OK, firstly, great site. Really changed the way I'm doing things, and I only came across the whole KVCD thing a week or two ago. I do however have a couple of questions for anyone who might have a few ideas.

My player won't play non standard VCDs or KVCDs. It does play almost any kind of PAL SVCD no matter what the resolution or bitrate. Before coming across KVCDs I was making movies across about 4 CDs with a resolution of up to 720x576. They looked perfect.

Now if I use a KVCD template, and either change the system to MEPEG2, or use the PAL KVCD MEPG2 one, on my DVD player the image is a bit squashed and the left side is a little missing. It's all quite odd.

Thanks.

Welcome simongwynne!

Alright, if your player supports SVCDs, why don't you first try Standard SVCD resolution (480x576) with KVCD settings? Download the SKVCD Templates for PAL, and change the resolution to 480x576. Also adjust the GOP to this: 1-25-2-1-25. Set Aspect Ratio in TMPGEnc to 4:3 and Video Arrange Method to "Center". You can either encode MPEG-2, or encode MPEG-1 and try the so called "header trick". This means, you mux an MPEG-1 file as an SVCD. The trick works in many players, maybe in yours too.

Are you into AviSynth filtering yet? If not, you have to check that out, as it will improve your picture quality greatly. You should easily be able to put ALL your movies on 2 discs, with the same quality as on 4.
If you're already using AVS-Scripts, please post the script you used, as there might be something wrong in it.

BtW: What brand and model is your player?

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j3llyG0053

Thanks for the reply! Yes, I've tried the standard SVCD resolution, and the result was the same, slightly squashed. I'm pretty certain the header trick doesn't work, but i've tried so many metheds recently, my brain is a little broken, so I'll give it another go later. This may be a silly question, but what's the advantage of using MPEG1 over MPEG2?

I've not delved into the whole Avisynth thing yet, from the outside it looks terrifying. But I will one day, perhaps when I retire.

My player is a Bush 2023. Cheap and cheerful, but as I said before, plays almost anything.

Thanks.

Ok, as long as you don't encode using AviSynth scripts, keep to the following settings, and your movie should look fine.

Aspect Ratio: 4:3 (on the first AND second tab under TMPGEnc)
video arrange method: Full Screen

That's it.
However, AviSynth isn't hard at all, although it will look confusing at the beginning. Try to read some of the guides here, especially black prince's guide for AVI-KVCD conversion. this will open your eyes, i'm sure.
MPEG 1 looks better at low bitrates <3000kb/sec, while MPEG-2 is designed for high bitrates, such as found on DVDs. MPEG1 will also give you a slightly smaller filesize.
You should try the header trick again, or download the KVCD Compatibility Test image CD on the mainpage.

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j3llyG0053

Yep, I use 4:3 and full screen (keep aspect ratio). As I said, if I use the template for a regular SVCD, everything's fine, no matter what the resolution, but the same resolution using a KVCD template causes the problem. It plays fine in WinDVD, it's just my player that looks funny, so perhaps that's the problem. Although I can't think why. I'll check that GOP setting when I get home.

Thanks for your help.

Now that's really weird. KVCD has a different Matrix and a different GOP, but those things have nothing to do with the Aspect Ratio in my opinion.
Let AviSynth do the resizing for you. Install it, and make an AVS script, and see if the problem still exists. If you have problems using AviSynth, feel free to ask!

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j3llyG0053