XVCD: Near DVD Quality on CD
Compatible with most computers and many standalone DVD players
TechTV The
Screen Savers, March 4, 2003
Written by John Navas, The Navas Group
Click to access the official
show webpage for the segment
Limitations of VCD (MPEG1)
- Low resolution: 352 x 240 (NTSC)
- CBR (Constant Bit Rate): 1150 Kbps video
- SVCD (MPEG2) drawbacks:
- More computer power to decode
- Less compatible with DVD players
Overcoming VCD Limitations
- Higher resolution: 720 x 480 (NTSC)
- Same as DV (digital camcorders)
- Same as DVD
- VBR (Variable Bit Rate) encoding
- Minimum: 300 Kbps (compatibility)
- Maximum: 2500 Kbps (compatibility)
Variable Bit Rate Encoding
- Less bits for
- Lower motion
- Low scene complexity
- More bits for
- Higher motion (action)
- Higher scene complexity
- Overall average comparable to CBR, but typically much better quality
Tools Needed
For Microsoft Windows, except as noted
- Quality, flexible MPEG1 encoder
- TMPGEnc (free) (important:
use the latest version!)
- Macintosh: try ffmpeg
and ffmpegx (not
tested by this author!)
- Quality filtering (optional)
- XVCD burning
TMPGEnc Settings
- CQ (a form of VBR, best results)
- As low as 50 for low motion
- 70 or more for high motion
- Audio
- 224 Kbps for best quality
- 192 Kbps is still pretty good
- 128 Kbps if needed
- Download XVCD templates (ZIP
archive)
XVCD Results
- Typical 50-70 mins on 700 MB CD
- 720 x 480 resolution
- 192-224 Kbps high-quality audio
- Overall near-DVD quality
- Download XVCD sample (.bin/.cue CD image
files, 4.3 MB ZIP archive)
- Use to test compatibility with DVD player!
- Autoplay in Microsoft Windows PC
VCD versus XVCD
XVCD Resources
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