Why you should consider it: Super Video CDs are a fantastic way to compile a movie from any number of video sources and formats to a format which is able to play back on most set top DVD players without the necessity of a CD burner.

Disclaimer:

This document does not promote, condone, or otherwise legitimize piracy. All
DiVX© and XViD films expressed herein were compiled from a retail copy
of the Digital Video Disc (DVD) of which the movie represents. All Digital Video
Discs (DVDs)from which the DiVX© and XViD films were compiled were purchased
from an established and licensed retailer of multimedia and electronics. We
at Short Media take no responsibility for the misuse of this guide, nor does
the author accept responsibility for the production of Super Video Compact Discs
or Digital Video Discs (SVCDs or DVDs) compiled from illegitimate DiVX©
and XViD replicas of Digital Video Discs (DVDs). Following this guide signifies
you have agreed to these terms and are operating within the defined parameters.
Failure to comply with this disclaimer will result in full responsibility beared
solely by he/she who misuses the contents of this guide.

Introduction:

Super Video CDs are a fantastic way to compile a movie from any number of video
sources and formats to a format which is able to play back on most set top DVD
players without the necessity of a CD burner. As I have no CD burner myself,
one can see how valuable this technique is for me. Such a method has also helped
me evolve the production of multiple video technologies, included but not limited
to: DiVX©, XViD, DVD, VCD, SVCD, XSVCD, XVCD, KVCD, KSVCD, and CVD. It
is with DiVX© to SVCD where I first learned about all the tools required
to do digital audio and video processing, bitrates, mpeg1/2, AC3 audio, 2 pass
video files, compliant resolutions, and several other techniques which I have
covered in previous guides. This conversion process feels like home to me. It’s
where I started, and it only felt right to make this the last installment in
my series (Barring no one thinks of anything else worth saying).

Digital Video Discs of course, are DVDs. To you lucky few (And growing) who
have a burner, this guide will also cover the creation of a DVD from a DiVX©/XViD
source. Principally, both methods of creating DVDs and SVCDs are identical,
one must simply change the bitrate of the audio and video, as well as the resolution.
Considering most DiVX©/XViD sources, people will typically get images that
are close to, but not quite DVD quality. The bitrate of a normal DVD can be
approximately 10,000kbits, whereas an SVCD runs in the 2500 range. Whilst this
may seem a large, disparaging difference between the two formats, it actually
is a small one. SVCDs will exhibit SOME picture-blocking and colorbanding in
high-activity scenes, but it’s usually unnoticeable. The resolution of the movie
itself is far more deterministic in regards to the picture quality. The difference
between both format boils down to convenience.

Programs used:

VirtualDub
TMPGEnc
Nero

tooLAME
SSRC
VCDHelp.com bitrate
calculator

Ripping the audio:

This is the VirtualDub interface and you’ll start with opening the DiVX©
or XViD file of your choice. In this scenario, I have chosen to use my 2 x 700MB
rip of Spiderman compiled from my DVD copy of Spiderman. Whilst I already have
it on DVD, this video is a perfect candidate with which to produce an SVCD file.
The resolution is already DVD, and the bitrate is high for an AVI (~1300).

Once you have the video opened, flip over to the audio button at the top and
select “Full Stream Processing” like so:

Once you have done that, select the File button again, and save the wav as
anything you like. Select a logical naming scheme that you’ll be able to remember:

Setting up TMPGEnc:

TMPGEnc is a marvelous program that converts many AVI formats into many (x)xVD-compliant
formats such as VCD, SVCD, and DVD. It allows one to take a singular AVI file
and convert it directly, or mux together a higher-quality audio stream (As we
have done by separating the audio track from the AVI, and will be doing with
it by using a better program on the fly with TMPGenc) with a video to produce
a better output. It supports several methods of bitrate control, as well as
resolution control, and low-level editing functions. In addition to TMPGEnc,
it supports some of today’s higher quality audio sampling-rate manipulation
programs, and audio-encoding tools. In this scenario, we will be downsampling
our audio for SVCD, as well as adjusting the bitrate with the assistance of:
tooLAME and SSRC. To configure these plugins, launch TMPGEnc and go to “Options”
then “Environmental settings” like so:

Within this window, go to the “External Tools” tab. In this case,
I have used an additional program for Layer-3 audio, but you will not need it.
Check the “Layer-2″ box and select tooLAME.exe from wherever you may
have saved it. In the “Sampling frequency converter” field, check
the “Use” box and select SSRC.exe from whatever directory you may
have saved it.

