Wanted: TMPGEnc Guide

[Mikki]

There are some very good guides out there for using TMPGEnc to do various conversions, but most I've seen are sort of generic. I want quality. I want to convert divx to svcd, vcd to svcd, etc with the best quality possible. :)

I've messed with this stuff as much as I can with the limited time I have to play, and feel confident I could eventually do this on my own, but I figured with all the video-encoding talent we have here surely someone has it all figured out...;)

TIA! :D

[Duvie]

Sorry I have been absent!!! I am a little under the weather and was in the hospital for a few days...

PLease pm oldfart as he is pretty well versed in tmpgenc....and SVCD

[oldfart]

Hi Duvie. Hope that all is OK with you. Get well SOON!

I've done a bunch of SVCD stuff with TMPGEnc, but all the source has been avi. I haven't dome anything at all with divx.

My work was all getting home movies onto SVCD. My setup was to get 1 Hr of video at the best possible quality on to 1 CDR disk. I have a SVCD setup that I think woks pretty well. It does sacrifice audio quality a little. I used a 96K audio bitrate to increase video bitrate. The source video was from an 8mm camcorder which was nothing special anyway.

I encode using 2 pass VBR which does take a bit of time. If you want, I can send you the mcf file. You can just load it and you will have my settings. The trick is, you are starting with something other than an avi file.

[ThugsRook]

hope youre feeling better Duvie :wave:

[oldfart]

Attached is a template file for AVI to NTSC SVCD. It sets up
2 pass VBR high quality
2620 max, 1675 ave, 300 min bitrate
96K mono audio

It will need tweaking if you use PAL.

This will encode 1 Hr worth of video at good quality that will (just) fit on a 700 Meg CDR. I used VCDimager to make the bin/cue file from the MPEG, and Fireburner to burn the CD.

Man, this is complected to do. :( You need so many programs to do it (and have good results) Since I got the DVD-RW, its so much easier! I use Pinnacle Studio 8 to capture/edit/author and Nero to burn the DVD (although S8 could also do that too).

[Mikki]

Thanks oldfart!!!! :wave: :-)

[ThugsRook]

i just did my 1st DivX to VCD movie conversion. (the DivX is DVD quality, 2:35, 640res)

man that was easy!
encoding time took less then 1:1~
needed 2 cds of course~
quality is excellent~

ill be very surprised to see if SVCD is any better :eek2:
(even if its not VCD is good enough)

dont forget that VCD/SVCD will look like cr@p on a puter but great on a TV.

:wave:

[oldfart]

SVCD looks a lot better.

VCD =
1150 KB/s fixed
MPEG-1
352 x 240 res

SVCD =
Up to 2600 KB/s variable
MPEG-2
480 x 480 res

The 1150 bitrate is what really kills it. A 2 pass VBR encoded SVCD looks pretty darn good.

[ThugsRook]

but is it worth all the extra time and work?
thats what i meant ;)

im getting very good quality for plain old VCD. i have nothing to complain about. if i told you it was a real VCR movie you would have no reason to doubt it. (until i needed to switch disks ;) )

:wave:

[oldfart]

It is more time to encode, but not any extra work really. Mine were 8mm home movies. I didn't like the VCD quality. I could see artifacts from the low bitrate, and the low res gives it a very "soft focus" kind of look. I then tried SVCD and saw an immediate improvement. There are also other options like SVCD using CQ VBR which takes less encoding time. You can also make an XSVCD which uses the low res of VCD and the high bitrate and MPEG2 of SVCD. This allows the bitrate to remain high. If I had to choose, I'd rather have high bitrate Vs high res. The soft focus of the lower res is not as objectionable s the artifacts of a low bitrate.

Whether it is worth it is up to the individual.

