KVCD: MPEG1 vs. MPEG2 ?
 

Assuming you have a DVD player that would play all reasonable formats, do you lose anything by leaving your end result in MPEG1.

Before I came across these templates I had success creating MPEG2 output (SVCD) in TMPGEnc and then running the demux to "trick" the file into looking like MPEG1 VBR. I could then use Nero or VCDEasy to create a VCD with MPEG2 video under the belief that MPEG2 was an EXTENSION of the MPEG1 standard thus providing more opportunity for quality at the same size.

On this site it appears that MPEG1 is the prefered output and the MPEG2 is the second choice.

My question is related to VCD production only... not any type of high bitrate near DVD quality output.

So... at a given bit rate is there a quality difference between MPEG2 and MPEG1 output? If so, is the additional value preserved when you demux the file and then make it look like a non-standard MPEG1 output?


Grantman

i suppose that there is a different if you use the same bitrate, because mpeg2 files with the same settings are 10 % larger than mpeg1 files. it also seems that mpeg2 can't get along with too low bitrates, because it was made for higher bitrates > dvds. sometimes you may experience asynchronisation if you burn a svcd with a minimum bitrate too low

No, no no....
Mpeg-2 gives you more compressing techniques etc., but the results sucks when compared to mpeg-1. Why? Simple! TMPGEnc mpeg-2 encoding simply sucks! Try to make same clip using same settings, so that the only difference is encpding format. Use bitrateviewer to show the quantizers. As you can see the mpeg-2 file has bigger quantizers because of tmpgenc crappy encoding methods. Try to make same clip with cce and try to hit the same average bitrate. As you will then see the average quantizer is somewhere between tmpgencs mpeg-1 and mpeg-2 and it doesn't even have any gop/matrixes tweaks.

I agree with you (Latexxx) entirely, I have done some tests and found what you described (Tmpeg's mpeg-2 sucks!). It is a pitty that we can't put KVCDs (original, x2, x3, SKVCD) onto DVD discs and to view on standalone players, we can only store KVCDs in DVD discs as files or view on computers.

That's why KDVD templates were made. Use them to put your content on DVD's. As to the MPEG-2 issue, I believe it was true with older TMPEG versions. I have tested the latest TMPEG 2.57 and 2.58, and the results are almost the same as CCE. Bit rate viewer will show a different quantization scale from two identical encodes of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 samples, but the visual quality of both samples is almost undistinguishable.
Above 3.5Mbits, there's no difference anymore between CCE or TMPEG.

-kwag

It would be even nicer if they would be similar in bitrates about 2000.