Creating a new project:

Once you have pressed the “OK” button inside of the “Environmental
settings” for TMPGEnc, press the file button and select “Project wizard:”

Once you have clicked, you’ll see this screen:

In this particular scenario, since I am establishing an SVCD project, I have
selected an NTSC Super Video CD. I have additionally determined the project
should be 1950kbps VBR (Low of 300kbps, high of 2500, average of 1950). Should
you wish to establish a DVD project, select DVD NTSC. Also use this
bitrate calculator to determine what bitrate your DVD should use. Once you’ve
done this, select the approximate bitrate from the drop-down list, usually in
the 3000-4000 range. Make sure to select VBR, not CBR and continue. Once this
is done, hit next:

The video file is the location in which your AVI is stored, and the audio file
is the location in which your extracted WAV file with VirtualDub is stored.
Moreover, for video type, you will select non-interlace. For field order, it’s
blanked out. And for the “Content of video” select “Film Movie”
and hit next:

For the purpose of testing the first time you attempt to compile an SVCD, click
the “Source range” button, and set the “End frame” at 1000
and hit OK. This will allow 1000 frames of the video to be encoded for you to
play back on your computer so you can see if the video is indeed ok (Too tall,
too narrow, too short, etcetera). Once this is done, hit “Other settings:”

In this case we have two eminently crucial options here. In this particular
window, you must select 2-Pass VBR for the absolute best video
quality. Once you grow accustomed to producing SVCDs, you can play with these
settings a bit more, but for now: 300 kbits low, 1950 kbits average, and 2500
kbits high is perfectly acceptable for 2-3 discs (Rarely four discs)
at a nice picture quality. With DVDs, the low for a DVD±R is approximately
2000kbits, the average at 4000, and the high at 9000 or so. If you use the bitrate
calculator, you may find a more accurate average bitrate. Under “Motion
search precision” select “Highest quality (very slow).” It’s
worth it. After configuring options within the Video tab, click the advanced
tab:

If you selected the source range in one of the initial steps of wizard creation,
the box will now be checked here. Under the “Video source setting”
header, set the following options:

Video source type: Non interlace (Progressive).
Field order: Top field first (Field A).
Source aspect ratio: Divide the width of the picture
by the height of the picture (720/???) to determine the most accurate aspect
ratio. In this case, my rip of Spiderman was 2.04, so 2.11 works.
Video Arrange Method: Full screen (Keep aspect ratio).

Once done, hit ok and select your output file name and come back in approximately
4-6 hours if you have a 2.2GHz Athlon XP/3.0GHz Pentium 4. Another wonderful
feature about this program is the fact that it’s optimized for both Pentium
4s and Athlons, and will use which ever register set the program detects. Once
you’re done encoding, go back to the TMPGEnc window and select “File”
then “MPEG Tools:”

Fixing Oversized SVCDs:

You might find that once you’re done encoding you have SVCD-compliant files
that are too large to fit on a CD. This is easily corrected. Once you are in
the MPEG tools screen, go to the “Merge and Cut” tab:

If you have two SVCDs, as your source was a two-file DiVX/XViD: Proceed
to add both files to the window and select “MPEG-2 Super VideoCD (VBR)”
from the drop down list at the top. Once you have done this and made sure that
the files are in the proper order (File 1 is first, File 2 is second, et cetera)
select your output (Something like xxxxxxxxx-JOINED.mpg) and hit run.

