Timberwolf,
Settings on Advanced tab are: 4:3 525 line (NTSC 704x480), Full screen (keep aspect ratio), pixel boxes are greyed out and have values 320 x 240. Settings on Video tab size boxes are 704 x 560, stream type is MPEG-1 video, Aspect ratio is 4:3 525 line (NTSC), Frame rate is 23.976 fps. Settings on System tab are MPEG-1 Video-CD (non-standard). Resulting disk has sound with black screen.

oops, sorry you're right. it should be changed at the video tab and not at the advance tab. Actually I also change the Aspect ratio to 4:3 625 line (PAL) although it still works if you don't because I once forgot and it still worked.

strange that you have a black screen, I just can't think of a reason why. I don't think it's the TmpGenC because I've used several versions of it and they all worked.

Right now I'm doing The Bourne Identity and my settings at the Video tab is mpeg1 video; 704x576; 4:6 625 line (PAL); 25fps CQ = 78 300 - 2500. Advance tab settings are Non-interlaced progressive; Bottom field first (Field B); 16:9 525 line (NTSC) source aspect ratio; Full screen video arrange method.

This is using the new KVCD x 2 template, but of course any of them will work except for the KVCDx3 with the 578x480 res which did not work in my initial trial.

Anyways, I tried encoding a few minutes of the movie mentioned earlier and it works! That sucks that it's not working for you man. I also feel bad that the one time I could help someone, it turned out that I couldn't. I hope you don't give up on it right away, anyway good luck!

Timberwolf,
I'm glad it works for you. That means I may be able to get it working also. Thanks for all of the info. I will keep playing with it and maybe I will find the correct combination of settings to make it work for me. Thanks again,
Peter

Peter1234,

I can't get mpeg-1 to work on my apex-1500 properly either (which is why I use SVCD encoding and mpeg-2). I believe that about a year ago Apex stopped supporting the VCD standard (due to its unwillingness to foot the licensing bill to the best of my knowledge), and we may both be stuck with players that won't do VCD. I believe you can get mpeg-1 to work if you remux it as a SVCD, but I haven't tried this yet.

After my current round of encoding trials I'll give KVCD a try with remuxing!

I hope this information is accurate and helpful.

Peter, what heller said may be the reason why?

I bought my unit a year ago before apex stopped their support on vcds. If you bought yours later maybe it's got a new firmware or something that's why we're getting different results. I don't know since I'm talking out of my arse right now.

Yeah, you could do that remuxing as an SVCD too as heller suggested. I used to do that before I found out this other way of doing it.

My Apex AD-1500 plays VCD disks made using the default TMPGEnc values. But when I use the KVCD mpeg1 templates it has problems playing the VCD (jerky video is most common problem). I have been using the KDVD 704x480 template and generating an SVCD. This works fine but may not have as good quality as KVCD at lower bit rates.

I have tried several ways of remuxing the audio using TMPGEnc and BBmpeg but have not found a way to make it work. What is strange is that if I use the KVCDx2-CQ-704x480-_NTSCFilm_-PLUS.mcf template and encode a mpeg1 System (Video only) file and generate a mpeg1 VCD using VCDEasy, the video plays fine. But when I try to add sound the video gets messed up. If you find out how to do it please let me know what to do.

Peter,

I'm in the middle of doing a bunch of test encoding right now, but this is what seems to work with the best quality for me on my Apex 1500:

KVCDx3 mpeg-1 templates, change the resolution to 544x480 (or 544x576 for PAL).
For 25 fps avi sources I just use the PAL template and it works fine. For 23.976 sources, if you use 23.976 for the framerate there's lots of skipping, so CHANGE TO 29.97! I have TMPGEnc mux the audio and video for me, and use 128 kb/sec for the audio stream without any problem.

I've tried changing the VBV to 22 as someone else suggested, but I don't see much difference except a smaller file size ( Kwag or Sansgrip--what effect does VBV have??)

For some reason this looks MUCH better on my Apex than KVCDx3 mpeg-2 encodes (which have visible scan lines and are less sharp)!

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the update.
This works for me also. However, I recommend using 704x480 instead of 544x480. 704x480 seems to give a better picture on TV at the same data rate and also gives a good picture in Windows Media Player. I tested using 1400 kbps CBR video and 128 kbps audio for both to get a fair comparison (this would be about a one hour CD). Also, using 29.97 fps causes some of the frames to be repeated when the source is 24 fps, this can sometimes be noticed.

I also compared 544x480 against 704x480 using 700 kbps CBR video and 96 kbps audio and still feel that 704x480 is better. This gives about 2 hours per CD and definitely has better quality than mpeg2 at the same data rate. Looks good on computer but not so good on TV (I'm not sure why). This is the script I used (width changed for 544x480).

