jsoto
3rd January 2003, 01:53
Hi all,
This is my first contribution to this high level forum, so please be comprehensive if I do some mistakes. I’ve tried to search for this procedure in the forum, may be it has been already posted, but I will not be able to find this “tricky method” even using the search machine…
I’ve decided to send this post to VCD/SVCD Authoring forum, because I think it should be more useful for those of you (like me) who do not have a DVD burner.
Well, let’s go to the business:
SUMMARY:
The idea is to author a DVD and to burn it in a CD media. I’ve been very excited when I tested it in my player (Yukai 560) and it works!!!. Unfortunately, after that, I’ve also tested it in other players I have access with no success… (as it should be expected). Summarizing, the tests I’ve done are:
- PC SW: WinDVD 4: It works fine but with major problems in subtitles.
- PC SW: PowerDVD 4: It works fine with minor problems in subtitles.
- Yukay 560: Everything works fine. It was identified as a DVD, and everything works, ac3 sound, subtitles, DVD menus… Fantastic!!!
- Thomson 5200 & Phillips 633: No success…
- PlayStation 2: No success…
ADVANTAGES
- The main advantage to me has been to start learning and practicing with DVD authoring tools (although I do not have a DVD burner).
- You can use true Dolby Digital (ac3) sound. My Yukay 560 outputs the six channels through its analog outputs, as a DVD. Please note that using MPEG2 5.1 (SVCD standard) it does not do it, I have to use the digital output and an external decoder…
- If you have a settop unable to play subtitles in SVCD mode, and it accepts this trick, I think you will be very happy…
- The produced CD is a little bit more robust and durable than a standard SVCD, because it is a “normal data disc” and will have the error correcting protection inherent to the filesystem, which is not available in VCD/SVCDs; but you have to pay something in capacity. The maximum size available is 700 MB in a 80 min CD, instead of the 800 MB of the SVCD.
PROCEDURE
Obviously, you can try to do a full backup of a DVD movie without recoding the video, but it will need a lot of CDs (6 to 12). Also, the CD reader must be able to support a high bit rate (6x-8x) which could be not the case (SVCD standard only requires a 2x reader). So, I will describe how to produce a 2-3 CDs movie, using the fantastic freeware tools as dvd2svcd, BeSweet, IfoEdit, ImgTools…
a) Rip the movie, with your favorite tool. (I use smartripper. I suppose dvd2svcd can also do this job, but I never have used it).
b) Decide the audio channel/s to be kept . If you want to spent a little more time, you can change the definitive bitrate using BeSweet+ac3machine, but it will be done manually after dvd2svcd has finished. If not, you can use directly the extracted streams.
c) Start dvd2svcd with the following indications:
- Select the audio channels you will keep, and use stereo coding with the same bitrate you are planning to use in your definitive ac3 streams. Dvd2svcd will extract the audio channels for you (and also will code them in mp2, which will not be used, but it does not take so time….).
- Select the subtitles you will keep. I hope dvd2svcd will extract it for you in a usable way (I’ve been done this job with IfoEdit)
- In bitrate tab, you have to select 700 MB CDs. This option is not available by default, but you can “write” inside the selection box and it works
- In CDImage tab, select “Do not make images”, they will not be used. Also, the bbmpeg muxed files will not be used, but you cannot say dvd2svcd to don’t produce them.
Let dvd2svcd do its job….
d) Recode the audio channels if you want to reduce the bit rate of them. For this job you can use BeSweet+ac3machine (Do not use BeSweetGUI0.66, it always set the “-s stereo” switch in azid library, so you will get a 2 channels ac3 at the output !!!).
In this point I had a little “problem” but I found a thread talking about it:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33535
I had to use a gain in the range of 18-24 db in order to get a similar level of signal than the original track. Obviously it implies a lot of overflow warnings.
e) If you want to keep the original chapters, start IfoEdit0.95, open the Ifo file ripped, and save the original chapters to a file.
f) Start IfoEdit0.95 and select the authoring of a new DVD (there are guides for it), multiplexing the encoded video, the audio ac3 channels and the subtitles you want. Also, you can introduce the chapters file saved (you can also edit a file with fixed chapters) and start multiplexing. At this time IfoEdit does not allow you to select the Vobs size, and 1 GB VOBs will be produced.
g) Ask IfoEdit for Re-mux or strip the streams (obviously keeping all the streams). Now, you are allowed to select the Vob size to 700 MB (I think someone have had previously the idea of authoring a DVD in CD media…). After that, if everything was fine, you will have a number of VOBs identical to the number of CDs selected in dvd2svcd, and every VOB will be of 700 MB size (really 699 MB).
h) Now, the easy way to proceed is to move each VOB to a separate folder (example …\disc1\VIDEO_TS, …\disc2\VIDEO_TS, …\disc3\VIDEO_TS), and start IfoEdit for each one, following the guide:
"Create a complete new IFO files for a set of VOB files"
i) The rest of the job is the same than the one needed for a DVDR:
- Test the DVD with DVDPlay button of IfoEdit (I have the same problem with subtitles than with WinDVD, but they work fine in my player)
- Create an Image using ImgTool (integrated in IfoEdit)
- Mount the image with daemon-tools and check it with WinDVD or PowerDVD.
- Burn the CD using a CD to CD burning tool.
CONCLUSSIONS
The CD produced is absolutely non-compliant with any standard (even with DVD standard, because we are using a 480x576 resolution, which, as far as I know, is not supported in DVD standard). So, this procedure will be only useful for training proposes or, if you are fortunate having a settop which “supports” it, you can enjoy with a true ac3 sound in your movies…
I hope this guide will be accurate enough, if not, do not hesitate to contact me.
