VCD conversion DVD

[Researching Viking]

I have been searching the site for information on VCD to DVD backup. I'm doing a backup for a professor's VCD collection. We want to update/convert/backup these files to DVD. The VCDs I'm making backups are of Karaoke CDs from Thailand, Berma, and potentially China. They have all been purchased and are originals (not the pirated versions also sold).
For those interested the research is on literacy and media use of mountain tribes in SE Asia.

I haven't done work with VCDs before so this is a new process for me. I am familiar with burning/ripping and have no problems if I have MPEGs. I don't know what to do with the .DAT files.

I need to convert .DAT to MPEGs. I have downloaded VCDEasy and I am using it converter. Thanks to the following post...

You need to use VCDXRip to extract the MPEG file from the VCD DAT file. There are many frontends for this. See if you can drop on the last freeware version of VCDEasy (google search for vcdeasy freeware) as the Tools section offers an easy frontend.

I have downloaded VCDEasy and read the supplied guides, but have found that I'm getting an error message when trying to convert DAT files to MPEG.

Error message:
Cdxa2mpeg.exe
Fread: () Is a directory

I did a quick search on the forum and on google, but to no avail.

Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?

Also, some of the VCDs do not have DAT files they have .VCD files. I have never seen this an wanted to know if anyone knew what it was (is it a DAT file with a different head?)

Thanks in advance.

Quick guides checked:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=120287#post120287

[setarip_old]

Hi!

You just might be able to get away with dropping the video file of the VCD (Whether .DAT, .MPG, or .VCD) inth DVD Flick...

[Ghitulescu]

Except for a slight modification* (which has no influence on any PAL DVD player I've seen), the VCD files (the MPEG ones, not the DATs) are DVD compatible, so extract the MEPG from DAT (or simply use them as they are, most programs will understand them) and author the DVD.

*In case you're curious about that modification, it's the GOP length which is allowed to be longer in VCD than in DVD.

[Researching Viking]

Thank you for your input.

Setarip_old, I tried to use DVD Flik, but no dice. I got an error message that the files were not recognized. I tried to pull from the copies on my HD and from the VCD directly, but neither worked.

I also did a quick search for software that can convert .DAT to MPEG and get a list of sites I'd rather not download from.

Do you have any programs you recommend for .DAT conversion?

AS I said VCDEasy's converter didn't recognize my .DAT files. I've also used Emicsoft, AVS Video Converter, and another whose names escapes me at the moment.

At this point I'm wondering if it is the .DAT files I'm attempting.

Ghitulescu, I tried to simply copy the .DAT files and burn as a DVD. It wasn't successful. Again if you have any suggestions for a good converter please let me know.

Thanks again for the info. I'll keep working on it and I'll post an edit if anything new comes up.

[setarip_old]

Setarip_old, I tried to use DVD Flik, but no dice.Did you try this with EACH of the three filetypes you mentioned (.DAT, .MPG, or .VCD)?

If, as it should, Flick accepts an .MPG file, try changing the extensions of the others from .DAT and .VCD to .MPG and then load into Flick...

[mariush]

Tsunami MPEG Encoder ( http://www.tmpgenc.net/en/download.html ) has a feature called MPEG Tools, where you can use the Multiplex section to convert the .DAT files to .MPG files without recompression of the actual video or audio.

http://savedonthe.net/image/509/tsunami.png

It will probably also work with .VCD files (my guess is that these are actual Super Video CD).

Best of all it's free, only if you want to use the mpeg2 encoder part you have to pay but there are open source programs available that are now better than Tsunami's encoder. See HCEnc here fore example.

So anyways, you can re-mux to MPG and then you can use virtually any software to resize video to the DVD resolution if needed, encode audio to something DVD supports (ac3 or lossless audio for example) and create the VOB files.

[Sharc]

You may also want to try SVCD2DVD (http://www.svcd2dvd.com/Software/svcd2dvd2.aspx).
There is a free trial version.

The free VCDGear (http://www.vcdgear.com/) should also help you with the conversion/extraction

[ronnylov]

VCD use 44.1 kHz audio sample rate and DVD standard is 48 kHz. So you probably need to convert the audio. However the video streeam of VCD can normally be used as a source for DVD authoring.

I remember that sometimes VCDEasy had problems to rip the VCD directly from disc.
Then it may work better if converting the disc to a image file first (do not remember what format was supported, .img or maybe .iso).
You can use tools like Clone CD. There are also a VCD-extraction function in isobuster.

Here are some guides:
http://forum.videohelp.com/topic141726.html
http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video/convert-vcd-dvd.htm
http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/tutorial/svcd.html

[Researching Viking]

Thanks for the help!

I was able to get the files converted easily. I'm still in the process of converting/burning have a lot to get through. This has given me several options and things to include in the write up.

Thanks again!

[setarip_old]

@Researching Viking I was able to get the files converted easily.

It would be nice for you to disclose which of the several suggested methods you used successfully...

[Ghitulescu]

... so extract the MEPG from DAT (or simply use them as they are, most programs will understand them) and author the DVD.

...I tried to simply copy the .DAT files and burn as a DVD. It wasn't successful. Again if you have any suggestions for a good converter please let me know.
This doesn't rhyme with this
...I have no problems if I have MPEGs
Don't tell me you burned MPEG files directly on DVD and it worked.

Author does not mean copy. You need first to convert the DAT files into something your authoring program understands. You have been given several ideas.


We are still waiting for your method to convert VCD to DVD.

[Researching Viking]

For .DAT converting I had two methods.
VCDEasy was able to convert after I copied the CD onto the HD on the computer and did not attempt to rip from the VCD directly or from the external HD I use for all my research. (May be a USB 1.0 vs. 2.0 problem)
Another professor gave me a program called Xilisoft (sp?) that has a very easy .DAT converter that could rip from the disc convert and save to my external HD. I'm using this as it saves me time. Program costs ~$15USD if you purchase it.

For burning I'm using the same program above (Xilisoft) to burn as it also fixes the audio problems. I have only burned 2 DVDs as a test and I'm mostly working on copying the converted files to the external HD before burning to DVD.

Again thank you so much. This has been a huge time saver and I've learned a lot about the different file types and some of the conversion methods.

If you need more detail please let me know. I just wanted to quickly respond to your questions, but I have to step out now. I'll answer more if you have them when I'm back at work next week.