SuperVideoCD from the TV

One of the great features of the Sony DCR - TRC120E camcorder is that, once it has been DV in enabled, another item appears on its menu, that of A/V=>DV out. The rest of the world gets this along with DV in as standard, but archaic tax legislation means that these features are disabled on European models to save a few pounds on import duties. Thankfully companies such as www.Lynxdv.com provide a quick and simple way of returning full functionality to these camcorders. When the A/V=>DV out is set to on the camera becomes a very efficient converter of analogue video into DV. Simply connect any video source such as a video recorder or sky digibox, to the analogue ports and the camcorder outputs a DV signal from its firewire port direct to the PC. There is no need for the camcorder to record the signal first, or even have a tape in it, so there is no wear on the mechanism. Since all the compression is done in hardware inside the camcorder before it gets anywhere near the PC there are none of the problems like dropped frames associated with capturing from a standard TV tuner card.

So long as you have enough hard drive space this means you can use your PC as a tapeless video recorder, and outputting programmes to CDR or CDRW as a SuperVideoCD for playback in your DVD player. This page assumes you have already read and installed the same software as is listed in the SuperVideoCD from the Camcorder page since the process is essentially the same, except for the fact that MediaStudioPro 6.0VE is not required.

Step 1. Capture your Video Stream

Remember that the most important factor in the quality of your final disc is the quality of your original source. Try to capture live off air rather than from VHS tapes, since the quality is a lot better. Having said that this method is ideal for preserving old home video's that are probably of great sentimental value to friends and family, and are slowly deteriorating in a drawer somewhere, 10 or 15 years after they were taken. Once the transfer to digital has been made they can be played back as many times as you like with no further loss. Just don't expect top quality from some old sources! AVI_IO includes a simple timer allowing it to function live a true VCR. Leave the camcorder turned on with A/V=>DV out enabled, start AVI_IO, set the start time and duration, make sure your video source is set to the right channel, and go and do something else. When you get back you will have a series of 2048mb files on your hard drive. The demo version of AVI_IO will stop after 3 files, the full registered version will go on up to 100 files. These are sequential Mainconcept DV type 2 AVIs suitable for turning into high quality MPEG2 files.

Step 2. Cut out the adverts!

The best tool for this job is the excellent freeware linear editing utility VirtualDub. This has the ability to cut and join these avi files without decompressing them, so it's fast and there is no quality loss. It also reads the sequential files from AVI_IO as if it were one so simplifying the process. Click on file, open video file, and choose the first file AVI_IO created. VirtualDub will load your whole captured project. Click on video, and choose full Direct stream copy. Scrub through your files until you get to the beginning of the programme (the cursor keys come in useful for frame by frame advancement) then press home on the keyboard to set the beginning of your programme. Scrub through to the first advert break and press end. Click on File and choose save AVI, tick the box for 'add operation to job list and defer processing' save the file with the same filename (capture.00.avi) in a new folder inside your old one (eg D:\AV_IO\noadverts).

Since you ticked defer processing nothing will happen and you return to scrubbing through the timeline, marking in and out from the advert breaks. When you have marked all the ins and outs click on File, then Job Control and click start. VirtualDub will then perform the dub and around 40 minutes later you will be left with a series of files typically 800mb to 3.4gig in size. Since no commercial TV channels go longer than 18 minutes without an add break it never hits the 4gig limit that haunts anyone working with the FAT32 file system. Should you come a across a broadcast with greater than 18 minutes between breaks, simply use VirtualDub's save segmented file option.

SuperVideoCD uses an audio frequency of 44.1khz whereas Digital Video is either 32khz or 48khz. Personally I have had no problems feeding 48khz AVIs straight into the encoder but some people have reported audio distortion. If this affects you then use this solution.

Step 3. Encoding your Video.

Using Avisynth.

Since our Encoder is not as smart as VirtualDub when it comes to reading AVI files it is necessary to use avisynth to seamlessly feed these into TMPEnc. to make a single MPEG2 file. Make sure you have avisynth 0.3 installed just as it says on the page (unpack the archive, move avisynth.dll to the windows\system directory and double-click the install.reg file). Now its time to do some thinking, avisynth has no simple graphic user interface, you have to write files but its not difficult when you get used to it. So, open up notepad and type (or copy and paste from here!)

