I have just started out in the P2P scene, downloading movies and have SO many questions – hoping all you guys might be able to help I have been using KazaaLite & BitTornado to download movies. I want to watch these on my DVD player (supports SVCD and KVCD), but don’t currently have a DVD writer. 1. Downloaded movies tend to be (DivX) AVI files and around the 715MB mark – why 715MB? 2. I recently converted a 715MB file into SVCD (using Ashampoo Shrink & Burn – yes I know this is not the best tool, but just whilst I am learning the basics I thought I would stick to a basic tool – suggestions for proper tools are also welcomed). This created a total of 850MB (over two files, 550MB and 300MB). Is this typical or have I done something horribly wrong? 3. Is downloading AVIs the right thing for me to do – should I instead be looking out for SVCDs over more than 1 CD? 4. How does VCD, KVCD and SVCD compare in terms of quality? 5. When I get the to point of investing in the DVD writer, does all this change, i.e. should I be trying to download 4Gig movies? Should I be burning SVCD onto the DVD instead (is this possible? And I assume you can burn more than one movie onto a DVD?). That’s probably the starter questions – any help with these would be really appreciated!!
715 Mb depends by the bitrate used by that codec and the movie's resolution. Usually .AVIs differ a little, on size. My idea is that making a DVD (and even a SVCD) from a compressed 700-800 Mb AVI is useless, since the quality of the movie has been already spoiled by the AVI compression. A 700 Mb CD-ROM = 120'-150' KVCD, 80' VCD, 50' SVCD. It is your choice: more quality (only if the input movie's quality is high, beware), but many CDs for a single movie. VCD = 352x240(288 if PAL) KVCD = as VCD but lower bitrate SVCD = 480x480(576 if PAL) DVD = 720x480(576 if PAL) I usually prefer to make VCDs (a good VCD backup of a DVD is much better than many DVDs made with movies found on the net), and on my 'poll' many people said that even KVCD's quality is more than accepatble (but I think that saving a cheap CD-ROM is useless, in general; instead using 2 CD-ROM (and few work) instead of a DVD-R and a lot of work)is a good saving). I suggest you do do my method: 1) Encode the AVI in the proper MPEG-1 MPEG-2 form with TMPGenc; 2) make the proper (S)VCD image with Nero or VCDGear If you use Nero, choose 'Image Recorder' as reorder and burn the .NRG later: too risky doing encoding + burning in 1 step! Alas, not all DVD readers can read all SVCDs (Nero allows you do make slight modifications when you make the SVCD image to increase the SVCD compatibility; just try with a CD-RW).
Thanks for all the info – really helpful You say that, generally, it is not worth converting AVI into (S)VCD – yet the majority of downloads I have encountered so far are AVI. Should I be looking specifically for (S)VCD films instead (there seem to be far, far fewer of these – does this mean that people generally watch AVIs on their computers rather than DVD players?) I have an 806MB SVCD file – what is the best way of burning this to CD? Again, many thanks.
AVI is a way of compressing movies. Therefore it's more used for movies bakups. 1 movie (120') = 700-800 MB of AVI or 1200-1500 MB of MPEG-1 (even more, almost twice, if you make a MPEG-2, or a SVCD. 4.5 GB if you make a DVD). A problem is that any conversion (PAL ---> NTSC, AVI --> MPEG-1/2) makes you lose at least a little quality. Another problem is that a codec makes you lose quality (the better it is, the less quality you lose, but loss = never 0). DivX and Xvid are the best codecs (multipass avoids losing quality, but the size is out of control) . My opinion is that it's better to convert a movie using TMPGenc (motion search precision = highest quality [very slow]) to the VCD quality (352x240/288 PAL) and [bold] after that[/bold] compressing it to AVI using the maximum bitrate allowed (768) for the 'Portable Profle' of the DivX codec rather compressing a 700x400 movie with a bitrate of 700 (maximum=4000) for the 'Home Theater Profile'.
