More SVCD & Encoder comments:

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Video CD : One Thread

Here is what Dimitry Gromov thinks about SVCD & VCD encoding, its a post from another site and it supports the simple VCD - you can make bloody good ones, if you do not just accept anything as the best because a well known provider provides it.

It again discusses the bbMPEG (he helped write it) issue relative to LSX in SVCD an why there is a difference in the end result:

--------------- Hi! Complicated question. Let me explain why:

Ligos:

- much less configurable than bbMPEG

- does not support field encoding properly

- BUT: proper support for VBR

bbMPEG:

- very configurable - you can play with many parameters to achive highest quality of picture encoding

- proper support for field encoding (as separate fields)

- BUT: VBR can not be configured to limit bitrate (i.e. macroblock quantization is ALWAYS constant)

**************************** Technically with bbMPEG, you can get better (or same) quality for VCD-compliant MPEG-1 video - no VBR, nor fields (recommendation - in Advanced Video Settings set both Motion estimation Pel movements to 9). ****************************

For MPEG-2 - another story. You can get better results because of the same factor as for MPEG-1 AND(!) support for field-based encoding (see Advanced Video Settings) plus VBR especially for TV output.

The problem is in SVCD/DVD compatability ...... you will not be able to fit bitrate in SVCD/DVD requirements in VBR mode... Especially, if you have fast motion.

(If you don't have fast motion, you can try to stay in 10Mbit/s for DVD)

For SVCD - the only option now is CBR. But, again, because of field-based encoding, you'll get better results than with Ligos GoMotion.

From my experience on VCD: I saw a bunch professionally encoded VCDs (like "The Wall", "For Your Eyes Only", etc.) and can't agree with people saying that VCD - sucks. It is great. REALLY SVHS quality. Beleive me - it's the matter of encoding...

I was able to get closer to that quality with bbMPEG, but a hardware board would do better.

Thanks, Dmitry -----------------------------

When questioned about the Panasonic encoder he said this:

In my opinion, it's the best VCD-compliant MPEG-1 encoder. It is slower, especially if you use preprocessing filters, but they are must-have to get best quality.

Too bad, it isn't MPEG-2... :

Dmitry

--------------------------------

and finally in this update here is a site for comparisons on Mpeg2 encoding:

http://www.tecoltd.com/enctest/enctest.htm

Cheers

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), June 09, 2000


Moderation questions? read the FAQ