[ThugsRook]

well yes, im sure home movies are gonna be a bit different.

as you know im a very serious DivX encoder, so i know the ropes when it comes to quality vs time to encode. i just havent run the VCD vs SVCD vs extra quality options tests yet ;)

i already know that by enabling every single quality option in TMPGenc can easily raise encoding time by a factor of 6. but the question is, do they really do anything and is it worth the time?
for DivX to VCD the answer is NO!

im just very surprised at how good DivX to VCD can be and with a very short encoding time. now ill see if i can make it better and judge weather its actually worth the time or not. im willing to go 2:1 time if the quality is worth it. i am NOT willing to use 3 cds for a movie, 2 max.

ill have it all figured out in a few weeks and ill report back.
(if Duvie was helping me it would take half that time ;) we did some really good work together figuring out DivX5 to the max)

:wave:

[oldfart]

Where I am at a loss here is I never used DivX. The final product can only be as good as the source at best. Is DivX quality ~ the same as VCD to begin with? If so, there is no reason to go to anything above that.

FWIW, last time I benched, it took 2.687 x source length to do a 2 pass VBR high quality encode. Not that bad really.

[ThugsRook]

Originally posted by oldfart
Where I am at a loss here is I never used DivX. The final product can only be as good as the source at best. Is DivX quality ~ the same as VCD to begin with? If so, there is no reason to go to anything above that.
it depends on weather you watch on TV or on your PC. (yes there is a huge difference) TV will be much nicer then a PC.

for a PC ~ DivX can be better then a DVD. but due to file size limitations (i wanted 2 cds max) i settled for DVD quality 640res 192k mp3 with a 2.5:1 encoding time start to finish.

VCD looks like @ss on a PC but looks perfect on a TV so dont get them confused.

DivX looks great on both but can only be played thru a PC :rolleyes:

[Mikki]

i just havent run the VCD vs SVCD vs extra quality options tests yet
Well come on then!! Hehe...:p;):)

[oldfart]

Originally posted by ThugsRook
it depends on weather you watch on TV or on your PC. (yes there is a huge difference) TV will be much nicer then a PC.

for a PC ~ DivX can be better then a DVD. but due to file size limitations (i wanted 2 cds max) i settled for DVD quality 640res 192k mp3 with a 2.5:1 encoding time start to finish.

VCD looks like @ss on a PC but looks perfect on a TV so dont get them confused.

DivX looks great on both but can only be played thru a PC :rolleyes:
I dont watch movies on a PC. VCD looked really bad on my TV. SVCD is MUCH better. Double the bitrate, just about double the res.

DivX is ..640 X ?? What is the bitrate? Going to VCD you've already cut the res to 352 x 240

[ThugsRook]

i havent thoroughly tested SVCD yet so im not sure if its gonna get better for me or by how much and if its actually worth it.
im just very impressed with VCD at the moment.
all i ever heard was that VCD sux, and i expected it to, but it doesnt.
maybe im doing something wrong or maybe my DivX files convert to VCD very very well :scratch:

DivX can be any res / VBR / multipass you want ;)

[oldfart]

If I had the time and ambition to play with it, I'd do some playing around with DivX, but since I dont have any real use for it....wont bother.

VCD is VCD. Res and bitrate are fixed. There are not many tweaks to do with it. SVCD has a lot more options. CBR/VBR, many different ways of doing VBR, different audio options, etc.

It took me awhile to get the settings that worked best for me. It was worth it in the end.

Now its s funny with the DVD-R drive. I make a DVD disk and just set everything to max. 8000 KB/s, 720 x 480 res. SWEET!

[ThugsRook]

no i dont suggest you get involved with DivX.
im getting off of DivX so i can watch my stuff on TV and get it off my puter. if i had a dvd-r i wouldnt be bothering with S/VCD! ;)
in the mean time im limiting myself to 2 CDs.

:wave:

[oldfart]

I have to say, the DVD-R was one of the best PC upgrades I made all year! No more (S)VCD for me!

[Duvie]

Oldfart, the quality that Thugs and I am use to (2-3cd rips) this is better then SVCD in many ppls opinion. I did a couple of SVCD's back early in immature divx 3.11 days (and trust me the 5.05 codec is more mature) and it was a slight advantage to divx back then in my opinion. The other factor for me going to Divx was its free nature!!!

Now can I take my Divx movies convert them to svcd and then burn them on a DVD-r???? That way I can avoid multiple disk. My quality is quite high and often a bit higher then even thugs went after in bitrate. I don't care as long as it doesn't go over 3:1 ratio. I can do it over night for the next 5-6 weeks and I can get them all down!!!