AVISource("C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\test.avi")
ConvertToYUY2
LegalClip()
GripCrop( width=704, height=480, overscan=0 )
GripSize()
FaeryDust()
TemporalCleaner()
GripBorders()
LegalClip()
ConvertToRGB24

This would be great if it looked as good on TV as it does on computer monitor. I have a 53" TV also and it shows all of the flaws in the video. Might look OK on a smaller TV. Anyhow, at this data rate I think mpeg1 is better than mpeg2 (KVCD is better than KDVD) but picture quality on TV is not real good. Maybe you will have different results.

Peter,

You're trying 704x480 with kvcdx3 mpeg-1, right?
Won't this always create larger files than the same template at 544x480 since its a higher resolution?

I've give it a shot just myself to see how it looks. Do you have the "jittery" video problem with 23.976 NTSC KVCD on the Apex? For some reason it doesn't happen with 25fps avi sources for me.

Looks like I was wrong about our players and VCD compatibility since it looks like its working for me okay at 544x480.

Thanks!

Heller,
Yes, I am testing with KVCDx3 mpeg1 at 29.97 fps. I have only had problems on the Apex AD-1500 with KVCD templates that use 23.976 fps (but they all seem to). KVCD with frame rate changed to 29.97 fps plays fine (I think, I haven't done much testing).

Using 704x480 will produce the same size files as 544x480 if the data rate is set the same (that is why I tested using CBR). One has more bits per pixel for a given data rate and the other has more pixels with less bits per pixels at the same data rate. I think that using the bits to get more pixels gives better picture than using more bits per pixel at the data rates I tested at. This is definitely true at high data rates but as the data rate is reduced at some point having more bits per pixel will give a better picture.

Heller,
I did a check using KVCDx3 with the size changed to 544x480 using a 24 fps source and it produced jerky video. I also tried it using 24 fps instead of 23.976 in KVCDx3 with 544x480 and the video was still jerky. Only seems to work if I change the fps to 29.97in the KVCD template. Maybe using a 25 fps source is magic. I do not have a 25 fps source so I can not test this on my AD-1500. I will try to make one and try it.

Heller,
I made a 25 fps AVI and used it with the KVCDx3-MPEG-1-NTSCFilm.mcf template which had size changed to 544x480 (nothing else changed) and the resulting VCD had jerky video on the AD-1500. Please confirm your results.

Peter,

With your 25fps source use the kvcdx3 PAL mpeg-1 template and see what happens (change resolution to 544x576). For me this has worked fine for several different test avi's. My problem is encoding 23.976 sources (as you said, most are at this framerate)--the KVCDx3 NTSCfilm produces jerky output unless you change the framerate to 29.97 which seems to work fine. You mentioned something about repeated frames, so I'll need to keep an eye out to see if I'm getting them but haven't notices. At least the jerkiness is gone and the quality is fantastic.

BTW, I use CQ encoding for everything--have you tried this instead of CBR?

Heller,
Thanks, I will try using the PAL template, but I have to go to a meeting now. To go from 24 fps to 30 fps the encoder uses 6 of the frames twice during each second. Not normally noticeable, but sometimes is (not something to worry about). I was only using CBR for the test. CQ is what you should normally use.

Peter,

I'm so glad I tried your suggestion--704x480 (and 704x576 for 25 fps encodes) are absolutely beautiful on my TV. In comparison to 544x480 they're slightly sharper (especially in animated movies with lots of straight edges going diagonally across the screen). Most amazingly, though, is that with the same CQ value the 704x480 encodes are not much bigger than the 544x480 files (e.g. 11.1 MB vs. 10.5)--I can't for the life of me figure out how it can look so better and not be much bigger files. I'm using pretty much the same script as you except I use spacedust instead of faerydust, and use overscan=1.

Try the PAL resolutions for 25 fps encodes (704x576) and see if that helps get rid of the jerkiness. If I try 704x480 or 544x480 with 25 fps avi files I get the jerkiness, but not with PAL resolutions for some reason.

Heller,
I tried the KVCDx3-MPEG-1-PAL.mcf template with size changed to 544x576 (no other changes) using 23.976 fps and 25 fps AVI source files. Both played perfectly. I think you have a good solution. You should tell Kwag to put a note on the DVD compatibility chart for the Apex AD-1500 saying "for 23.976 fps source files use KVCDx3-MPEG-1-PAL.mcf template with size changed to 544x576" so that others will know how to do it also. Thanks for your help.

Using 25 fps instead of 29.97 fps will give you an extra 5 frames worth of data each second that can either be used to reduce the data rate or improve the quailty. That means you should be able to get 20% more video on a CD with the same quality if you use 25 fps instead of 29.97 fps. So this is a much better solution than using the NTSC template at 29.97 fps.

It would also be good to check to see if the size really has to be changed. Maybe all we had to do was use the PAL template. I will check this later.

Heller,
I may have been wrong about getting an extra 20% video per CD. That would be true if the frame sizes were the same for both. To get the correct value the difference in frame size needs to be considered also. Comparing a 704x480 frame size against a 704x576 frame size there is a 20% difference, so what you gain in frames per second is lost in frame size and both videos will be the same length. I think. Well anyway, it works great, thanks again.

You just did
Page updated.

Thanks,
-kwag