PAL users, still the second class citizen...; are you being served?

Elysium wrote on 3/28/2002, 5:50 PM

Firstly regarding the Widescreen Playback issue that has been dogging me for a number of months:

The problem with making a complaint about any product is getting the developers to take you seriously. Its taken a little time and a lot of frustrating moments, but it seems that SF have actually bothered (after a while) to look into the problem that I mentioned regarding erratic playback on some Widescreen TVs. So, with the help of an updated .dll file it seems to have corrected the problem perfectly .. However, It strikes me that a lot of people who are currently happily plodding away creating video primarily being played through their 4:3 equipment.. may in the future find that that very same video footage when played through a Widescreen TV (Philips, Sony) *could* result in the problems that I outlined….

.. namely that whenever a transition point takes place, would cause the TV set to mistake it for a signal to switch to one of its other modes. This is sometimes used in advertisements when a broadcast you may be watching is in 4:3 .. only for the advertisement to be played in full widescreen mode.. there is a change of mode. The problem with Vegas 3 was that no matter when a transition point was played it would cause the mode of your TV to change from (say) 4:3 into Widescreen .. now imagine a typical generated video with all of its possible transitions and each time having to watch the screen stretch and shrink .. it was excruciating to watch! Now, if your not using the updated .dll file then I presume that you might be unfortunate to discover the same thing yourself in time.. maybe in a year or two when you change to a new TV set.

I don’t intend to go on about this any more now as its working fine.. and although SF have resolved the problem I still feel that too much time had passed and that I wasn’t being taken as seriously as I should have been in the first place. Its all very well developers coming back with the well used line of, “well mate, we can’t re-create the problem here..’ .. inferring that its your fault .. but its not good enough. I don’t know if SF could have done any more than they have, but giving more of an impression that a problem is being taken seriously would actually help convey that they are not just sitting on their backsides thinking of ways to make extra money in the 3.5 or 4.0 release.. It’s a problem that should never have been in the product in the first place.. Adobe Premiere never had this problem ..

But that aside .. :

Now they might like to sort out the frame-serve addon.. because once again, PAL MPEG encoding is simply not good enough. This is another *serious* issue with the product.. it’s a fact that the NTSC areas are being treated to a better product than PAL users.. and this *must* be addressed sooner rather than later. I don’t care much for a “help file..” on how to tweak the Main Concept codec.. I expect either the product to generate *adequate* SVCD and DVD PAL video through the program *or* allow us to frameserve to an encoder of our choice... not to have to put up with countless comments about how superior the Main Concept encoder is to others out there.. forget the others, we want to the same level of performance our NTSC counterparts are having and currently we are being treated shabbily!

So, come on SF .. put the NTSC people to one side for a moment and concentrate on PAL users for a change.

I really hope that anyone else from the Pal region actually takes the time to write in directly and voices their concerns as otherwise your going to remain a second class citizen in the eyes of SF.. Your kidding yourselves if you think that creating a frameserve addon is going to require as much effort as your being led to believe..

Lets get a little equality back into the product ..

Comments

PeterMac wrote on 3/29/2002, 5:43 AM
Elysium, old boy, that's the longest 'thank you' note I've ever read.
I trust SoFo will treat it with the due reverence its scarcity value commands ;-)

As for MPEG encoding, well I've done more than my fair share of belly-aching about that. I do find though that as you move to DVD resolutions the differences between encoders become much smaller. Whether they're small enough to accept will depend on your own requirements and how fussy you are. It will also turn on the material, the display device and how good your eyes are - or how far away you sit from the TV!

One pragmatic conclusion I've made is to jettison VCD and SVCD. Those formats will always leave you tantalisingly wanting more - rather like a first date with Michele Pfeiffer.

Frame serving from the timeline would be nice, but if I'm going to use an external encoder I don't really have a problem rendering to AVI first. Yes it's another step, but I can have a cup of tea while I'm waiting, so it's no great hardship. What I really, really want is the Main Concept encoder to be the best one.

-Pete
Elysium wrote on 3/29/2002, 12:08 PM
The MPEG encoder that we are expected to use is simply not giving decent results for PAL use.. Sonic Foundry have the choice of tweaking the encoder, making dramatic changes to give us a better ride.. or spend a little time creating the frame serve some of us have been calling out for that would at the very least give us the chance to work within Vegas and create better results than with the included codec.. I presume that neither of those are going to be true and that we are just going to continue with a raw deal.. no noticeable changes in future updates and increased frustration.

