VCD as well as SVCD

[itimpi]

Not sure if I should post this message in the VCD conversion forum or here - but here seems more likely to come up with an answer. :)

The question is "If I have already used DVD2SVCD to create a SVCD (and kept all the output files), whether there was a quick/easy way to create a VCD copy as well". I happen to have a portable CD player/MP3 player that can also play VCD (but not SVCD) to an external television. Therefore if I can easily create a VCD it would be great for watching a movie in hotel rooms when I am on the move!

I suspect that by using the .MP2 file previously created as the sound source and the Muxed .MPG file as the video source it can be done quite easily. By that time most of the hard work such as down-sampling the sound to 44 KHz, and any NTSC->PAL conversion have already been done. Obviously CCE can create an MPEG1 file as an alternative to the MPEG2 required for SVCD - but where does one set the different video resolution required for VCD? Also the encoing method will have to be CBR I assume for a VCD - but at what rate? In the past I have used TMPGENC for this sort of task - but CCE seems to give much better results as is significantly faster so I would like to use that instead. I am not worried creating the CD images - I can quite happily cut/merge any resulting .MPG files to get them onto CD's.

Any input would be welcome - if not I will have to go off and start experimenting with the various tools available. As an aside, if I get this working, is there any demand for me to write up the steps I used to help others with the same problem?

[Labersack]

This is the wrong forum, but anyway some short answers.

VCD has videobitrate 1150kb/s and audio 224kb/s
You can activate a button in the framserver-tab to edit your AVS-file before encoding, here you can insert/edit a resize-line.
CCE will give better results in MPEG2 with higher bitrates, but in my opinion TMPEGEnc is better in MPEG1 with lower bitrates (Thats my personal opinion, maybe some others have other opinions).

[markrb]

Also technically VCD is mpeg-1 and this might be a problem for a player that cannot play SVCD's.
DVD2SVCD only does mpeg-2.

Mark

[itimpi]

Also technically VCD is mpeg-1 and this might be a problem for a player that cannot play SVCD's.

I know - but all the players I have seen that can play SVCD's seem to be quite happy with VCD's. I guess in the case of the player I mentioned earlier that can play MP3 it already had MPEG1 support for that purpose in place (MP3 files are MPEG1 encoded I believe).

DVD2SVCD is only set up to produce MPEG2 files for SVCD's. However CCE (or TMPGENC) are quite capable of encoding to MPEG1. What I was hoping to do was leverage all the work that had been done by DVD2SVCD while creating a SVCD version of the film in terms of ripping the files from the DVD, splitting the sound out of the VOB's and downmixing it to the 44KHz rate, changing frame rates from NTSC to PAL etc to make it easier to create the VCD. I was thinking for instance that the .mpg file output from the multiplexing phase might be a good starting point for a simplified conversion process to a VCD than trying to start with the original DVD (which is what I have done in the past).

[markrb]

I was also thinking along the same lines as you a couple of months ago and asked a question very close to yours. Basically the answer I got was that this program is designed for SVCD's not VCD's and the option will not be added.

I suspect, but never tried, you could start DVD2SVCD and after it finishes with the audio and before it starts CCE you could stop it and start TMPG, if you want mpeg-1, or CCE and modify the settings the way you wanted. You would then need to mux it yourself.

At least some of the work would be done for you.

Not the answer you hoped for I know, but it's the only one I can think of.

Mark

[itimpi]

@markrb
I was also thinking along the same lines as you a couple of months ago and asked a question very close to yours. Basically the answer I got was that this program is designed for SVCD's not VCD's and the option will not be added.

I was not (at this point anyway) thinking of making a good case for it to be added to the DVD2SVCD program. I was thinking more on the lines of a simple guide of the recommended list of steps. Only if it proved really simple would it be worth trying to make a case for getting it added to DVD2SVCD!:)

[Doom9]

mpeg1 in cce isn't really great and dvd2svcd has made his point against tmpg support a number of times already.

Here's a quick rundown for a fast dvd -> vcd conversion (it's in my guides too): rip with smartriper, dvd2avi (no force film or other funny things) the vobs with audio decoding endabled, load the d2v and wav in tmpg, select the ntsc or pal vcd (depending on your source), encode. Load the mpg in tmpg's mpeg tools to demux, remux with bbmpeg and the split option, and burn in nero

[Macros746]

I am an avid VCD fan and an occasional SVCD maker. I think you'll find that using SVCDs work will do exactly nothing for your speed. Do as the excellent Mr. Doom9 says..... Smartripper (or you can certainly use the rip that DVD2SVCD makes) to DVD2AVI to TMPGenc. The whole process takes about 4 hours if you have a decent system.....

Macros

[itimpi]

I am an avid VCD fan and an occasional SVCD maker. I think you'll find that using SVCDs work will do exactly nothing for your speed. Do as the excellent Mr. Doom9 says..... Smartripper (or you can certainly use the rip that DVD2SVCD makes) to DVD2AVI to TMPGenc. The whole process takes about 4 hours if you have a decent system.....
It was not so much speed I was thinking about as quality. I regularily want to do NTSC->PAL conversions which involves all the the issues about changing frame rate, etc. Also I have found that I can have audio sync problems with some films when I try and create the VCD direct from the DVD (may be due to the tools I use being inadequate to the job of course). As when I have created a SVCD using the DVD2SVCD program all these issues have been resolved in creating the SVCD, I thought it would be nice to be able to "jump in" at the appropriate point and do the steps necessary to create the VCD. It seemed to me that the .mpg files created by DVD2SVD just before creating the CD images have all the sound and video properly encoded for PAL, with the sound properly synced so if they could be used as an input instead of the VOB files from the original DVD the conversion should be easier :)