Movie on 2 VCDs

[vikasa]

I was recently browsing the various online commercial VCD sites like vcdgallery.com, getvcd.com, etc.

I was surprised to see that even fairly long movies like Gangs of New York and Catch Me If You Can are sold on only 2 discs?

I have read all the docs on this site about "fitting" movies on 1 CD by reducing the bitrate to a absolute minimum. Is this what these guys do?

Given the standard VCD bitrate of 1152kbps, what is the max playing time I can get on one 700MB CD-R? I know this is simple math, but please humor me!

The reason I ask is that I was recently able to (over)burn a 90 minute bin/cue image onto a Verbatim 80minute/700MB CD-R and it plays fine upto the last frame! How is this possible?

Thanks

[Gazorgan]

Research KVCD. It's not true VCD, and yes you can get more on the disk. It's still VCD resolution, which is on par with a VHS tape. Fine if you TV is 25" or smaller and you don't want surround sound.

[wonderuss]

Back in the old days of vcd's, i used to make them with different templates for Tmpeg and i used to get quite good results (for vcd's that is) with films upto 2 hours on a 800mb disc. I encoded the mpegs with Tmpeg and authored the discs with vcd easy

[Devanshu]

Withouht lowering the bitrate, you should be able to get about 70-80 minutes on one cd. You dont have to lower the bitrate to an "absolute minimum"...just enough to make it fit, which is different for every movie.

[vikasa]

Back in the old days of vcd's, i used to make them with different templates for Tmpeg and i used to get quite good results (for vcd's that is) with films upto 2 hours on a 800mb disc. I encoded the mpegs with Tmpeg and authored the discs with vcd easy

What bitrate did you use?

[vikasa]

Withouht lowering the bitrate, you should be able to get about 70-80 minutes on one cd. You dont have to lower the bitrate to an "absolute minimum"...just enough to make it fit, which is different for every movie.

How do I determine the optimal bitrate for the movie to make it fit?

Most of the tools out there just do a simple calculation like 30 fps*number of frames*1152 kbps divided into 700MB.

By the way, does VCD uses CBR or VBR?

[wonderuss]

It was a variable bitrate, i think the templates used were called sevcd templates (that i found on this very site) and came along with a text file to explain different settings for different movie lengths.
here's the link
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=271#comments

[ZippyP.]

How do I determine the optimal bitrate for the movie to make it fit?

Most of the tools out there just do a simple calculation like 30 fps*number of frames*1152 kbps divided into 700MB.

By the way, does VCD uses CBR or VBR?

You can use a bitrate calculator (see the Tools section) or TMPGEnc has one built-in if you use the wizard.

FPS has nothing to do with file size, only bitrate (bits per second) and length (in seconds). Kb/s X Seconds = Kb

A standard 80 min CD will hold 800 Mb in VCD mode, but only 700 MB in data mode.

The VCD specification is for CBR, but many players will handle VBR which will give the best quality.

[Devanshu]

If you use the wizard in tmpgenc, after you select what kind of media you're going to use, you can click "auto setting" and it automatically fills up to 99%.