DVD/SVCD/VCD quality difference

[besheer]

Tried searching but there are just too many keywords and couldn't come up with an answer.

I just got a Sony Mini DV camcorder and would like to transfer the recordings from the original tape to some sort of disc (CD or DVD) so I can reuse the tapes and so the recordings will last longer. So far, I have been doing the header trick to burn SVCD files as VCD because my old DVD player will not play SVCD. This works fine, but the SVCD format is inferior to that of the original.

My question is this: If I get a DVD burner, will I get quality that is identical to the original tapes? If not, will the DVD burner allow me to make recordings higher in quality than SVCD? Will the difference be noticeable? Also, what am I looking for in a DVD burner? Please note that I am a newbie when it comes to this stuff so please take it easy on me. Thanks in advance.

 

[LTR12101B]

A first step, what are you encoding with - some are a good, and some are bad - though the one always criticised is the Nero plugin, and one that seems well regarded is TMPGENC Plus.

Are you recording SVCD at the highest bitrate (eg. max time is HALF the the CD length) ?
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/svcd


Check out your player here
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers
If it's not fully SVCD compatible, that's not a particularly good sign for it being DVD+/-R compatible.

If your player supported it, XSVCD (using higher than normal bitrates) would be another way to trade quality for time.

Is DVDR better - of course it is ... anything that uses higher bitrates (or better compression) would be - you may like to look at what you could achieve with DIVX, though that would require replacing your player with a Divx-compatible model ... somewhat more expensive at the moment.

 

[besheer]

I am capturing with Ulead and encoding with TMPGENc. And I'm recording SVCD with 2500 kbps bitrate. What do you mean "max time is HALF the the CD length?" I looked through that link, it's very helpful, thank you. But I didn't find anything about half the length.

My DVD player is a Sony DVP-NS315 and according to that awesome link you posted, it does support DVD +/-.

I have read about XSVCD before and was wondering how to do it but TMPGENc does not have an option for that. Is that in the Plus version only? So far I am on the trial version.

Thanks a lot for all your help.

 

[LTR12101B]

If you go to the max bitrate, then you'll only get 40min (actually a bit less) on an 80min CD.

And if you raise the bitrate further, even less

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/tmpgencxvcd.htm
Some more info on XVCD - looks like that file load unlocks the settings or something - your trial (of MPEG2/SVCD encoding) should also be able to encode XSVCD

The free version should be able to encode XVCD, which seems to have several positive reports for your player.

Increase the size, increase the bitrate, test on a CD-RW (if the player takes them) and see how far you can push it.

And of course, it would still need the header trick as an XSVCD - didn't notice any positive or negative references to that.


Depends what you want to spend, but a DVD Burner would certainly be a good thing to have, and apart from type (I'm no expert) I'd suggest that you stick to Retail Boxed (or OEM WITH software supplied) and ensure that DVD (and probably SVCD) encoding is not an extra software module that you have to buy.

 

[besheer]

Is that not the same as SVCD exactly? I don't spot the difference between the two. It seems like that tutorial only lets you adjust the settings to SVCD manually. What am I seeing wrong?