Hello,
I don't know whether it's me or the templates. I'm trying to convert
an uncompressed captured AVI to SVCD with both KVCD and TMPGEnc SVCD templates, the resulting MPEG file is skinny and tall (just like widescreen but vertically) and the quality is very poor. Whereas the quality of the original AVI is superb.

Is this what SVCD format is or I've done something wrong? Encoding the same AVI to VCD result in better quality than that. Just don't know why ... I've tried with different aspect ratio (1:1 VGA) but it's still skinny and tall

The KVCD template is meant for files that are going to be played on a standalone player on a television. The resolution is 352x480, which is twice the vertical resolution of standard vcd, 352x240. The reason for that is that normal television signal has 480 lines of resolution, interlaced. When you compress the file down to 240, you loose half the lines of resolution. (BTW, SVCD is in MPEG-2 Format and KVCD is encoded in Mpeg-1 format. True SVCD is 480x480, MPEG-2)

Now, if you are playing the resulting file on a standalone player, and it's still coming out skinny and tall, it's likely that your player can't handle that size.

As for quality, I can't speak on that. I've had very good results with everything I've encoded with Kwag's template when played on my television. It's not perfect, but it still looks awfully good.

DrC

Oh thanks for your reply. I forgot to mention that I haven't burnt the resulting MPEG to CD yet and it's PAL. I just tested with Windows Media Player and that's what I've found. It's like in widescreen but vertically!

Is that what SVCD format is like? I also noticed if I watch it in full screen mode (maximise Windows Media Player) the quality is better but still skinny and tall. Any suggestions will be appreciate.

You have to view the mpeg in either PowerDVD or WinDVD, because WMP doesn't understand the aspect ratio.

Or you can burn your mpeg to VCD and view it in your standalone DVD player.

kwag

Thanks kwag ... that was it! PowerDVD shows the resolution correctly. However, audio is OK but the video is too dark (black & white) hardly see anything in PowerDVD.

I then installed MPEG2 CODEC (from www.vcdhelp.com), I could see the video but the color is then too dark, obviously not true color. Again, I haven't burnt it to a CD yet. Any idea kwag?

No idea.
Seems like a problem with your source.

kwag