KVCD: mpeg-1 KVCD at 480x480 or 480x576?
 

I'm asking because I'm not able to fit a movie onto one CD with acceptable quality, so I'm going to try encoding at a lower resolution to see how it looks. (I have to use 544x576 usually because of my standalone).

I don't even know if many players (including mine) will accept these resolutions or not.

Thanks! :)

If you are encoding to MPEG-1 then your best bet for a lower resolution is 352x480.

Regards, Tenra

Why is this better than 480x480? I would think that the higher resolution of 480x480 would be superior? Also, would you use 352x576 for PAL mpeg-1?

Thanks in advance!

The higher resolution of 480x480 is nice but it is less compatible with VCDs since it is a SVCD standard. 352x480 or 352x576 is a standard DVD resolution (I think it is called 1/2D1) so it is more likely to play in your DVD player.

That said, do a test clip of 480x480 and burn it to a cd to see if your DVD player will play it. If so then you can go ahead and use it.

-Tenra

yes friend "net_ten" :wink:

very good explained,like Kwag and "friendalunit" here:
http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic....1e9dc77c0c5eaa

:)

Hi Heller,
Yes, I tried 480x480 KVCD on my AD-1500 and it works. I am now only using 480x480 NTSC because it is the only frame size other than 352x240 that doesn't have a bar along the right edge of the screen when played on the Apex AD-1500. Do you also have this problem with your AD-1500?
Peter

@Heller,

I have had success on my dvd player when dropping the resolution on a KVCDx3 down to 480x480. I had trouble fitting a certain 127-minute movie onto 1 disc at an "acceptable" quality @ 544x480, but using 480x480 did the trick. However, I'm now thinking it might have been better to use 352x480 with some added sharpening in my .avs script via Gripsize(resizer="lanczosresize"). I'd suggest making a sample at each of these resolutions and comparing to see which you prefer (that's what I'm gonna do next time! :) )

@Peter1234

Are you getting this bar(black I assume?) on the right of your screen due to using a blocks-overscan setting that is too high, or is it just a quirk of the apex ad-1500? My Sampo 631cf player also does this "hugs-the-left-of-the-screen" thing with some resolutions if I don't adjust the blocks-overscan in my .avs scripts accordingly. Strangely, I've never noticed a black bar on the left side of my tv screen, even in tests where I used 3 blocks overscan (when even 2 blocks @ that particular resolution caused a black bar on the right). So I'm thinking that my dvd player must be forcing the picture to the left side of the screen when I use a blocks overscan setting that is too high. Just a thought. :)

-d&c

Thanks to everyone for the information!

Peter, much like our original problems getting KVCD to work with our Apex 1500's, I tried a number of test encodes and found the following interesting results for mpeg-1 encoding. For a 23.976fps avi source, 480x480 23.976 encoding left horrible artifacts all over the screen, audio skipping, jumpy video. Were you encoding at 23.976? Encoding at 480x576 25fps left occasional but very noticeable skips in the video, but the audio was okay. Haven't tried 352x480 yet--I'm concerned the lower resolution won't look very good but I'll have to try it to be sure. I haven't had the problem of the bar on the right side of the screen with any of my test encodes--only jumpy audio and video. I usually use overscan=1. Just to be clear, you're using 480x480 NTSC kvcdx3 mpeg-1?

Dazed&confused--Have you tried lanczosresize before and gotten higher quality? Also, does it slow encoding much?

Heller,
Yes using KVCDx3-MPEG-1-NTSCFilm.mcf template with size changed to 480x480 and frame rate changed to 29.97 fps. Aspect ratio is 4:3 525 line (NTSC). I am using VCDEasy 1.1.4 to make VCD 2.0. Maybe Nero is a problem. 352x240 also works on AD-1500. I am also using

mergechroma(blur(1.1))
mergeluma(blur(0.2))

I find that allows longer encodes at same quality. Maybe if you use these you can use 704x480 for your video. You can also use mpeg2 with the TMPGEnc SVCD matrix and GOP for 480x480 with good results. Please tell me if you are getting a bar of about 6 pixels wide on the right edge of your TV screen when you use 704x480. I stopped using 704x480 because of it. It is there even with overscan set. On TV only, not on computer. Do you see this with your AD-1500?

