I must be retarded but.....

[cavaughan]

I have a VCD player (and it shows up as such in the searchable player list from this site). I took a video and using ffmpegX chose the option "fast VCD". The resulting file was written in MPEG1 format, as I understand. At least it was an mpg file, which viewed fine on my computer. Then I burned the file directly to a CD-R disk with a closed session. However, my VCD player complained that the file was the wrong format. What did I do wrong?

Thanks!

[Supreme2k]

Did you use an authoring app? That may be the problem, since the player may only accept VCD compliant discs.

[sdm]

sounds like you burned a *data-cd* not a *vcd*.

there are many tutorials on explaning how to burn your mpeg to as a vcd.
just do a search.
-- good luck.

[cavaughan]

Research, research, research.
Maybe I'm researching wrong. All I want to know is a little detailed information about what to do. Either I'm not authoring the data right, or I'm not writing it to disk right.
So, I went back to ffmpegX and authored the mpg file. It created a second mpg file that was a little smaller then the first and a xml file. So, what does this mean? Do I just burn these files to disk or is there something else I still need to do?

Curtis

[sdm]

Well, a vcd has a specific structure that defines it as a vcd.
the fast vcd preset should also create '.bin' and '.cue' files as long as it is checked in the 'tools' tab.

There are so many ways to make a vcd...

If you have toast 5:
1.choose Video CD under the 'other' tab
2. drop the .bin into the window
3. burn

If you have toast 6:
1. go to the copy tab, choose 'Bin/Cue Files' in the advanced tab of the sidebar
2. drop the .bin and .cue into the window
3. burn

OR

1. go to the video tab, choose 'Video CD' from the advanced tab of the sidebar
2. drop the .mpg into the window. (if your mpeg is compliant, it won't re-encode -- ffmpegX vcd mpegs are compliant) Choose NTSC or PAL
3. burn

if you have neither, download a free burner app from version tracker.

well there you go. I hope it helps.

[pixeljammedia]

In FFMPEG X -
1) Go to the Tools tab
2) In the Post Processing section select "Author as VCD (.bin/.cue)"
3) Select your MPEG by clicking "Browse" under "Video Tools"
4) Pull down the menu next to "Mux As" and select "VCD" (this step may not be neccessary)
5) Press the "Author" Button
6) When the "Done" window pops up find you .bin and .cue files.
7) If you have Toast 6 then select "Copy" Tab and .bin/.cue in the drawer. Drag the .cue file into the window. Press Burn.
7b) If you have Toast 5 select "Other>Disc Image" and drag the .bin file into your window. Press the burn button.

In Toast 6 no preliminary steps.
1) Select video tab.
2) Select VCD in drawer.
3) Drop mpeg into window. Press Burn.

In Toast 5 no preliminary steps,
1) Pulldown Other and select video cd
2) Drop mpeg into window and press burn.

The two Toast methods require a standards compliant vcd mpeg otherwise they will reject the file (in Toast 5) or re-encode (in Toast 6)

Now from now on, go check the "Guides" section at the top of this forum, there is some useful stuff there.

[sdm]

thanks for clearing that up