Question about SVCD burning and converting,....

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Video CD : One Thread

I was wondering if someone could help me out. I have downloaded a movie in .mpg and a few tv shows in mpeg format (I don't know, but I am guessing they are the same thing.) Anyways I have successfully burned some of them into vcds but the quality isn't the greatest. If I burn it in SvCD format, does the quality get better? For that matter, how do you convert mpeg (mpg) to SVCD format, and how long does it take (for about 2 hours worth)? Thanks.

-- Bob Turkaloo (kathy.keenan@pseoptima.com), May 07, 2001

Answers

The quality of MPEG files are set. You can only burn them on VCD, not as SVCD. The files must have been encoded to be SVCD format in order to be burn as SVCD.

If you have AVI files then you can always decide to encode them to: MPEG-1 for VCD, MPEG-2 for SVCD or DVD, or DivX format or any other format of your choice.

AVI has the best quality while MPEG-1 has the worst quality (IMHO) however, it is quite acceptable. SVCD (MPEG-2) has much better quality, DVD has better quality than SVCD and AVI (from digital camcorder) has the best.

Quality of MPEG files (VCD and SVCD) depends on 3 main factors

1) source: a lousy source as a ELP VHS tape will not yield good MPEG files

2) capture method: capture card and resolution are important. Best one is Firewire capture (you need a digital camcorder for this)

3) encoding method: best software encoder is TMPGEnc (free). It takes very long though. Hardware encoder is fast but its cost varies (low price = bad quality and high price = very good quality, nothing new here)

If you download mpeg files, you are stuck with the quality within those files. You can only make it worst, not better.

-- ktnwin (ktnwin@excite.com), May 07, 2001.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