Its one of the things I hate most about SF .. the belief that “we can do it all ..” .. You take a look at any of the other packages out there and they have plug-ins galore (Avid, Premiere & Ulead) and people who care enough about the product to create hooks to creative programs.. its never going to happen with Vegas because its so stuck up its own backside..
Chienworks wrote on 3/29/2002, 12:49 PM
If i might point out, Vegas doesn't "do it all". Sonic Foundry doesn't make any MPEG encoding software. They provide plugins from Main Concept and previously from Ligos. QuickTime MOV support is supplied by Apple. I've also added DivX, Huffyuv, and a few others to my Vegas installation by downloading and installing the appropriate plugins. Vegas accepts them all quite nicely. It would appear that the fault is more that of TMPGenc for not producing software that can operate as a plugin. Sonic Foundry already provides the tools to allow this.
MCTech wrote on 3/29/2002, 7:49 PM
Elysium,

As for NTSC and PAL users being treated differently, we don't view it that way. The same code is used for each format, simply with different parameters. Our developers have told me over and over that there is nothing that should cause the quality level to be different between the two formats, and we are finding it hard to duplicate that.

Your observation has been -- and still is being -- given careful consideration, but it seems to be an elusive issue. No one is trying to treat users of any format differently.

By the way, do the problems exist only when played on a DVD player, or also when the files are viewed on a computer? Many, many quality issues with VCD and SVCD turn out to be problems in the way the particular DVD player decodes those formats. For some reason, some players are fine with DVD but have issues with lesser formats.

MainConcept Tech Support
pelvis wrote on 3/29/2002, 9:11 PM
Vegas users: You have the ear of the SF and MC MPEG engineers on this one. Please post reproduceable tests here, on this thread, with concrete, level-headed suggestions for improvements. Don't refer to old posts or imply that something is obvious. Ideally, we can have access to your test footage.

Two rules:

1) MPEG-2 output for DVD gets priority from both engineering teams.
2) Whiners get bounced from the thread.

Jamz, El-Easy, speak up!
Elysium wrote on 3/30/2002, 4:32 AM
I think the first thing you need to do is leave the prejudices behind and begin with the generation of PAL SVCD video. The reason I advise this is because the problems with the encoder show up far more immediately and “in your face” than they would in PAL DVD creation, which suffers also. Your source material should obviously be recorded in PAL DV 720x576 low-field [interlaced] order.

It is then time to generate the video using the default settings [for testing purposes] and then view the played back footage..
PeterMac wrote on 3/30/2002, 11:03 AM
I'm not sure how we can provide help with this. It's not a 'fault', it's a subjective preference.

When I look at some test footage, which has been encoded into DVD spec MPEG2 using Cinema Craft, TMpgenc and Vegas/MC, I happen to think that the order of quality is the same as I have listed them, with Cinema Craft the best.
It's only my opinion though, someone else might have a completely different preference.

Having said that, there are some things that are factual. The MC encoder, when presented with a restless, moving image like the surface of a swimming pool displays blockiness, rather like a fine mosaic. The workaround is to 'up' the bitrate, with MC at a CBR of 8 Mbits/sec against the other two's CBR 6Mbits. This does indeed fix the blockiness, but (in my opinion) the result is still not as crisp as the others and the colours not quite as bright. But now we've moved into the realm of subjectivity - and, as I said before, anyone else might disagree with me.


One thing I would point out - and I don't know if anyone else has spotted this - the MC encoder seems quite reluctant to use higher bit rates, even when the appropriate settings of VBR are used. In the swimming pool scenario, I tried a VBR setting of
8 Mbits (max)
4.2 Mbits (avg)
192 Kbits (min)

Checking the results with PowerDVD shows that the highest bit rate used is about 4.6 Mbits. The blockiness, which is quite evident, would not be there if it had used a higher bit rate...?