AVISource("d:\avi_io\noadverts\capture.00.avi") + AVISource("d:\avi_io\noadverts\capture.01.avi") + AVISource("d:\avi_io\noadverts\capture.02.avi") + AVISource("d:\avi_io\noadverts\capture.03.avi")

Then save this as tvprogramme.avs for example, ignoring the windows nag screen that warns that changing the file extension may result in an unstable file. Open TMPEnc, click on the browse button next to the video source window and find your tvprogramme.avs file. Next click on the load button and select the SVCD configuration file, which gives a reasonable result, or download my modified version below.

SVCD configuration file

My modified file available here, uses a Group of Frames of 4 instead of 5 (4 is more common for PAL files, 5 being typical for NTSC). I also increased the motion search accuracy to highest quality and the DC coefficient precision to 10 points. This slows encoding but increases the final quality. I do not use variable bit rate for my SuperVideoCDs since it is impossible to judge the final size accurately which can result in the file being slightly too big for the CD. All the 1-hour TV shows on UK television are actually between 41 and 43 minutes in length when the adverts are removed and so this is my target to squeeze on a CD. For this reason I use a data rate of 2270kbs that gives me a total file size of 777mb, (42 mins 53 seconds) which just fits on a 80 minute CDR disc.

Constant versus Variable bitrate

Despite the rate control mode being set at constant bitrate, analysis of the MPEG stream with Bitate Viewer shows it does vary, peaking at 2590kbs and dropping to a low of 1950kbs. Given that the maximum permitted data rate for SuperVideoCD is 2600kbs, I think this is pretty close to the maximum. If you want a longer run time just lower the video bit rate slightly, (2100kbs will allow 50 mins on a 80min CD) but accept the quality will begin to drop. An alternative for longer play time is to use some of the new 90+ minute CDRs that are appearing, such as the mirror disks supplied by cd-rmedia. They are highly dependant on compatible hardware however, and whilst they work perfectly with my Teac CD-W54E CD writer, I have yet to find anything else that will play them right to the end. This makes them more useful for storage than creating finished discs.

Step 4. Burning Your SuperVideoCD.

Using Nero This CD burning software is available in demo form and will probably be your first one to try. If you are using something like a Pioneer 525 or Phillips 711 DVD player to play your finished disc then it will be fine. Scroll down the window on the left, select SuperVideoCD, click new and drag your newly created MPEG file into the blank window. Nero will analyse the file to check it is compliant and then you can burn your SuperVideoCD.

Using WinOnCD3.8 This has to be purchased from the German website and will probably not be your first choice, but it does has the advantage that it produces a disc which plays on a variety of budget DVD players including Samsung and Warfdale machines. Choose video, SuperVideoCD, drag your MPEG into the lower window, come down to disc and press burn. A very useful feature of this software is its ability to create a disc image and load it into a virtual CDROM drive on the PC. This allows testing of the finished CD with any application on the PC without having to wait for the disc to burn.

Step 5. Finished! Play your disc.

Your disc can be played on any modern multimedia computer using a software DVD player such as WinDVD, or using a hardware card such as the Sigma Hollywood plus. The software that comes with this card is based on an older non-standard, version of the SuperVideoCD disc structure, so it is necessary to play the disc back in file mode. An alternative is to use Eugene's DVD player, a freeware player for the Hollywood plus cards that properly supports the SuperVideoCD standard. These cards can playback via the PC monitor or out to a TV set. A television is by far the best way to view these discs since it is designed to play interlaced video, although I do like WinDVD since it allows me to play my discs from the CD ROM drive of a celeron 433Mhz laptop when away from home. The WinDVD software automatically deinterlaces the video on the fly, and produces a very acceptable result. Alternatively you can play your discs on a standalone DVD player to the television. Not all DVD players will read CDR or CDRW discs, and not all DVD players support the SuperVideoCD standard. Those that do include the several Pioneer, Philips, and Samsung models. Also many of the cheaper, no name, budget models from China do as well. If you are planning to buy one check out www.vcdhelp.com to make sure.