Here is my entire process: PC Pentium III 750 Mhz, 256Mb Memory, 40Gb HDD, ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon. Firewire card.

I capture from my Canon Elura 2MC to PC to be edited in Abobe Premiere 6.0

When I finish editing, I transfer back the videoclip to a fresh DV for archival.

For VCR transfer I use the following methods: 1.- Hook my Elura to the analog inputs of my VCR 2.- I hook my VCR to the analog outputs of my ATI AIW, then I use the export to video in Premiere 6.

Both methods give imppresive results for VCR. I can't tell you which is better, because there is no difference.

Now for VCD..... Using Premiere -> Export Timeline -> Video I create a MPEG-1 with the following VideoCD especification.

LSX MPEG-1 for VideoCD NTSC Video conforming to the MPEG-1 White Book standard for NTSC VideoCD.

Video: MPEG-1 elementary NTSC; 352x240; 29.97 fps; 1123 kbits/s. Audio: MPEG audio layer II 44.1kHz; 16Bit; Stereo; 224 kbits/s. Motion Estimation: 16

My result is an aprox. 300Mb file for 30 min. videoclip

Then I use Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum to create the VCD...

Results:

Not good, the video is washed and there is evident pixelation, even if you view on a 19" TV

VCR transfer if by far superior....

Question #1: Can I get better results for VCD? -----------------------------------------------

Now, I was wondering.....

1.- If I can use the following Mpeg-2 specification:

LSX MPEG-2 Super VideoCD NTSC Video conforming to the MPEG-2 standard for NTSC Super VideoCD.

Video: MPEG-2 elementary 480x480; NTSC; 29.97 fps; VBR maximum 2.4 Mbits/s, averaging between 1000 – 2000 Kbits/s.; GOPs with sequence headers. Audio: MPEG audio layer II 44kHz; 16Bit; stereo; 128 Kbits/s. Motion Estimation: 18

It seems that the Roxio VCD creator does not like or cannot create SVCD. (I had never tryed).

Question 2: Is there a software that can help me (SVCD)? ---------------------------------------------------------

All my DVD players (Philco multiregion, JVC and Nakamichi) handle the burned CD-R without hassle.

Question #3: If my DVD players can play VCD, can they play SVCD? ----------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you in advance for your help. I know this is a lenghtly message, but I want to give you the most accurate information possible.

Also, an apollogy for the bad english written here, English is not my native languaje.

Thank you again

Luis Gomez

-- Luis Gomez (lgomez@softrends.com.mx), August 21, 2001

Answers

Hi Luis, To answer your questions: 1) What you are describing is valid for SVCD. You will get better quality that VCD. Most people use 224 Kbits/s for audio, but 128 is valid. The other specificiations are fine. There is a good forum for SVCD at network54.com/Hide/Forum/70438. Web sites that might be of help to you are: www.pcphotovideo.com members.home.net/richa www.doom9.net www.vcdhelp.com www.digital-digest.com www.labdv.com 2) Adaptec EZ CD Creator can burn SVCDs if they are made with I-Author. Nero (www.ahead.de) is very popular for making SVCDs. There are other programs that can make SVCDs, but I have never used them. 3) Not necessarily. You should look at the DVD player compatibility list at www.vcdhelp.com. I have a friend who has a Sony DVD player and it plays VCD on CD-R with no problem, but it does not play SVCD at all. There is no good reason why a DVD player might not play SVCD as SVCD uses the same type of video as DVD (MPEG-2 video), but many DVD players do lack SVCD support because the company that made it was too lazy to supoort another format.

-- Jason (Jason.Shumate@equant.com), August 21, 2001.

To get better results for VCD you could encode with TMPGEnc. It's a freeware and I've got great results with it compare to LSX. But it's a very time consuming process. 1 minute of DV will take you approximately 4 minutes to encode to mpeg-1. But it's worth the wait.

I would like to recommend you to visit this website http://www.vcdhelp.com/ ,you can get tons of information regarding VCD making. Furthermore you can download TMPGEnc from the links over there.

Thank you

-- Richard (leetsmonic@hotmail.com), August 21, 2001.

Luis perhaps you could visit my web pages on the general subject of VCD SVCD and DVD:

http://www.geocities.com/aussie01au/

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), August 21, 2001.

Better encode it as a KVCD.

For more info please visit www.kvcd.net.

-- C (foo@bar.com), February 03, 2004.

what software do u use to make kvcd's?

-- madmike (admin@mmmnetwork.nobodynetwork.co.uk), December 04, 2004.

You can use Tmpgenc, just download the kvcd templates from http://kvcd.net/dvd-models.html and put them in the template folder.

-- Bob Weaver (spacebass42@hotmail.com), January 09, 2005.