Low Bitrate Settings extensive, following, question, settings

andy

@MarkRB and others

Hi!

I dare post this in the Advanced Topics section...

I am curiously following the threads about MarkRB's settings who uses average bitrates above 2000 kbit/s. On the other hand, there were also extensive tests of the low bitrate matrix and it turned out that the standard matrix seems to be better.

My question: what would be the ideal settings (using the standard matrix) to get 70 min on a 80 min CD-R, i.e. around 1330 kbit/s for video? (For Audio I use 2x 128 kbit/s for two language tracks.)

Some of you might want to say quot;Who the f*** encodes at this bitrate?!quot; but I still like the video quality at this bitrate and almost all movies fit on 2 regular CDs so this is the way to go for me and I guess, for many others who enjoy very good but not super-perfect SVCD video quality.

So, I am waiting for your suggestions!

Cheers,
Harp

PS: if the answers were posted already please accept my apologies. I couldn't find them with the search function...

DDogg had posted some settings he used for his kid's movies for the van.  He made then no longer then 2 cd's pretty much no matter the length.  I don't have to time to scrounge them up now, but try a search and if you don't find them I will try myself when I get a moment.

Mark

Movies that are less then 2 1/2 hours i fit on only 2 cd's myself but my bitrate dosen't go below 1600kb/s mostly i've noticed most movies are 2 hours or less so the bitrates are around 2000kb/s most the time With my settings i get awsome results can't complain i know that my view is anything below 16000kb/s i'd be strapped to make a call if making a vcd would be better because svcd when you start getting 2 low in the bitrates starts 2 look worse then a vcd would of... as i've said before that what looks great 2 me might not 2 someone else so it's all preference.

Filter, temporally and spatially. Crop overscan. Encode at CVD res. Use bilinear resize. Those four things mixed together sound ugly, but they're the only way to go at this bitrate. I recently put 60 minutes on 1 CD with 2 160 kb/s audio streams and with the menus and extras, giving me a bitrate of like 1300. Since it was anime, I used 2D cleaner as well as temporalsmoother, encoded at CVD res with cropped overscan. My avs looked like this;

LoadPlugin(quot;C:\PROGRA~1\DVD2SVCD\MPEG2Dec\MPEG2DEC.dllquot;)
LoadPlugin(quot;C:\PROGRA~1\DVD2SVCD\INVERS~1\DONALD~1\decomb.dllquot;)
mpeg2source(quot;D:\DVD2SVCD\DVD2AV~1.D2Vquot;)
Telecide(guide=1,gthresh=50,chroma=true,threshold=30)
Decimate(cycle=5)
Crop(24,16,672,448)
function VD_2DCleaneroptp3(clip clip, int quot;thresholdquot;, int quot;radiusxquot;,int quot;radiusyquot;, bool quot;interlacedquot;)
{  LoadVirtualdubPlugin(quot;C:\Documents and Settings\default\Desktop\Other\Media\Video\DV\Programs\Editors\VirtualDub\plugins\2dcleanopt_p3.vdfquot;, quot;_VD_2DCleaneroptp3quot;)  return clip._VD_2DCleaneroptp3(default(interlaced,false)?1:0,default(threshold,8),default(radiusx,2),default(radiusy,2))
}
convertToRGB()
VD_2DCleaneroptp3(8,2,2)
convertToYUY2()
BilinearResize(328,448)
AddBorders(12,16,12,16)
TemporalSmoother(2,1)

Using CCE, the quality isn't bad.

i think i've read on this board that VCD is better at lower bitrates than SVCD.  search around and you'll find the source of that info, might be worth your while as you'll save lots of encoding time too.

One problem pacohaas, you're right; compared to 1300 kbps video at 352x480 a vcd would yield a far highter bit : pixel ratio, but both Harp and I mentioned the need for 2 audio streams, something that VCD can't do. As an anime encoder VCD really isnt an option unless burning fansubs that I've downloaded online. Keeping the english dub and the japanese with subs is a much desired feature when copying a DVD and thus occasionally I'm forced to go low bitrate when I don't want to use more than 1 CD.

There is one good thing about low bitrate anime (yep, you heard me right). While it dosent quantize well at all because of high frequencies, it can be spatially filtered to death (how many people are going to get mad at me for saying this we're talking about low bitrate here so). Smartsmoother HQ and 2D cleaner both smooth out flat colors and kill the noise in them, so it helps a ton for the interframe coding since flat areas of color will stay the same for the extent of their time on screen, maximizing redundancy while only losing noise. So I suppose one could say that anime codes well interframe but horribly intraframe.

Yeah its all preference, and from my tests my eye balls wont lie 2 me hehe but anything i tested which when i went under the 1,600kb/s just 2 me, looked not as good as the vcd i threw just about everything at it added all kinds of filters sharpen all that i'm just saying thats what my eyes tell me but regardless i don't count out your way of doing things i just know my settings yield awsome quality and like i said i use only 2 disk per movie unless a movie is over 2 1/2 hours then i'll go 2 3 disks. And not sure who is picky about movie quality but i am and with that said i still do only 2 disks per mo vie

That's something I could never understand. How could a 1150br VCD be better than a 1300br SVCD ?? but I have also read some other threads on this, that also state the same but I have never had that work for me. My SVCD's have always been better than my VCD's. Weird.

@Holomatrix, I believe that people are comparing apples with pears : SVCD @ SVCD size (i.e. 480 x 480/576) and VCD at VCD size (i.e. 352 x 240/288). At equivalent low bitrate (1150-1300), the difference in bits/s/pixel is so huge that SVCD indeed becomes ugly. If you compare apples with apples (i.e. SVCD with the new DVD2sVCD option quot;VCD sizequot;), I can assure you that MPEG 2 VBR or even CBR (SVCD) will be much better quality than MPEG 1 CBR.

@avdmb yes that is what i'm talking about, i always myself do svcd's to spec because all my hardware plays the spec of an svcd, so when you see me talking about quality and such i'm always talking about spec for spec at a lower bitrate vcd starts 2 look way better...that i've seen on tests in person not just reading around ect.

Thanks, Guys (and Girls?) for your suggestions!

Actually what I meant: if you transcode at SVCD resolution at low bitrates what other settings would you chose?
How would you set Temporal Smoother, Sharpen, Resize Method, Image Quality Priority, Anti-noise filter etc. for low bitrate settings?

These things have been discussed and tested extensively in this forum but rather for higher bitrates at or above 2000 kbit/s. They might turn out differently at lower bitrates.

Thanks for the tip about the post by Ddogg, I'll try to find it.

Cheers,
Harp

Edit: Transcoding with CCE and normal matrix.

If u mux 2 audio track with 1 vcd mpeg1 video with bbMPEG but on program stream setting tab select SVCD as stream type, the result is a not standard vcd with 2 audio track.
With my standalone player (Digiquest DVD-2000) works perfectly, just take more time to switch from an audio track to another but it work.
bye.

@harp, assuming your DVD player can play XSVCD (i.e. MPEG 2 video at non standard SVCD sizes), theoretically, you can translate very easily all the advises made for SVCD size at other format with a simple rule of 3 :
. VCD size  = 352 * 240/288 = Reference
. XVCD size = 352 * 480/576 = 2*
. SVCD size = 480 * 480/576 = 3*
. DVD size  = 720 * 480/576 = 4*

For example, you scale all bitrate settings of SVCD size with a factor 2/3 if you want to apply to XVCD size, 1/3 to VCD size or 4/3 to DVD size. It will give the same pixel quality (average bits/pixel), but of course less or more resolution.