EricG
Member
Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Alive and well on VisorCentral.com
Posts: 861 |
I've been making video cds for years now...
(this is all windows software, sorry Mac folks, I don't own a Mac so I can't speak on it)
The best windows software I have found is Video Pack 4 (or now its 5.0), made by CeQuadrat (Adpetec now owns them  ), Adpatec EZCD will *work* but its crude.. Anyway, when I first started the process, I picked up a Dazzle DVC (I found this was the best, easiest, fastest way to encode the video directly to mpg), you can use software to convert from AVI to MPG but it takes a VERY LONG TIME,, You may also need some odd editing tools, I later got IEdit (I think it has changed names now), for general editing (cut, splice, etc..).. My process was that I would use the Dazzle to encode directly to the mpg file, edit the file, then burn the file onto a disc using the video cd creation software (i.e. Video Pack)..
(and no, a video cd is not just an mpg file on a cdr - I wish).. One thing you will noticed is that the initial file seems to be larger than what will fit on your CDR, this is normal as the video part is recorded directly to the cd without error checking (like raw cd audio is ) (go by recording time not file size, i.e. 74 minutes not 640 mb) (data cd's have error checking bits added and there for take up more space). Video CD's make *look* like a normal data cd, but they are not!.. Also, don't try to copy a "dat" file from a video cd onto your pc's hard disk, that dat file is just a pointer to the raw video part of the disc, if your cd reader is smart enough you may get it to copy but you will have single bit errors in the file.. (it will be a mess, and you will need more tools to fix it before the mpeg file can be be used) (see FLASKMPEG and MPEG Corrector for these tasks)
All in all the process can be time consuming if you have a lot to put to disc. Recently I purchased a Terapin Video CD recorder http://www.terapintech.com/fea_cdaudio.html , this really speeds up the process (can you say warp drive for video cd creation) as it can be somewhat time consuming to , record, edit, burn, etc.. the terapin does this in one shot (its a stand alone self contained recorder), if I need to edit out commercials or etc, I burn the video a CD-RW disc then rip the video file from the terapin created cd, edit out what I want, then reburn it to a new cd.
I am waiting for recordable dvd to be cheap, for now video cd works just fine for me,
Also, as a final note, not all standalone DVD players can read CD-R's or CD-RW's!!
Keefer , for Christmas this year, I made Video CD's with all the digital pictures from our wedding (taken from all the various cameras at our wedding, I then collated all of them in chronological order - using the time stamp embedded in the jpg file), finally I added music tracks to them and gave them out to my parents and my wife's parents (I had verified earlier this year they had cd-r compatible dvd players).. They LOVED them..
Video CD does still pictures.. I recommend the Cequadrat VideoPack software, its the most flexible and offers the most video cd features, menus, etc.. (just like a dvd)..
James, a Terapin is a must for a ReplayTv owner!! (it was the purchase of my Replay that really pushed the issue of getting the terapin)
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Last edited by EricG on 01-01-2002 at 06:31 AM
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). My wife has a huge collection of old movies on VHS and wants me to figure out if we can make our own DVD's to convert (and preserve) some of them.
12-31-2001 01:43 AM
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