[ThugsRook]

good question!

do the home dvd players support dvd-r svcd? :scratch:

that makes for a very interesting option.

(i think oldfart saw my ST:Nemesis DivX5 sample clip before so hes seen the quality were talkin about ...on a PC)

[Duvie]

Honestly Thugs that is the only way in which I would even look at converting them....Divx/DVD standalone players are getting better and I didn't use the qpel on my encodes anyways...My biggest question would be how finnicky are the standalones with divx 3.11 encodes.....

So SVCD on DVD-r or leave them on divx and still burn them to DVD-r....

Another question....


Could I convert the files to SVCD or mpeg2 standards then import them (maybe 2 on one dvd-r into say pinnacle 8.5 and create menu system and burn to DVD player standards??? Oldfart???

[ThugsRook]

yes ~ easily

or it can just autoplay w/o a menu too, one after another.
very simple, did all my cartoons that way :look:

id be amazed if your dvd-r software couldnt do that.

[oldfart]

Wow, bunch of stuff here.

Thugs, from what Duvie says, you are losing quite bit of quality going to VCD. You should give SVCD a try...not really see below.

I did some reading on CVD. You should give this a try as well. CVD is basically an SVCD, but with the lower VCD resolution. I never tried this, but I think it looks like a very good way to go. I would use 2 pass VBR with it. How much video do you need to put on one disk? The lower res of CVD will allow more video per disk or a higher bitrate (better quality) compared to SVCD. CVD info here (http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/userguides/98177.php)

SVCD on DVD-R is an interesting idea. Here is a guide (http://members.lycos.nl/eenhoornokidoki/). It looks like A LOT OF WORK!
Here is another one (http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/userguides/159399.php). Looks much easier.

I dont think Studio 8 would be much use for this. It is not a very flexible program for doing non standard things like this. I like S8 for capture/edit/and chapters, but it really does suck as an encoder compared to TMPGEnc. It's a heck of a lot slower, and not very flexible

[Moonwizard]

Here is a page where you can read about how to cut a svcd with tmpenc. http://www3.telus.net/dvd/cutting_mpeg_movies.htm

[Duvie]

So oldfart, will the cvd work in the svcd2dvdmpg program??? In the end I still need to convert to DVD format. the advantage on the CVD appears to be the resolution is already standard so no re-encoding needs done...I believe we discussed this once before the stupid pinnacle program re-encodes automatically even when it shouldn't. I see where it offers nothing....

[oldfart]

I wish I had more answers for you Duvie. this is why it is so difficult to have a guide here. there is way too much to talk about. I never tried CVD, never mind putting it on DVD-R. I would just stick with SVCD for that since there are guides made for it. CVD may be good for Thugs since he is using CDR.

Spend some time @ http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ (dvdrhelp.com/) They has great guides and very good forums. I was looking for a bitrate calculator that takes into account the lower res of CVD. Couldn't find one. The bitrates are calculated only for SVCD. I was curious as to how much more time or what the increase in bitrate would be on CVD VS SVCD.

[Duvie]

If you follow his suggestions in the guide he is telling you you can fit 35-38minutes on a cd-r so with a dvd-r we should be looking at 6 times that amount so I would think in some of my cases I may get 2 movies on a disk but not sure how that works...I get a good price on dvd-rw disk so I may go with the 1 per disk if I had too especially for someof the 2hour plus ones....


I am going to try a CVD and see if the SVCD2dvdmpg will read it.....Seems intriguing with the not having to re-encode it going to dvd standards....otherwise I spend the time changing it to SVCD and then the time re-encoding it to a DVD standard....

[oldfart]

I can get 60 min of SVCD on a CDR. It depends on how you encode it. That 35 min is based on a 2500 CBR bitrate and 224 kb/s audio.

[Duvie]

Originally posted by oldfart
I can get 60 min of SVCD on a CDR. It depends on how you encode it. That 35 min is based on a 2500 CBR bitrate and 224 kb/s audio.

Yes, which he said was near DVD-quality...I think tha is what we would like to go for, and many have said my Divx encodings are just that already....