Now that you have joined the files together, check to make sure it works,
particularly at the few minutes before and after the point where the file was
joined. Once you have done this, clear the contents of the “Merge and Cut”
tab and add your newly joined file. Select it, and click the EDIT button. Now,
begin chopping the video up into 45 minute sections. First by selecting 00:00.00
(0min:0sec.0ms) as the starting point, and then setting 45:00.00 (45min:0sec.0ms)
as the ending point:

Once this is done, hit OK and name your new output something logical (You
should notice that it now says it’s only splitting 45 minutes of the file in
the root window):

Your second section should be from 44:50.00 (45min:50sec.0ms) to 01:30:00.00
(1hr:30m:0sec.0ms), as you want 10 seconds of overlap each time you create a
new section after the first disc:

Depending on the length of the movie you selected, you should have a final
result of 2-4 files ready for burning.

If you have a single SVCD, as your source was a single-file DiVX/XViD: Simply
repeat the steps 3 through 5. Add your single SVCD project, set MPEG-2 Super
VideoCD (VBR) and then click on the file, then click the “Edit” button.
Begin chopping your single file up into 45 minute sections, or so each file
is less than 730mb.

Using the SVCD Remux Hack (SVCD ONLY):

Once in the MPEG tools, go to “Multiplex:”

This an interesting trick that I’ve standardized in this guide. There are a
great many DVD players out there (Less and less so) that merely play VCD and
DVD. One can imagine that this is simply the manufacturer’s choice. VCDs are
MPEG1, and extremely low bitrate/resolution. SVCDs are MPEG2 with medium bitrate/resolution.
DVDs are MPEG2 with high bitrate/resolution. Now, if a DVD player can play DVDs,
it has the architecture to play MPEG2 back to you, which means SVCD is simply
disabled in the particular DVD player’s firmware. This trick takes an SVCD-compliant
video and simply rewrites the header and tailer of the file to trick the DVD
player into thinking it’s a VCD, which it will play. To do this, import your
encoded MPEG files (The ones from the previous step) one by one and select “MPEG-1
Video-CD.” Save your output as a new filename. These new files will be
unwatchable on a computer. It should take only a few minutes to complete this
task for each file. It will also almost be sure to give you an overflow error
after the encoding is done, worry not, your video is fine. Just make sure to
do each file one at a time, or you’ll seriously destroy what you’ve done so
far.

Burning:

Nero is an incredibly adept program at handling the task of several CD burning
formats. It can automatically compile the .VOB and .IFO files necessary for
the production of a DVD from nothing more than a properly-encoded MPEG2 file
(The final output of the DVD portion of this guide), it can also automatically
create the necessary file structure for VCD/SVCD and numerous other disc-media
formats. In this particular scenario, we will of course be using it to produce
either an SVCD or DVD. That said, launch the program and create a new SVCD project
(Or DVD):

Then hit new and progress to the file manager window. Once you are at this
window, simply navigate to your encoded file and drag it into the left window.
If you have followed this guide to create an SVCD, you should get this error
now:

Click “Turn off standard compliance and continue.” The file will
then be ready to burn. At this point you need only click the burn button and
come back in a little bit! If you have selected a DVD project, you shouldn’t
get this error, it should simply take your file, compile it, and burn it without
a hitch.

Conclusion:

As the last installment of my series, we have covered how to take a DiVX©
or XViD file and convert it into a SVCD or DVD. Without the presence of a DVD
burner, I’m not quite sure how the DVD portion of this guide will turn out,
however I have taken every step possible to ensure that the final output is
compliant to DVD specifications. Additionally, I know for a fact that the SVCD
portion of this guides, as I just finished watching the SVCD version of Spiderman
to determine the amount of mistakes in the encoding (None). I hope you have
enjoyed these articles and following the processes as much as I enjoyed writing
them, and finally putting to “Paper” what I loved learning for the
first time. I hope my guides have been easy, and equally informative. I also
appreciate the kind words I’ve received in the forums, and of course, if you
have any questions I can be emailed or asked from the forums here at Short-Media
which you should become a member of and fold for (Team 93)!

Robert “Thrax” Hallock
www.Short-Media.com