dazed&confused
The bar is not black. Hard to describe. It is often blue but changes with the content of the video. It is not there with per spec VCD and SVCD videos, but it is there with per DVD spec mpeg2 videos recorded on CDs, even with low data bit rates. It is not there with non-spec 480x480 and 352x240 videos. I assume it is an AD-1500 problem. Has me dazed&confused also.
Peter

heller,

FaeryDust gives a better, sharper picture than SpaceDust (with a rather large increase in encoding time but a relatively small increase in filesize). LanczosResize gives a sharper picture than BilinearResize does (with a tiny increase in encoding time and a small increase in filesize---but slightly larger than the size-difference between using FaeryDust or SpaceDust---). Personally, I think FaeryDust+BilinearResize looks much better/sharper than SpaceDust+BilinearResize or even SpaceDust+LanczosResize, but SpaceDust+Lanczos is very close, and it is what I would use if speed+quality were important to me. FaeryDust+Bilinear gives a slightly smaller filesize than SpaceDust+Lanczos though. So really, it's the best of both worlds to me, because I don't need to use any sharpening if I use FaeryDust.

When I encoded that 127-minute kvcdx3 @ 480x480, it definetly looked better/sharper to me than the sample I made @352x480 (but I didn't try sharpening with lanczos and I should have!). Depending on how much extra space you're trying to fit onto your disc at an "acceptable" quality, if you drop down the rez to 352x480, you might be able to use lanczos and still come out with a smaller filesize than if you were to use 480x480 with bilinear resize. And if 352x480_+_lanczos looks good to you and it saves you more space than 480x480, then you could use whatever space was left over for upping your CQ a bit as well. This is why I suggested you try a sample of each to see which one you prefer.

Personally, I do overnight encodes and worry more about quality than speed, so I've been using the following .avs script on my last couple encodes with excellent results:

Using that script, I'm getting excellent compression gains and can't really see the difference (to not using mergeluma/chroma & dctfilter) on a regular 4:3 30" TV(though some people might). I suggest you check out the growing thread in the Avisynth forum about using MergeChroma/Luma to gain compression if you aren't using it already....it could really help you fit some more minutes on your 1-disc encodes at practically the same quality, and then maybe you wouldn't have to lower your resolution (although it adds to your encoding time some, especially if you leave the mergeluma_before_your resizing...check out kwag's latest "maniac filtering" script). Anyways, hope you found something helpful in all that. :) Happy encoding.

-d&c

Thanks for the info Peter and dazed&confused.

Peter, when you're encoding mpeg-1 at 480x480 29.97 fps, what is the source fps? Is it 23.976? Are you actually gaining anything compared to 544x576 at 25fps since you're using a higher framerate? In any case, it looks like I'll have to try your 480x480 suggestion to see if it works. I'll also try the 704x480 for you too and see if I get the same problem on the right side. Are you doing this resolution at 29.97 also?

Dazed, thanks for all the info on the dust filters and resizing. Looks like faerydust+bilinear is the way to go. I'm going to check out the avisynth thread and try out the chroma/luna filters. For your 480x480 encodes, what frame rate are you using, and what's your source framerate?

Thanks a lot guys! :D

Heller,
Source is 23.976 fps. I have not used 544x576 because of bar at right. Yes I am using 29.97 fps with 704x480. But, bar is there with 25 fps also. Thanks for checking this. I am beginning to think I should buy a different DVD player.
Peter

That's strage, Peter, because at 544x576 25fps I don't get the black bar on the right. I'll let you know how the other resolutions and fps tests work out... :?

dazed&confused,
Thanks for the info about Gripsize(resizer="lanczosresize"). I tried it and the sharpness definitely improved. Why aren't you using it in your sample script?
Peter

dazed&confused,
Sorry, I guess you already answered that.
Peter

My source was a dvd shot>95%Film (but I like to IVTC in my .avs script rather than using ForceFilm in dvd2avi). Unfortunately, my dvd player will only play the 352x240 resolution templates @ a framerate of 23.97fps. For the rest of the templates, I have to up it to 29.97fps (and yes, I realize that I have decimate() in my script, but to me it's easier to just leave it there and switch to 29.97fps in TMPGEnc...I think I tried it once, and for some reason the encode was slightly quicker to leave the decimate line in my script and set TMPG to 29.97fps than it was to comment it out...this might not be the best way to do it, but the result works for me, and "if it ain't broke bad enough, then I don't fix it" :lol: ).

