Background music with VCD photo stills?

kentschu · Member Joined: 19 Nov 2002

Does VCDEasy allow the user to create a background audio track that will play while displaying MPEG stills?

IMPORTANT: I do NOT want to create an MPEG video. I know that I can add audio background tracks in a video. But ULead's PictureShow somehow creates a background audio track for MPEG stills - while keeping the MPEG still image resolution!
Can VCDEasy do this?

Kent

DVO · Member Joined: 06 Apr 2002 Location: Sweden

No, not yet.

StellaIndigo · Member Joined: 04 Jan 2003

I have done this but you need to use another tools.

I used a movie editor program, I loaded the audio track. Loaded the image as the first frame and then copied the image to all other frames to the length of the audio. Saved the movie, and viola! a boring MPEG of music with a still image. I used that.

EddyH · Posted: Jan 22, 2003 23:34

Wondering myself - would this work for hi-rez stills? I have already far in the past produced my own 'still' + music (very low rate mpg video of a still frame, super-long GOP of an HQ I-pic with a load of no-change Ps & Bs, plus audio stream). That was OK but it didn't look the best sitting still for five minutes at 352x288, and contained some text which was rendered horribly blocky by the resolution.

Mind you it wasn't so much of a prob for the variation on this theme I made which had music, and a picture which changed every 30 seconds to a different 'wallpaper'. Combining the two would be even better of course, VCDEasy could make it quite, well, easy, having a number of hi-rez still sequences without any audio/changing gap between them and not mapping any of the sections except for the first one to a menu option or remote key.

Mainly I ask it though, not really for including music tracks or livening up a stills gallery (can just turn TV off while playing music, and it may get annoying with it changing all the time looking at hi-rez stills).... but for the menus. I really haven't the source material, skills, time, imagination, tools etc to make motion menus, so, so far I've just used stillframes, either tricking Nero into not displaying any text over a prepped image or more recently putting it in VCDEasy as the first segment on the disc. Some music in the background whilst the user is working out what to play would be nice, and a short 'alert' noise (like, the strumming of a harp or whatever) on the rare 'insert disc 2' moments.....

And.................. VCDEasy creates a CDDA folder in the ISO section of the disc. I know it's possible to include CDDA tracks on VCDs (eg as an alternative to the stills + mp2 audio) but can't see any way to insert them with VCDEasy despite it making the folder. Any ideas?!
_________________
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Back after a long time away, mainly because I now need to start making up vidcapped DVDRs for work and I haven't a clue where to start any more!

ticos2000 · Posted: Jan 27, 2003 20:08

The point is that if you are able to do this with mpg files and audio converted files to mpg you can fit a lot of music on one vcd .
We do know that Winoncd can do this but it would be very nice if you can do the same with vcdeasy where definitely you have more control on the whole project

Bet regards

hector

adam · Member Joined: 13 Sep 2000 Location: United States

I think that Ulead picture show and Winoncd do this by making an actual photo cd. This is essentially just still pictures on a cd, it does not use the structure and file format of a VCD, though you can probably use these programs to do this as well. With a true photocd you can have a single audio track play while you switch from one still to the next....this is NOT possible in the VCD or SVCD format. The obvious downside to a true photocd is that not all dvd players play them, VCD is far more compatible. Also you cannot have any menu's or mpg sequences.

The only compliant way to have audio in a "still picture" with a VCD or SVCD is to just make an mpg program stream, with the same frame repeating.

There is a non-compliant way to do this, which your dvd player may or may not play, and actually you can do this pretty simply with VCDEasy but you will have to manually edit the XML script. Just use VCDeasy to create your disk as normal but make sure and save enough room for your mp2 audio stream(s). Save out the XML and manually make references to it for each segment that you want to play that audio.

Just follow this guide, it uses TSCV but it doesn't matter, VCDEasy actually will work much better.

http://www.geocities.com/mikk999/StillsWithAudio.htm

With this method the music will start over each time you go to a different still even though its the same audio track...no way around that. But the great thing is that you can have the same audio track play for multiple still images, so it saves tons of room.

P.S. that is a geocites link so you probably have to copy and paste into your browser.