My source file is a DV avi. When I create a VCD the action scenes look smooth. I created a SVCD with 2530 CBR. On this the action scenes are smeared or blocky.

I've downloaded a few SVCDs with plenty of action and they look great. So I know my player can handle SVCD.

This is a big topic....but the first point is, it's likely that the downloaded SVCDS were created from an original that was non-interlaced film footage or DVD, not interlaced DV camcorder footage. Any mug can make a decent SVCD from the first.

I used to have this same problem.

A couple of things:

- Does the SVCD play crappy in both your DVD player and on your computer?

- Compliant SVCD's should only be a max bitrate of around 2400. Actually 2600 is the max, but that includes your audio. So, say 2400 for ****s and giggles. There are allot of stand-alone DVD players that CANT handle SVCD's above 2300. It's because the drive must spin very fast to read the info.
So it is possible that the SVCD's that you downloaded and tested are a lower bitrate and your DVD player can handle them. That rate of 2530 maybe to high for it and the drive can't spin fast enough.

- Interlacing is an issue for me. For some reason when I capture interlaced, the quality is 'blocky'. But if I capture non-interlaced, the quality is smooth....its not supposed to be this way. Interlaced is supposed to be better, but its not for me (to each his own).
VCD's are non-interlaced. So if you capture it interlaced and you encode it to VCD, then its being changed to non-interlaced.
SVCD's on the other hand can be both, and if you are not consiously capturing it non-interlaced or encoding it non-interlaced then its probably coming out interlaced and you may have the blocky problems like I have. To make a short story long: try non-interlace.

- What do you use to encode? I recommend TMPGEnc. Its free and there are tutorials on how to use it on http://www.dvdrhelp.com
Allot of people use Nero to encode because it's easy. But it is a terrible encoder; don't use it.

Thats all I can think of for now from my own experience.

-gammer

I believe since my source is DV, I have no choice but to capture interlaced. I originally tried encoding with cce and then tried procoder because I read that it handles interlaced sources better. The procoder version is better. I'll try lowering the bitrate.

My understanding was that Procoder compensated for interlacing. It was an improvement over cce but still not very good. I just tried deinterlacing and then encoding and it's a huge improvement.

Yeah, Interlacing is a touchy subject. I'm not sure why it wrecks the quality of the capture...its supposed to be better then non-interlace. Anyway, glad to hear its better now.

Cheers,
gammer

There is an explanation for both problems:

Keeping interlaced makes things more blocky:
-> keeping the interlace information requires more bitrate for the same quality (usually about 20% more), so at the same bitrate, the compression artifacts will be worse, but motion will be preserved (60fps vs 30fps)

SVCD worse than VCD ?
- SVCD has 2.7 times the resolution of VCD, but only 2X the bitrate, so this will lead to more compression artifacts, usually less visible due to the higher resolution, but very visible on complex scenes (like fast motion)

The encodeing Method you use will make a Big differance also, When I encode Captures I usually use a 2 or 3 Pass VBR Method in CCE and deinterlace and Use a Temporal smoother to clean up any noise and the Quality is Really Quite good a Lot better than if I just encode it with no filters and CBR encodeing..

>>I'm not sure why it wrecks the quality of the capture

Interlacing doesn't affect capture. After capturing, write the file back out to DV tape and view it. It will look exactly like the original.

Interlacing is not compatible with computer monitors and that creates the illusion of a bad capture.

>>>Interlacing is not compatible with computer monitors and that creates the illusion of a bad capture.

Thats right, it doesn't look good on computer monitors; it gives a "combing" effect. But you said your problem was that it looks "blocky" when played through your DVD player. I assume that means its hooked to your TV?

On paper, interlace is supposed to be better for TV's. But in my case its not.
Its gotta be like Sulik said; the bitrate isn't high enought to eliminate the blocks. This must be why store bought DVD's dont show blocks... they are interlaced too, but their high bitrate fixes the blockyness.

>>>This must be why store bought DVD's dont show blocks... they are interlaced too

But remember that if the original footage the DVD was created from was FILM, and most are, then the original images ARENT interlaced - they are just 24 progressive frames per sec and thats all image info the encoder is needing to cope with.

That's right: most commercial DVDs are FILM, which means progressive @ 24Hz, which is a 20% bitrate reduction (lossless), on top of getting additional benefits because progressive frames are easier to encode than interlaced frames.

(that's why it's important to perform inverse telecine - also called inverse 3:2 pulldown - if your source is FILM and you're capturing NTSC at low bitrate) For PAL, it shouldn't matter.

I found my problem. I'm using DVD2SVCD and the default for Field Order is 'Automatic' (whatever that means). I changed it to 'lower field' and the motion artifacts are gone when using Procoder.

My Tivo used MPEG2. Why aren't interlaced and telecined sources a problem for it?

Lower field first is the correct setting when encoding interlaced from a DV source.

Perhaps your Tivo used upper field first and then everything worked well with your previous settings.