quality was better than I expected. But, it was noticeably pixilated on a calibrated TV ( 36" Sony Wega XBR, calibrated with Video Essentials, and a Toshiba 2108 DVD player), and unacceptably pixilated on an uncalibrated TV.

In response to Ross's last post, all TVs come from the factory uncalibrated. They are set to look good in a show room where they have to compete with bright ambient lighting. Therefore the factory generally cranks up the brightness and the contrast, so it "looks good" in that environment. But this actually ruins the picture. Home theater buffs know that the only way to calibrate the television, and to make a television look correct is to have it in a controlled environment, which means a dark room, and using the SMPTE test pattern to calibrate the television. Please do not ask me about TV calibration. Get the Video Essentials DVD and a DVD player and calibrate your TV.

Wouldn't it be nice if Blockbuster rented the Video Essentials DVD?

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), March 08, 2000.

Michael

Well put, exactly, also depends on what they want to sell "today".

Not mentioned so far that if you every receive a home brewed VCD in another TV format (not native to your own) you will probably need to re calibrate your TV and your computer to see its true value from an on the fly conversion between the two.

TC, you too!

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), March 08, 2000.

Michael

Better in small postings!

I bet you would agree that you need to work on a calibrated computer screen for the production of stills. There is no point at all in making a still look good on the computer and finding its to dark or to bright or what ever on the TV.

I have a pro TV studio monitor alongside and my computer screen is actually calibrated to be as close as is possible to what I WILL see on the TV. I know what settings are required and I use them for the stills production and then return to the settings for my VCD playback as necessary.

Even using the test chart to determine brightness & contrast is a step in the right direction.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), March 08, 2000.

hmmm maybe its the toshiba player?? I play my video cds in a pioneer dvd and i dont have those kinds of results.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), March 09, 2000.

What kind of results? What could be the DVD player?

Please be more specific when the thread gets this long.

Thanks,

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), March 09, 2000.

Sorry about that its in response to this

In response to Dougs comment on "getting really results from Dazzle", I captured a TV show on a DirecTV receiver using S-VHS cable at movie quality using a bitrate of 2800. Then used the Panasonic Encoder to get my MPEG1 file to burn to VCD. The quality was better than I expected. But, it was noticeably pixilated on a calibrated TV ( 36" Sony Wega XBR, calibrated with Video Essentials, and a Toshiba 2108 DVD player), and unacceptably pixilated on an uncalibrated TV.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), March 09, 2000.

What is your end display target? Are you keeping your *.mpg's on your computer or are you burning them out to VCD to playback on a TV? Why type of TV do you display your VCDs on? Please include the screen size. Also, what DVD player are you using? Have you used a different capture card other then the Dazzle?

You should check out some captures made with a Matrox Marvel G400 TV/Panasonic encoder. I showed my work to my friend that only watches DVD and DirecTV S-VHS and he was quite impressed.

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), March 09, 2000.

hey Mike

Ok i take the clips off my computer for vcd and play them on my homedeck dvd player. I have the following dvd players Apex ad600a, pioneer 525, and the pioneer 606d. All can play and read video cds except the 606d. That one will read a cdrw but not a straight up cdr. TV wise i own a 27inch mitsubishi which i do have the options of super vhs in or out, etc. i use the composite way to watch my stuff instead of the super vhs cable (i only have one and its used for some other stuff). im not knocking the other capture card you use. i was just against the results you have seen with Dazzle. my vcds are not pixled. This is why i asked if maybe it was your dvd player. i dont know how well Toshiba players can play them.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), March 09, 2000.

I guess there is some confusion here. I used the Toshiba player to calibrate the TV, but I'm using a Pioneer 525 to play my CDR VCDs. I played around with the Dazzle quite a bit. And even the best copys I've made are pixilated. I'm not saying my best copys with Dazzle are grossly pixilated, but there is a "rain" type effect if you play around with the brighness, contrast, etc... Note, that I'm being descriminating(picky). Oh, the Dazzle/Panasonic VCDs are OK. Definitely viewable, without annoyance. But, the Matrox/Panasonic VCDs I've made are 100 times better. I can't even see the slighest sign of pixilation. Minor banding, yes. But very minor. I just want the beginner to know that for the $300 range. The Matrox has a much better encoding options and quality. You sacrafice portability, but the quality upgrade is worth it. I just wish I could have read this thread, instead of writing it when I was getting started. =)

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), March 09, 2000.

i sitll dont really see pixel-like rain effect. but anyway i now encode pretty much everything as a high rate vcd, they look exactly as my original source well ok, sometims a close 98.99% but you get the idea. the 525 plays these quite well.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), March 09, 2000.

Why buy a Dazzle for $250 if you have to use Panasonic encoder to get a decent mpg. Almost any AVI capture card will get a better capture than the Dazzle. The key is in the encoding which Dazzle does a poor job with. I don't think it's possible to get a Video CD without pixilation if you use the standard bit rates. The only way I have been able to get rid of the annoying blockiness is to use higher bit rates and I've tried every setting on my television. (37" Mitsubishi, Pioneer 525 DVD, svideo cable) I made a video CD of a commercially produced VHS tape. Captured with my Broadway 4.0 and ecoded to mpeg1 at the video cd setting which can't be changed and still get the artifacts but not nearly as bad as my cd's made from my camcorder. I downloaded NTI's software, captured some video from my camcorder, encoded at a much higher bit rate, used NTI to burn the cd and all the blockiness magically disappeared. I just think the Video CD limits on bit rates do not allow for a cd without blockiness. (unless you are filming a talking head) I am trying to get Adaptec to alter their software to aloow the burning of Video CD's at a higher bit rate.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), March 10, 2000.

Hey Al, its saying the samething with avis in a sense, either way we still have to re-encode them. i also find it much more convient making a 30-40min file then doing a constant 20min file because of the gig limitation. When your doing a film thats 2hrs and 40min or so the 20mins just will not suffice. The highrates, i agree do virtually wipe out everything which is why i pretty much only encode in them now. i wasnt getting a bad pic at all the other way ,but the highrates add that little extra touch. i will start praising you if you can get them at adaptec to upgrade the stupid thing to accept these higher rate vcds. NTI is fine but i would rather use the adaptec

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), March 10, 2000.

Maybe we should all email adaptec and direct their attention to this site. I like the high bit rates because most of my videos are of my kids playing sports and I get some big time pixilation. If I use NTI the videos are great but if I use different clips their are pauses between each clip. Adaptec would be perfect if it would allow high bit rates...Write them and point them here!!!!

Al

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), March 13, 2000.