I suppose I could try encoding @25fps also and then speeding up the audio to match the video, but that seems like a lot of work to me, and I'm not certain I'd like the "mickey-mouse" higher-pitched audio effect that I've heard some people say occurs when you do this. I'm happy enough (beauty is subjective afterall :wink: ) with the quality I manage to get on 1 disc with the slightly modified (544x480 instead of 528x480 so my player will play it) kvcdx3 template @29.97fps (hey, it's still worlds better than standard vcd!). I don't think I've had to drop lower than CQ55 yet, and on 90-105 minute movies, I've gotten as high as CQ79, depending on the source. I've showed people a few of my better encodes and they think they're watching the dvd...this stuff sure is fun.

If the movie is right around 2 hours, then I know that I have to do a test encode @544x480 and see if it's acceptable quality (again, it'd probably look like crap to some of the folks here, but a rose is a rose I suppose...). If I have to, I drop the resolution down to 480x480. If that's still no good, then I'd try kwag's "maniac" technique and add a couple more smoothers to increase compression. I'm also going to try 352x480 with lanczos-resize next time I do a slightly longer than 2 hour movie and see how that looks as well.

Sorry to ramble guys... :oops: Happy encoding!
-d&c

Well guys these are my results with a 23.976fps source avi on my Apex 1500:

352x240 23.976 works fine
352x288 25fps video skipping
352x480 23.976 video skipping
352x576 25fps skipping
544x576 25fps skipping?!?! (on another source this has worked fine for me in the past!)
704x480 23.976 skipping
704x576 25fps skipping
480x480 29.97 works fine

I'm going to try 544x480 23.976 to complete the tests, but I'm completely baffled. Using another 23.976 avi in the past I could get 544x576 at 25fps to work perfectly! Peter, have you had problems like this with video skipping (looks like dropped frames) but audio staying in synch? I don't understand why this doesn't work now when it did just a couple of weeks ago.

BTW, I haven't had any of the black bar problems that you mention, sorry. :?

Well, as I expected 544x480 23.976 encode had skipping video as well (but audio was fine and in sync). This is very puzzling, since I had 544x576 25fps encoding working fine with a different 23.976 source.

In any case, like you Peter it appears that I'm stuck with 480x480 29.97 for my 23.976 source mpeg-1 kvcdx3 encodes for now... :cry:

Heller,
Thank you for checking for the bar at right side of screen. It must just be my DVD player. There seems to be a lot of different versions of the AD-1500. Like dazed&confused, I can only get 23.976 fps to work at the 352x240 frame size. I have mostly been using 704x480, 480x480, and 352x240 at 29.97 fps for mpeg1. Lately I have been using mpeg2 at 480x480 with 3:2 pulldown to get 23.976 with 23.976 sources. If I didn't have the bar problem I would be using 704x480 because that gives better image quality.
Peter

I haven't tried much at 25 fps since my TV is NTSC.

Peter,

Sorry to hear that your player may be at fault. I actually have loved my Apex 1500 for the most part because it takes any disc I throw at it, and accepts standard VCD and SVCD without any problem at all. Non-standard KVCD is another matter as we both know well...

How do you find the quality of mpeg-2 vs. mpeg-1 at 480x480? I switched to mpeg-1 relatively recently because I was unsatisfied with mpeg-2 at the low bitrates needed to fit 1.5-2 hours on one disc (way too many DCT blocks in monochromatic areas). On top of that, with kwag's matrix mpeg-1 just looks beautiful at the higher resolutions (if you're willing to span multiple discs for one movie).

Next I'm going to check 544x480 and 704x480 with 29.97 to make sure it works okay, but it seems like it should with a 23.976 source.

