Mini-DVD moderate success...

[Nitemare]

Okay, so I'm probably the 400th person to give it a try but I'll ask anyway since a search of the guides came up empty. I'm trying to make a mini-DVD work on a standalone player because neither VCD or SVCD work on my Mom's DVD player and I can't share my videos of the kids with her at all.

I have successfully made min-DVDs that play on the PowerDVD software player (and in WMP). I used a de-muxed CVD source MPEG file, IfoEdit, imgtools, and Daemon tools. I made an ISO image (with imgtools) of the DVD structure created in IfoEdit, mounted the image with daemon tools, and used Roxio's CD Copier to copy the "disc" to cd-rom.

I didn't really expect this to work but PowerDVD took the cd and read it without complaint. I'm calling this a success since my PowerDVD version does NOT read my SVCD discs although I CAN navigate to the MPG file and have that read but this is hard to explain to people trying to play my discs... now they can just pop it in and play it.

Naturally I tried to play this mini-dvd on my standalone. The player tried to initialize the disc but came up with an "INVALID ENTRY" error. Thinking that maybe this was the TOC written by Roxio, I tried to burn it in UDF mode using Nero. I got the same error.

Perhaps my DVD player (apex) doesn't play mini-DVDs (but that's no reason not to try!). Maybe the bitrate in my CVD is too low? (2400kbps) Maybe it's an audio issue (convert to AC3? instead of 48000-MPA?), maybe it's the laser being used to try and read the disc in my standalone, or maybe I'm just trying to burn it incorrectly.

Does anyone have any ideas how I might make this work? The "software only" mini-dvds are acceptable in some instances and 30-50 min. per disc is cool... as opposed to the "advertised" 10-20 min. mini-dvd discs. My DVD player can handle the CVDs so I was hoping a CVD with a valid DVD structure would play also.

Like the title says... moderate success. Of course Mom doesn't have a PC so I'd REALLY like to make these work in her standalone. Maybe this just can't be done...yet? Any ideas at all, gang?

Thanks!
Nitemare

[wulf109]

miniDVD plays on very,very few DVD players. Sampo and Cyberhome will play them. If your mother's DVD won't play VCD or SVCD there's no chance of making it play miniDVD,in fact it probably won't play DVD-R either. You need to invest in a new DVD player.

[Nitemare]

True, and I didn't really expect much success to be honest. Still ... deep down I believe that it's the METHOD that makes this mini-DVD thing so incompatible. Yes, I know that the drives have separate lasers for CD-Rs and DVDs... but I can't believe it's impossible to make this work.

Like I'd said... I'm probably the 400th person to try copying the "virtual DVD" drive to cd-rom. When I try it in physical drives the hardware and software know that the formats are incompatible. (mine warn me about it, anyway) I had no problem copying the virtual drive though. Okay... so it's not exactly a breakthrough...

Still, there amost HAS to be a method that will make this work on many machines. If there's evidence (aside from "it hasn't been done yet") that it cannot work, I'd love to know why. Is it the separate laser issue?

You'll have to forgive me... after I mastered VCDs I went to SVCDs, then DIVX, Xvid, ASF, WMV (for web stuff) etc. Until I buy an actual DVD burner then this mini-DVD thing is the only challenge I have left. I'd hate to waste months on it only to find that it's physically impossible.

Regards,
Nitemare

[Easy Rider]

Is the required rotation speed of a mini DVD not to much for a stand alone DVD player? Especially since the DVD structure on the CD indicates a DVD which needs normal rpm, but then finds lower bit-density, and thus a higher rpm is needed. For virtual cd/dvd and pc-dvd players this is not an issue since they are capable of much higher bitrate then required for playback.

[vitualis]

The main reason why miniDVDs don't work on stand-alone players is firmwire. Most DVD players look at the media, if they don't find a DVD, they look for a CD. At this stage, it only expects, VCD, SVCD or CD-DA (and MP3) and simply won't load the appropriate firmwire to read the CD as if it were a DVD.

This is the main reason why miniDVDs don't play on stand-alone players and this doesn't seem to be changing in the near future.

Still, there amost HAS to be a method that will make this work on many machines. If there's evidence (aside from "it hasn't been done yet") that it cannot work, I'd love to know why. Is it the separate laser issue?

You are two years too late... miniDVDs have been investigated to death (notably by a character called robshot). For those players that can read miniDVDs (i.e., have the firmware that can handle it), there second issue is that of rotational speed.

A 1x DVD drive has a rotational speed equivalent to about 3x CD. However, that means that the DVD drive can only read the CD at a max. bitrate of about 3000 kbit/s -- which is much too low if you want to put high quality DVD type video on a miniDVD... This was an issue on the Sampo DVD players (and clones) which was the majority of DVD players that could play miniDVDs.

Regards.

[2man]

to miniDVD better buy a new stand alone DVD
i made 1 miniDVD(1º try) and only JOCEL(SAMPO) could read it, but it didn´t autoplay, i have to choose ""the directory"" DVD and search for audio (alot of options)
it work fine
the encode was *.d2v to Tmpeg at 4000kbps CQ_vbr and audio at 320kbps the max that the jocel accepts with kvcd matrices
to DVD author i try for the 1º time ifoedit/imgtools
and burn with nero
no diference from the original

[energy80s]

I have had a lot of success with burning mini DVD's on CDR discs, but then I have a Cyberhome DVD player that will play just about anything and will accept bitrates up to 6Mbps from a CDR! As others have said, success or failure will depend on your DVD player - although if you do a test burn with a low bitrate source, say a CVD file at 2500kbps, it should play normally, if it doesn't then your DVD player just won't accept these kind of discs.

[vitualis]

to miniDVD better buy a new stand alone DVD
i made 1 miniDVD(1º try) and only JOCEL(SAMPO) could read it, but it didn´t autoplay, i have to choose ""the directory"" DVD and search for audio (alot of options)
it work fine

That's not miniDVD playback.

miniDVD playback means that it must be able to play the disc as if it were a DVD (i.e., including all the menus, etc.)

That player can just play MPEG clips on a CD-ROM which is a completely different thing.

Regards.