SVCD Quality

[Colin]

I have burnt an SVCD disk from an MPEG-2 file made in UleadVS, and I'm disappointed with the picture quality when it is played back, compared with the original MPEG-2 file. My question is, will a DVD burnt from the same file give better quality than SVCD? Is the bit rate for SVCD limited to less than a DVD?

I don't have a DVD writer yet, so I was hoping to send a small movie to a family member overseas on CD instead.

[BrianCee]

Yes a DVD will give much better image quality than a VCD.

A VCD uses a lower bit rate, a smaller resolution and the more compressed mpeg1 format - you should notice quite a difference by changing to a DVD.

[ferro]

You might try DivX. Some standalone DVD players will play it and it compresses better to CD bitrates than MPEG-2 used for SVCDs.

[Ken Berry]

A question and a comment.

Can we assume that in choosing the mpeg-2 format with the intention of burning an SVCD, that you actually chose the SVCD version of mpeg-2? It is a format very specific to SVCDs, with frames that are taller than they are wide -- it gives a slightly squished effect, but when burned comes out fine.

DVD is better than SVCD is better than VCD... That being said, SVCD is capable is surprisingly good quality when produced correctly. However, you need to be aware that many stand-alone DVD players have difficulty with the format generally. Those that will play VCDs and DVDs will not necessarily even recognise an SVCD. So if your intention is to distribute this to a number of different family members who will have different DVD players, some may have difficulty playing it back.

[Colin]

I guess I must have chosen the SVCD version of MPEG-2, as the file certainly did produce a picture that was taller than it was wide, when played in VirtualDub. I wondered why, at the time. Allowing for the strange aspect ratio, this MPEG-2 pic still didn't have the crispness that an XVid version of the same movie had, both played on the computer. Admittedly, I think the XVid file was about twice as large.

But above all, the SVCD looked disappointing in its clarity when tried on the lounge DVD player connected to my TV. It looks like I had better stop playing around with SVCD, and get into DVDs.

Thanks for the comments.

[Ken Berry]

A good quality SVCD will fit about 40 minutes to a CD, and can be surprisingly good in clarity. That being said, though, it is a 'rare' enough format, and probably on its way out, given the incredible drop in DVD burner prices, and now the appearance of Blue Ray etc (even if still prohibitively expensive)...

[DVDDoug]

this MPEG-2 pic still didn't have the crispness that an XVid version of the same movie had.

...compared with the original MPEG-2 file.

Is your original movie Xvid or MPEG-2?

Xvid (MPEG-4) is supposed to give you better quality than MPEG-2, for a given bitrate. The bitrate determines the file size, so you can make a smaller file with Xvid or DivX. But, I'd guess that the best MPEG-2 is better than the best Xvid simply because less data is throw-away with the MPEG-2.

DVDs are MPEG-2, so you can get a DVD that's identical to the original MPEG (if the MPEG has DVD compatible settings.) The actual VOB file on the DVD will be different, but the underlying MPEG-2 data will be unchanged if everything is set up correctly, and the stars are aligned...

These are all lossy formats (Data is thrown-away during compression.) So, you loose some quality every time you encode. If you convert from Xvid to MPEG-2, that's an extra encode step... And, it was probably converted from DVD previously, so that's two extra encode steps. You can minimize the loss by using a high bitrate for all conversions.

[Colin]

My original movie was made from clips off my camera, which produces an avi file using the mjpeg codec. I then asked VS to make an MPEG-2 file to burn onto an SVCD.

Right, an MPEG-2 file should look good, given good source material. Commercial DVDs are fine.

I gather from what Ken said though, that an MPEG-2 file for burning to SVCD is inferior to an MPEG-2 file for burning to DVD.

[heinz-oz]

Your mjpeg avi file is already heavily compressed. Recompression to mpeg2 with bitrates for SVCD will never give you good results.