Let me know if there's anything else you'd like me to check on my Apex for you. :D

Heller,
704x480 and 544x480 both work for me at 29.97 fps. KVCD is better than mpeg2 and encodes faster, but I am getting very good quality with 480x480 mpeg2 for 1 hour SVCDs and good quality for 2 hour SVCDs. With mpeg2 I can watch 480x480 videos full screen using Windows Media Player but not with 480x480 mpeg1. With mpeg2 I am making spec SVCDs that should play in most DVD players while 480x480 mpeg1 does not play in many players. I am constrained to 480x480 by my bar problem so it seems reasonable to make SVCDs, but you aren't. KVCD mpeg1 will give you more video per CD.
Peter

dazed&confused,

I do not understand your audio problem. I am encoding from AVI files and so I use system (video + audio) for stream type and there are no audio problems converting between frame rates. I have also generated separate audio and video files and then muxed them using TMPGEnc MPEG tools and there were no problems with that either when converting between frame rates. One second of video should match one second of audio no matter what the frame rate is.

Thanks for your inputs. I am trying modifications of your script and getting great results. I still need to install AviSynth 2.5 so I can try the DctFilter. The DctFilter filter documentation says it only works with 2.5 alpha version, but the only download I can find is 2.5 beta. Which version of AviSynth are you using?


Peter

Peter1234,

I don't have any audio problems, I've only heard about it. Right now, I'm only interested in backing up my dvd collection (mostly hollywood movies) to kvcd using the full manual method as in Black Prince's dvd2kvcd guide, so probably all the source material I'm dealing with will be shot on Film @23.97fps. The audio problem I was referring to is something that occurs when people use the line AssumeFPS in their .avs scripts to increase the framerate from 23.97 up to 25fps (they might do this if their dvd player supports kvcd @25fps, but not @23.97fps). Then they have to change the rate of the audio so it keeps up with the increased video framerate, and in doing so, the pitch of the audio increases a bit (hence, the "mickey mouse" effect). At least, this is my understanding of it from reading other peoples' posts on the subject...I could be mistaken. I've read it's then possible to eliminate this high-pitch problem with some other audio editing programs like Cool-Edit or SoundForge or something, but this all seems like way too much hassle to me for the roughly ~20% compression increase I'd get using 25fps instead of 29.97fps(that is, IF my dvd player could even handle 25fps kvcds...I have no 25fps dvd source material to test with, and doubt I ever will...I also have no real interest in divx/xvid/etc material). So this method doesn't sound like something I'll be trying anytime soon.

I'm glad you're getting some extra compression with the mergeluma/chroma lines in your script and enjoying the results. I believe it was jellygoose who brought this to everyone's attention, so he's truly the one to thank(and as always, kwag and the other higher-ups who do all the great testing)...all I did was point it out to heller in case he wasn't aware of it yet since he had mentioned he was struggling for extra compression. As I said in my previous posts, quality is pretty subjective, so you'll definetly need to experiment with what's best for you. I only have a midsize, regular 4:3 TV (and not the greatest set of eyes in the world either), so I don't notice a difference when using the mergeluma/chroma lines at my chosen strength settings, but some people would I'm sure (especially if they have an hdtv I guess). Same way some people wouldn't notice a difference between using FaeryDust or SpaceDust, but personally I do, especially with the lower CQ levels that I'm forced to use sometimes for ~120-135minute movies. To each his own.

Regarding your DCTFilter question, no, you don't need to install Avisynth2.5 to use it. Sansgrip made it compatible with 2.07. Here's the link: http://www.jungleweb.net/~sansgrip/DctFilter_YUY2.zip . (the documentation that comes with it still only says that it's for 2.57, but that's not correct. Actually, DCTFilter won't save you much space (I'm thinking probably less than 10MB in the end), but it adds practically no time to the encoding process so it really can't hurt if you need every extra drop of space you can get. I usually take overburning into account when I do my kvcd's so that I can get an extra 15-20MB of space (I really hafta use every trick I can to gain space since I have to encode @29.97fps! :wink: ), and there's been a couple times when I went over the max by just a couple MB, so it would've helped in those circumstances. :roll:

Regards,
-d&c

Dazed&confused,

Thanks for the wealth of information!
I'm playing around with mergechroma and mergeluma right now--the first settings I tried caused too much bluriness on my big screen TV, so I'm going to have to try and tweak it a little bit. I'll also have to check out using DCT.

Happy encoding! :D

Dazed&confused,

Yes, thanks from me also. With your help I was able to download and try the DctFilter. However, I feel that it blurs the image noticeably with your settings. I think the following script is the best I have been able to do so far at 480x480.

