Now that I've discovered Kwag's wonderful, hi-quality VCD template, the question begs to be asked:

Do we just abandon SVCD?

I'd like to hear Kwag (and any other encoding veteran's) opinion.

Up to now, I usually would do a 2-pass VBR SCVD for material I wanted the best quality for. Does the KVCDx3 rival this? (I used a high bit rate for TV shows - max of 2800 and 2300 average).

Would there be any advantages to ever using SVCD again?

I'd love to hear what you think!


Mojo

The SKVCD was done for 2.1 reasons:
(1) To give an option to people that couldn't play MPEG-1 KVCD's.
(2) For SVCD freaks , to get SVCD quality, in a smaller package.
(.1) For the hell of it

And yes, KVCDx3 is higher quality than any SVCD. It's just like a DVD, when viewed on a HDTV. ( With the default KVCDx3 settings )
Use SVCD's or SKVCD's if you can't play the regular MPEG-1 KVCD templates. If you can, forget SVCD's, and go KVCDx3

-kwag

Kwag:

How can a 352x480 SKVCD possibly look better than a standard 480x480 SVCD?

Because he's talking about his new kvcdx3 template, which is 582(?)x480. HIGHER than 480x480.

The KVCD Templated use a modified Q Matrix which gives better picture for that resolution and they also use a Modifies GOP Structure which will give you better picture with a smaller filesize (aka: better compression).

A-Star

but allow me to tell you that personally i think that kvcd 704x576 pal looks better than kvcdx3 when i watch it on a pc monitor i can only see that 704x576 is sharper - sometimes blocknoise but that ain't sooo bad

Yes, the 704x480(576) will look sharper on a monitor, but not on a regular TV. Both will look the same on standard TV's. On a HDTV, you can see it slightly sharper than the x3. But for high action scenes, the x3 is better, because it's almost blockless on high action. Even viewed on a HDTV. Also, you can fit longer material on a CD with the x3, because of the lower resolution.

-kwag