ffmpegX

[Matti Haveri]

Is there a problem with PAL SVCD output in ffmpegX or is it just me?

The last ffmpegX I could try was v0.0.5 because later versions don't 
work in Mac OS X 10.1.5 anymore. Are later versions better with PAL?

I think I have tried every combination but the interlaced output 
always jitters and progressive output isn't good either.

The SVCD jitters on a TV in such a way that I suspect ffmpegX sets 
the interlaced fields in the wrong order.

ffmpegX also seems to scale the output differently than my MediaPipe 
templates because it adds black borders to the left & right (VOB 
Letterbox is not selected). TV overscanning covers those borders but 
my straight 4:3 PAL 720x576 to 480x576 scaling doesn't add such 
borders and AFAIK my templates maintain the original aspect ratio.

Compared to MediaPipe or MissingMpegTools ffmpegX has a nice GUI 
interface to mpeg2enc but at least the older versions don't seem to 
work properly with PAL.

p.s. My MediaPipe-oriented SVCD on a Macintosh memo and cookbook and 
MediaPipe PAL/NTSC (X)SVCD templates are at:

<http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/SVCD_on_a_Macintosh.txt>

<http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/MediaPipe_templates.sit>

BTW, I noticed a few nice things in iMovie 3 although it doesn't yet 
properly work with my setup. There are some nice features that the 
new tiny reference movie inside the project folder enables:

To concatenate clips into a single file just put the desired clips on 
the timeline, save the project and import the tiny reference QT movie 
from the project folder! You don't even have to quit iMovie for this. 
(It would be even nicer if there was a Join-command, though).

I also noticed that I can use the tiny reference file instead of a 
laborious Full Quality intermediate export step when encoding SVCD. 
MediaPipe currently requires you to uncheck the Single Field check 
box in the reference file if you want interlaced MPEG2 output.

-- 
Matti Haveri <matti.haveri at sjoki.uta.fi> <http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/>