I have been watching the Matrox users site , and came across this posting, by Dr Mordrid, and attempted to convert using these instuctions, but substituting the PAL settings, my results were horrid, and I tried to confirm with Doc the correct PAL settings, I can make reasonable VCD's using Avid Cinema and Xing, but I wish to progress to MSP, where I am unable to get as good results.
Posted on the Matrox users Forum under the thread "Mjpeg to mpeg software or hardware............."
The PROPER way to produce clips for VideoCD is the following;
1. Capture at a resolution that has 480 vertical lines. Capturing at 240 lines means you're only capturing the B field and ignoring all the information in the A field (Marvel & RR-G only; for RRS this is reversed).
Of course the larger the horizontal rez the longer the re-rendering later so be sensible with that. I use 352x480.
2. Deinterlace the video. This combines both the captured fields into one frame with all the captured information in it.
3. Re-render the clip to 352x240 using a non-lossy codec to prevent MJPeg recompression noise (Cinepak comes to mind) at the highest quality for a smooth scaling. This is called "resampling". It's the same methodology as scanning at 600dpi and resampling down to 150 dpi to get a more real look to the image.
4. Encode the resulting .AVI to MPEG-1.
If your source material was captured at 240 lines you're missing half of the image. Capturing at 480 lines and then deinterlacing makes sure you are resampling and encoding as much of the original video as possible.
Any deinterlaced/resampled 480 line frame will look less sharp than the same image captured at 240 lines. If you play the 240 line processed clip next to the raw 240 line capture on a TV you'll see that the 240 line capture doesn't play back as smooth as the processed clip does.
On TV a smoother but slightly blurry playback actually makes the video look more "real".
Dr. Mordrid
If we are to pay a substancial increase in the Mag price, may I suggest that it runs an article on MPEG and VCD's, as I am sure like myself, many people who have taken the plunge into Video Editing would appreciate a little help in the complex settings need to create either MPEG 1, 2 or 4.
footnote: I think that Comp Vid is a great Mag, most of it goes over my head, but to have the cappability to converse with the Editor of any Magazine is quite unique, and I feel compelled to by it.
[This message has been edited by Freddy the Fish (edited 21 May 1999).]
[This message has been edited by Freddy the Fish (edited 21 May 1999).]
Or of course you could buy a MPEG1 Hardware encoder such as the Pinnacle MP10 and connect your DV Camera / Digital VCR to it via the S Video connector and then let the Hardware do all the work. The resultant files can be burned to Video CD via WinOnCd software.
have a look at this site:
http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro
I do agree with your suggestion of articles for MPEG 1 / 2 / 4 and VideoCD creation it would certainly be interesting for me ! I would also like to see articles on creating video for the web
best regards
Steve Allen
Sorry about the slip in the copy pasting, and the spelling misssstakes, thanks for the reply, it seems very lonely on this part of the message board at the moment.....
I think if the Mag ran an MPEG article more people would wake up to the fact that this is a great medium, and the applications are limitless.
i own a Phillips CDI which can be bought from the yellow paper for fifty quid, a real bargain if you are into Video, my Idea is to create the best possible MPEG then save it in the Green Book Format, and be able to archive all my past productions digitaly.
:> ) cheers FTF
I think that most people considering getting tooled up for mpeg production are a bit bewildered by the range of products and the enormous difference between their prices. Individual reviews of products do little to clarify the products merits in relation to the vast array of alternatives.
I would like to see a broad overview of the market, tests of a variety of hardware and software packages using the same clips as the subject and hey! -Why not make the resulting clips downloadable from this site?