AVISource("C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\test.avi")
ConvertToYUY2
LegalClip()
GripCrop( width=480, height=480, overscan=0 )
Gripsize(resizer="lanczosresize")
mergechroma(blur(1.1))
mergeluma(blur(0.2))
FaeryDust()
Convolution3D(preset="movieLQ")
# DctFilter(1,1,1,1,1,.5,.5,0)
GripBorders()
LegalClip()
ConvertToRGB24

Peter

Yeah, you'll hafta keep testing 'til you find your "acceptable" settings and perfect script. I certainly know mine is not 100% ideal for everyone, but it's what I need to do on longer movies to fit them on 1 disc @29.97fps...unfortunately, it's necessary for me to be a bit less stringent with my tolerance levels than some other people :cry: :evil: :wink: . The trick is finding that sweet-spot that gives you the most compression at a still-tolerable (or almost unnoticeable) quality loss. Luckily, due to my tv's medium-small size and the fact that it's just a regular 4:3 one and not hdtv, the quality loss is barely noticeable to me at those settings.

So you did notice a difference between using DCTFilter(1,1,1,1,1,.5,.5,0) and not using it? 'Cause I didn't...although it could be due to my tv or dvd player (or eyes!) I guess. Was that the only change you made in your script when you did the comparison? You could try (1,1,1,1,1,1,.5,0) and see if that's acceptable to you. That is the strength that kwag and some others are currently using on it. You'll get even more miniscule space-savings that way, but even if you only save 3MB, it could be the difference sometime between your being able to use 128kbps or 160kbps audio....you never know.

Thanks guys...let me know how you get along.
-d&c

dazed&confused,
I only commented it out, that way if I need just a little more compression I can put it back in easily. Most of my videos are less than an hour so I really don't need it right now. If you want to put a lot of video on one CD use the script I posted with a 352x240 frame size at 23.976 fps. It will give you almost normal VCD quality at 3 hours per CD if you use 96 kbps audio. That really amazed me. But I am not happy with normal VCD quality, which is why I am trying all this.
Peter

Since it came up in this thread before, I figured I'd let you know about my results with converting 23.976 source material to 25fps KVCD.

If you use assumefps(25) the audio becomes out of sync and you'll have to jump through hoops to resample it to the proper length.

However, I found that if you use convertfps(25) the result is smooth playback that sync's with the audio just fine (I let TMPGEnc mux for me with a wav file as the audio source--it may not work as well if you mux with BBMPeg after encoding with TMPGEnc, I didn't try it that way). However, when I used the appropriate PAL resolution of 544x576 the image was "squished" vertically so everything looked a little flat. I used gripcrop, gripsize and gripborders, but it was still squashed compared to 544x480 at 29.97.

Any ideas on why this happens?

Also, I found that 544x480 at 29.97 vs. 544x576 at 25fps(converted) was only very slightly bigger file size (like 3-4%), so doing this doesn't save much space anyway. I'm just curious as to why the aspect ratio problem is occurring.

Heller,

When you use AssumeFPS the number of frames in your movie remains the same but it plays at a different number of frames per second. In a 23.976fps to 25fps conversion this means your film will play slightly faster and the audio must be converted.

When you use ConvertFPS the speed of your film remains the same but some frames are blended to create the correct framerate. This results in a slight loss of quality. A good benefit is that the film plays at the correct speed and the audio does not have to be converted.

The best option is to not change the framerate if you can help it, because either method changes how the movie was meant to be viewed. If you need to change the framerate then it is up to you to decide if the speed changing or the picture quality loss is the better of two evils.

Regards, Tenra

Heller,
Why don't you just set the frame rate to 25 in TMPGEnc and let it change the speed? It seems to do a pretty good job of changing from 23.976 to 25 fps for me. It probably doubles one of the frames each second.
Peter

Peter,

The thread that will never die!

I tried that on an animated 23.976 source and it looked fine, but when I tried it on a different live-action source there was visible stuttering every few seconds. I confirmed this on another live-action source as well. I don't understand why I didn't see it with the animated source. The stuttering was gone if I used convertfps however.

In the end, though, it hardly saves any space to convert to 25fps at 544x576 vs. 29.97 at 544.480, and visually I don't see much of a difference between the two, so I'm not going to fool around with this converting anymore. I think I'll just use 29.97 for everything.

Thanks for the continued assistance! :)