-Pete


PS This short footage - about a minute's worth - together with the three MPEGs from each encoder is glady available to SoFo/MC for evaluation. Just let me know where to upload.
shaunn wrote on 6/26/2002, 7:57 PM
yes I understand that this is an old post but I just want to know if any progress is made to improve the quality of SVCD and VCD? (I am not talking about DVD here)

Is there a work arround?
Anyone wants to share with me their custom settings in the I,B,P or other aspect of tweaking the mainconcept encoder?

I have tried to produce in PAL SVCD CBR mode with VV3 and I regret to say that the quality is way behind TMPGENC. (sharper but pixelate)
Believe me, it's not a subjective matter...the problem is real and it screams to your eyes.
It would be great if I could just render SVCD directly from the timeline without having to render.

Thanks for the suggestion,

Shaun

PS: anybody who are unhappy and wants to start a flame war about NTSC VV3 vs PAL VV3 user preferences, please don't contribute...I feel for you but I just want to get constructive discussion on how to solve this. Thank you for your understanding.
BillyBoy wrote on 6/26/2002, 9:55 PM
As it has been said countless times in dozens and dozens of threads there is only so much you can do with VCD and SVCD. The problem is the lower bitrates used. It would seem that SoFo's focus and correctly so has been on improving DV quality which is rapidly gaining in popularity.

I myself and others have posted several articles on how to get the most out of VCD and SVCD. I've made hundreds with good results. The issues isn't NTSC verses PAL the issue is LOW BITRATES. Also the quality does seem to at least depend somewhat on the DVD player used for playback. I recently took several of my better SVCD discs over to a neighboor's house and neither he or I was pleased with how they played on his DVD player. They looked crisper and had no pixelation on my DVD player, a Pioneer 333. I guess that's just how it is.
shaunn wrote on 6/27/2002, 5:25 AM
Billyboy I tried the search function about this issue hence where this old post came from.
And yes you are right, it has been said countless of times that you can get so much out of svcd and vcd as you pointed out but I can't seem to find a post that shares their way of doing things without having to rely to stock template settings.
As my post title say "any other way?", I am trying to see if anyone out there tweak their setting before rendering to svcd. For example the I,B,P can be changed for optimum output but I don't have the expertize in this area to feel confident to get it to the best of it's ability.
Ok here is my settings for what it's worth: template SVCD PAL with changes to CBR 2600 Kb/s

"I myself and others have posted several articles on how to get the most out of VCD and SVCD"


I can't seem to find those articles, can you please tell me where are they? (tried to search the words SVCD PAL but nothing came up to be qualitfied as "articles")

BillyBoy wrote on 6/27/2002, 8:16 AM
One thread I was thinking of was the MPEG Encoding Guide.

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=105129

which was a pretty long thread about the MPEG manual that touched on your area of interest, I got a little carried away (as usual) and the thread also has a couple intersting outside links:

http://pwp.netcabo.pt/0165394101/TMPGEnc_Template.html
http://www.tecoltd.com/bitratev.htm

If you're looking for some magic formual messing with "... I,B,P can be changed for optimum..." I'm not aware of any. The TMPGE link touches on it a little and you can change the setting in Vegas as well but the changes aren't going to be dramatic. Also the MPEG Manual referenced in the thread walks your through the various paramaters that are changeable in Vegas Video's MC encoder.
DougHamm wrote on 6/27/2002, 8:39 AM
I can second the notion that your mpeg-1/2 decoder is just as important as the encoder. As is your output device.

My own testing has proven to me that, as far as NTSC goes anyway, my best VCD output to DVD/TV has been with the Mainconcept codec. A friend of mine has pretty much tweaked as much as he can get from TMPEG and the results are _very_ impressive - on a noninterlaced computer screen. But that same material played through my DVD player on a TV is overly contrasty and soft. The MC codec produces seemingly bland colour output on a computer screen, but colour reproduction through an NTSC television is spot-on IMHO. Just like you have to mix audio for your intended output device, you have to consider it for video as well.

-Doug
shaunn wrote on 6/27/2002, 10:34 AM
Thanks Billyboy for pointing me to those links.
After reading them it cleared my doubts about this issue:
1) Nothing can really be done to tweak the MC encoder to make better SVCD/VCD
2)MC is for DVD making
3)If you want better quality for SVCD/VCD, go ahead and use TMPgenc.

Too bad..
Sorry for bringing up this old dead issue but I am just trying my luck :)