Happy new year to all of you.
Jsoto.
This is my first contribution to this high level forum, so please be comprehensive if I do some mistakes. I’ve tried to search for this procedure in the forum, may be it has been already posted, but I will not be able to find this “tricky method” even using the search machine…
I’ve decided to send this post to VCD/SVCD Authoring forum, because I think it should be more useful for those of you (like me) who do not have a DVD burner.
Well, let’s go to the business:
SUMMARY:
The idea is to author a DVD and to burn it in a CD media. I’ve been very excited when I tested it in my player (Yukai 560) and it works!!!. Unfortunately, after that, I’ve also tested it in other players I have access with no success… (as it should be expected). Summarizing, the tests I’ve done are:
- PC SW: WinDVD 4: It works fine but with major problems in subtitles.
- PC SW: PowerDVD 4: It works fine with minor problems in subtitles.
- Yukay 560: Everything works fine. It was identified as a DVD, and everything works, ac3 sound, subtitles, DVD menus… Fantastic!!!
- Thomson 5200 & Phillips 633: No success…
- PlayStation 2: No success…
ADVANTAGES
- The main advantage to me has been to start learning and practicing with DVD authoring tools (although I do not have a DVD burner).
- You can use true Dolby Digital (ac3) sound. My Yukay 560 outputs the six channels through its analog outputs, as a DVD. Please note that using MPEG2 5.1 (SVCD standard) it does not do it, I have to use the digital output and an external decoder…
- If you have a settop unable to play subtitles in SVCD mode, and it accepts this trick, I think you will be very happy…
- The produced CD is a little bit more robust and durable than a standard SVCD, because it is a “normal data disc” and will have the error correcting protection inherent to the filesystem, which is not available in VCD/SVCDs; but you have to pay something in capacity. The maximum size available is 700 MB in a 80 min CD, instead of the 800 MB of the SVCD.
PROCEDURE
Obviously, you can try to do a full backup of a DVD movie without recoding the video, but it will need a lot of CDs (6 to 12). Also, the CD reader must be able to support a high bit rate (6x-8x) which could be not the case (SVCD standard only requires a 2x reader). So, I will describe how to produce a 2-3 CDs movie, using the fantastic freeware tools as dvd2svcd, BeSweet, IfoEdit, ImgTools…
a) Rip the movie, with your favorite tool. (I use smartripper. I suppose dvd2svcd can also do this job, but I never have used it).
b) Decide the audio channel/s to be kept . If you want to spent a little more time, you can change the definitive bitrate using BeSweet+ac3machine, but it will be done manually after dvd2svcd has finished. If not, you can use directly the extracted streams.
c) Start dvd2svcd with the following indications:
- Select the audio channels you will keep, and use stereo coding with the same bitrate you are planning to use in your definitive ac3 streams. Dvd2svcd will extract the audio channels for you (and also will code them in mp2, which will not be used, but it does not take so time….).
- Select the subtitles you will keep. I hope dvd2svcd will extract it for you in a usable way (I’ve been done this job with IfoEdit)
- In bitrate tab, you have to select 700 MB CDs. This option is not available by default, but you can “write” inside the selection box and it works
- In CDImage tab, select “Do not make images”, they will not be used. Also, the bbmpeg muxed files will not be used, but you cannot say dvd2svcd to don’t produce them.
Let dvd2svcd do its job….
d) Recode the audio channels if you want to reduce the bit rate of them. For this job you can use BeSweet+ac3machine (Do not use BeSweetGUI0.66, it always set the “-s stereo” switch in azid library, so you will get a 2 channels ac3 at the output !!!).
In this point I had a little “problem” but I found a thread talking about it:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33535
I had to use a gain in the range of 18-24 db in order to get a similar level of signal than the original track. Obviously it implies a lot of overflow warnings.
e) If you want to keep the original chapters, start IfoEdit0.95, open the Ifo file ripped, and save the original chapters to a file.
f) Start IfoEdit0.95 and select the authoring of a new DVD (there are guides for it), multiplexing the encoded video, the audio ac3 channels and the subtitles you want. Also, you can introduce the chapters file saved (you can also edit a file with fixed chapters) and start multiplexing. At this time IfoEdit does not allow you to select the Vobs size, and 1 GB VOBs will be produced.
g) Ask IfoEdit for Re-mux or strip the streams (obviously keeping all the streams). Now, you are allowed to select the Vob size to 700 MB (I think someone have had previously the idea of authoring a DVD in CD media…). After that, if everything was fine, you will have a number of VOBs identical to the number of CDs selected in dvd2svcd, and every VOB will be of 700 MB size (really 699 MB).
h) Now, the easy way to proceed is to move each VOB to a separate folder (example …\disc1\VIDEO_TS, …\disc2\VIDEO_TS, …\disc3\VIDEO_TS), and start IfoEdit for each one, following the guide:
"Create a complete new IFO files for a set of VOB files"
i) The rest of the job is the same than the one needed for a DVDR:
- Test the DVD with DVDPlay button of IfoEdit (I have the same problem with subtitles than with WinDVD, but they work fine in my player)
- Create an Image using ImgTool (integrated in IfoEdit)
- Mount the image with daemon-tools and check it with WinDVD or PowerDVD.
- Burn the CD using a CD to CD burning tool.
CONCLUSSIONS
The CD produced is absolutely non-compliant with any standard (even with DVD standard, because we are using a 480x576 resolution, which, as far as I know, is not supported in DVD standard). So, this procedure will be only useful for training proposes or, if you are fortunate having a settop which “supports” it, you can enjoy with a true ac3 sound in your movies…
I hope this guide will be accurate enough, if not, do not hesitate to contact me.
Happy new year to all of you.
Jsoto.