VCD to Divx conversion

[silverarrow]

I am attempting to convert my collection of VCDs to a Divx format for storage. I have tried FfmpegX but it seems to convert in under a second with the following message:

Encoding started on Tue Feb 16 17:32:32 SGT 2010
FFmpeg version CVS, Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Fabrice Bellard
Mac OSX universal build for ffmpegX
libavutil version: 49.0.0
libavcodec version: 51.9.0
libavformat version: 50.4.0
Input #0, psxstr, from '/Users/Sangeetha/Desktop/AVSEQ01.mpg':
Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
Stream #0.0: Audio: adpcm_xa, 18900 Hz, stereo
Number of stream maps must match number of output streams

Would really appreciate anyone who can help me figure this out. Thanks!

BG

[AlanHK]

Can you play the mpg file in any media player?

[silverarrow]

Yes, it does. When I hit the play button on the software or the default player on the mac, it plays.

BG

[jagabo]

Is your source really an .MPG file? Not a .DAT file renamed .MPG? Can ffmpegx handle .DAT files? You may have to remux to an MPG container.

[jman98]

I am attempting to convert my collection of VCDs to a Divx format for storage.

No offense, but this is a poor idea. Disk storage is cheap and it keeps getting cheaper and larger all the time. You're acting like you are living 5 years ago by doing this. And do note that converting your VCDs will just make the resulting video worse. VCD is already a low resolution, low bit rate lossy format. Converting it to Divx isn't going to make the final result anything but even lower quality.

[Ai Haibara]

Use vcdgearX/vcdgear to extract the MPEG streams from the VCDs.

[lowellriggsiam]

Disk storage has gotten much cheaper I just picked up a Toshiba 1.5TB USB HDD for $109.99USD.

[silverarrow]

Well yes my mpg file is a renamed dat file. I tried it both as a dat and mpg file but get the same results. My idea of that was two fold - most of my movies, are Asian and three hours long. So they span across three vcds. I intended to join them up into one long file and hoped that by re-converting to DivX, the picture quality would improve somewhat. But if it won't then this idea is dead in the water.

[jagabo]

You won't improve the picture quality simply by reencoding VCD MPEG1 to Divx. Unless your player happens to have some quirk where it play Divx better than MPEG1. Reencoding with lossy codecs can only decrease the quality of a video. You might be able improve the quality of the source by using deblocking, and other filters. But that's a different issue.

Renaming a .DAT file .MPG does not make it an MPG file -- no more so than renaming a Word .DOC file .MPG makes it into a video. It just happens that many players and programs can deal with both and recognize the container by the content rather than the extension.

If you still want to reencode, try remuxing your DAT files into an MPG container with Mpeg2Cut2. See if that helps.

[jman98]

Well yes my mpg file is a renamed dat file. I tried it both as a dat and mpg file but get the same results. My idea of that was two fold - most of my movies, are Asian and three hours long. So they span across three vcds. I intended to join them up into one long file and hoped that by re-converting to DivX, the picture quality would improve somewhat. But if it won't then this idea is dead in the water.

What the heck are you watching if most of your movies are 3 hours long? Dude, I'm more into Asian cinema than almost anybody here and I have hundreds of Asian movies in my collection. I might have one or two that even approach 3 hours in length. The only one I can think of off the top of my head that I know is this long is "Touch Of Zen".

Three VCD sets are quite rare. Whatever you are buying is really unusual.

[silverarrow]

jman98, the Asian ones I am referring to are Indian movies. Most of them average between 2.5 to 3 hours and commonly come in three VCD box sets.

If this is the case, what would be the best way to archive these discs?

BG

[jagabo]

three VCD box sets... what would be the best way to archive these discs?

Copy the DAT files to a folder on your hard drive? At most, demux them to MPG files and append them.

[jman98]

jman98, the Asian ones I am referring to are Indian movies. Most of them average between 2.5 to 3 hours and commonly come in three VCD box sets.

If this is the case, what would be the best way to archive these discs?

BG

My bad. I forgot that "Asia" also included India. Also, it doesn't help that there are various Asian movie forums and websites and they don't mean Indian when they use that term. Thanks for replying though as I was curious.

[AlanHK]

Most of them average between 2.5 to 3 hours and commonly come in three VCD box sets.
If this is the case, what would be the best way to archive these discs?

I've joined VCD sets into continuous movies using an MPEG editor.

MPEG-VCR is reliable for this.

I believe you can do it with TMPGenc too, and that works on MPEG1 (which is what VCDs use) in its free mode. (Sorry, I only know Win apps for this.)

I make these into DVDs by this method, which does not degrade the video at all as it is not reencoded, and also resampling the audio to 48000 Hz.
You can fit at least two full movies on each DVD5 this way, and also add DVD features like subtitles (which was my major motivation, as I had Japanese movies with Chinese subs, and wanted English).

[jagabo]

Mpeg2Cut2 (free) can open and append DAT files and output a single MPG file.