Denoise for SVCD

[Matti Haveri]

My current SVCDs are pretty good but should I use a denoiser for a 
DV/D8 camcorder source when encoding SVCD? Some parts of the original 
footage are quite noisy.

MediaPipe offers the following options:

- "Temporal Denoiser" (with n, n-1 and n-2 Temporal Weights and a 
Threshold value) and

- "Noise Filter" (with 2x2, 4x4 and 8x8 analysis depth and 
Light-Strong Filter strength)

...but I really don't know which one (or both?) and which options I 
should try with my D8 videos. Are the default options OK?

Should I use the denoiser before the Scaler?

mpeg2enc -N didn't make much visual difference when I tried it but 
should use it, too?

BTW, at the moment I'm trying to decide whether to encode the 
original 720x576 PAL to 352x288, 352x576 or 720x576 XSVCD with 48kHz 
audio so that I can easily use the MPEG2s on DVDs (those are also DVD 
resolutions) later or should I just stick to 480x576 44.1kHz SVCD 
(which must be re-encoded for DVD either from the original DV/D8 or 
ripped, rescaled and re-encoded from the SVCDs if there is no 
original footage).

My standalone Pioneer 444 DVD player plays all those resolutions and 
audio options just fine.

Progressive (X)SVCD output is less blocky than interlaced but I 
prefer interlacing for its motion smoothness on TV.

352x288 XSVCD must be progressive. On the other hand such a low 
resolution doesn't get blocky with 2500 kb/s as the higher 
resolutions tend to do. Of the interlaced options:

352x576 is quite nice but the low horizontal resolution does show in 
some vertical straight lines as fuzziness. For example, a distant red 
house with horizontal panels displays better with more horizontal 
resolution than 352.

720x576 is surprisingly good although some moving scenes tend to get 
blocky easier than with lower resolutions. Maybe a good amount of 
denoising would make 720x576 the winner of these XSVCD resolutions?

p.s. SVCD on a Macintosh memo and cookbook is at:

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

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