i want a movie with optional subs and chapters

[rudeboymcc]

all i want is a DVD style cd, with chapters and subtitles, but at a lower bitrate that fits on two cd-rs. so like vcd qualty. i've looked in the guides, but tey don't answer one question.

i've got a movie encoded at vcd quality. and i've stil got al the orignal vob files. can't i jsut delete the original video and replace it with the vcd quality video? that way i keep the ac3 sound and subs and chapters. possible?

i was thinking with vobedit but i 'm not sure how to use that program.

[rudeboymcc]

and one more thing. how can i split the movie without losing the chapters?

[markrb]

So you mean like SVCD then? Which has all of that (except for the ac-3). You might want to read up a bit on the Doom9 main site.

Mark

[smiller667]

If you must have ac-3, then miniDVD (i.e. DVD content on a cd-r) is your only option ... few standalones will play it, though.

[ChristianHJW]

First, are you aiming for playing them in a standalone ( hardware player ) ? You have 3 options, all with Pro's and Con's :

1. Create a S-VCD. You cant use your VCD video stream ( MPEG1 video ), but have to use DVD2SVCD or TMPEGenc to make a MPEG2 video stream in much higher quality than the MPEG1 from the VCD. Most movies will fit nicely on 2 CDs, except they are > 2 hrs , and the picture quality will still be better than even the best VCD.
To create chapters and menues use DVD2SVCD again ( Guides are here ) or make your way through TSCV from www.ttool.de .

Pro's : Very widely supported in hardware players
Con's : no AC3 sound possible

2. Make a MiniDVD, as stated above. I dont know too much about it as i never did one myself, sorry, but its more or less a real DVD with VOB structure, but on a normal CD instead. Of course, to have a movie on 2 - 3 CDs you need to reencode the MPEG2 video streams to a much smaller bitrate, and maybe even resolution ( if supported by your standalone ).

Pro's : Full DVD functionality, including AC3 sound
Con's : Need more than 2 CDs AFAIK, very limited hardware support


3. Wait for MCF ( http://mcf.sf.net )

Pro`s :
- You can ( in theory ) use every video stream, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, Theora, whatever , even your existing VCD MPEG1 video stream
- You can ( in theory ) use every audio stream, AC3, MP3, Vorbis, AAC
- full DVD functionality with respect to chapters, menues, intro's, extro's, etc.
- mode 2 form 2 burning extension to have 800 MB on one 80 mins CD ( XCD )

Con's :
- Not available yet, first fully functional and spec compliant alpha muxers to be expected beginning of next year, and for sure it will take some more months until all DVD functionalities like chapters, menues, etc. can be authored in the Java based MCF authoring tool, called -gemma
- Hardware support is technically feasible, even very easy for the lower MCF hardware profiles ( limited in usable codecs ), but unfortunately highly unlikely due to the way the industry works :(

[theReal]

If playing the cds on your pc only is not a problem for you, then you can encode to high quality, high res, Divx (Divx 5.02 or Xvid, both can achieve better quality than VCD/SVCD), keep the ac3 sound, keep the original subtitles (optional subtitles, works fine in every player with DirectVobSub).
AFAIK you can't have chapters - but do you really need chapters when you can jump to any place in the movie within seconds in your Divx player?

You see that every solution except for buying a DVD burner has some negative aspects about it...