I've been making a collection of Simpsons episodes and I've been converting them to SVCDs just because it costs me 10 cents to put a 1/2 episode on one CD, versus 8 episodes per DVD at similar quality at a cost of $1.50. The SVCD quality is okay, but I could get better quality by switching to DVD video (and only fitting in 6 episodes). Is this a mistake? Am I being overly frugal? Is SVCD going away any time soon? Just like to hear your opinions on the subject.
If you're happier with the lower price than the higher quality it's not a mistake. It's all a matter of priorities. As far as SVCD going away - I doubt it. Since both use MPEG-2 video, the same video decoder chip can be used for either one. Even if most people don't have any of them, it's another feature to advertise. Personally, I've switched from SVCD to miniDVD for my captures. It's still not as good as burning to an actual DVD-R, but I like it better than SVCD.
Thanks vurbal! Good to know I'm not wasting my time making SVCDs instead of DVDs. I have to look into the miniDVD. I think if I could get beyond the 2500kbs of a SVCD to maybe 3000kbs, I won't get as much pixelization.
Keep in mind that the biggest obstacle to using miniDVD is that you need a player that plays them. It's becoming more and more common, at least on cheaper players like my APEX. I definitely find that I get better results from the higher bitrate, especially when I use 352x480 resolution. For a normal TV (ie not HDTV) the bitrate seems to make a lot more difference than the resolution, at least to my eyes, and for a half hour CD you should have no problem using up to about 4500kbps for miniDVD.
