take VCDs and compile them on a DVD-R?

[briansmccabe]

Hello -

I've done a bit of research on this and have messed with it with unfavorable results. Basically I have some good stuff I put on VCD a long time ago before I got into DVD authoring and I'd like to extract the contents of several discs and compile them together onto DVDs.

It seems to be that the file sizes would be a one-to-one ratio, i.e., if I have 5 VCDs that are each 500 MB, I would then wind up with 1 DVD that is ~2.5 GB. However, in following someone's suggestion in using TMPGENC DVD author, this does not appear to be the case.

For example, a 30 MB VCD file of my nephew being interviewed on the local news somehow translated to just 6 MB when put into TMPGENC DVD author and putputted as a VOB file. How did this happen???

Also, while all the VCDs play fine on the home theater, almost all of them have massive artifacting occuring during PC playback after ripping to DAT files.

Any suggestions of known, efficient solutions would be tremendously appreciated.

Thanks -

Brian mc

[Sabro]

Never done this myself, but you might want to look at the following :

http://dvd-swarm.sourceforge.net/

Only thing I can think of that you might have to do is convert the mpeg1's to mpeg2 before using this, but hopefully it help some.

Sabro

[briansmccabe]

hi -

Thanks very much for your suggestion. I have looked over the info for that app and arrived at the conclusion that it's not quite what I am looking for. That program looks quite handy for ISO-related tasks, but I am comfortable with the aspect of actually grouping the different VCD video files together for DVD-authoring. My main hurdle as far as I can tell is figuring out why TMPGENC DVD author outputs the files to a fraction of the size they came in at, and also why there's so much artifacting going on. If worse comes to worst, I will simply hook a DVD player up to my capturing device and capture the playback of the VCDs in real time. The disadvantage to this is that I lose whatever advantage I had in compiling several VCDs onto one DVD, but oh well.

Any other suggestions?

thanks again -

Brian mc

[pchan]

briansmccabe,

This is quite easy to do. I did with DVDLab Pro and TMPGEnc.
You can put 6~7 hrs of VCD into a DVDR.

1. Demux the VCD with TMPGEnc.
2. Author DVD with video and audio.

Here is another link on the same subject.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/convert/vcdtodvd/vcdtodvd.htm

There is no need to re-encode to MPEG2.

[Noahtuck]

I have taken 17, 25minute episodes in vcd format and put them to dvd+r by just using VcdGear to rip them to my HDD then opening them all in TMPGEnc DVD Author , i made my own custom motion menus, of course it will be the same quality as a vcd & not as high quality as dvd, but if you want to have more on a dvd you just have to make certain sacrifices 8)
And from what i have read, the dvd player will have to be capable of playing the VCD format to play dvd's made this way, but i have never tested it on a dvd player that did not accept or play the vcd format......

[briansmccabe]

great!

Thanks to you both for the suggestions. I will give these a shot!!

Thanks again -

Brian Mc

[AlecWest]

Just wanted to add in a brief comment. I've taken some of my VCDs and converted them to DVD format. And, in all cases, the DVD versions performed better. I don't think this is because converting them "improved" anything since output is only as good as the input. But I do suspect that many DVD players are just that ... DVD players. And, while they may play VCDs, they may play them "reluctantly."

The improvement I noticed was in the audio. VCDs playing on my DVD player (Apex AD-1100W) produced a lot of clicks and pops. But, when rendered on DVDs, the clicks and pops went away. Don't ask me why ... but I do think it's a media vs. player compatability issue.

P.S. I just today gave away my old Apex to my neighbor following the arrival of my new region-free format-free Yamakawa 275 DVD player. Boy, is it sweet. I'm watching a movie on it right now.

[pchan]

I wish I have such neighbour like you !

[Sabro]

The improvement I noticed was in the audio. VCDs playing on my DVD player (Apex AD-1100W) produced a lot of clicks and pops. But, when rendered on DVDs, the clicks and pops went away. Don't ask me why ... but I do think it's a media vs. player compatability issue.

I have the same model Apex, and also expirenced the clicks and pops back when I was converting DVDs to VCD or XVid. Seems muting the microphone I had attached to the system corrected the issue. Odd I know, but muting external sound devices or all system sounds in general seemed to fix my problem.

Sabro

[DRP]

briansmccabe,

This is quite easy to do. I did with DVDLab Pro and TMPGEnc.
You can put 6~7 hrs of VCD into a DVDR.

1. Demux the VCD with TMPGEnc.
2. Author DVD with video and audio.

Here is another link on the same subject.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/convert/vcdtodvd/vcdtodvd.htm

There is no need to re-encode to MPEG2.

I just tried to do this very thing today. When I went to add my m1v file into DVD-lab PRO as an input it wouldn't go. DVD-lab PRO just ignores it as a valid input. You can't add MPEG-1 files to a DVD compilation in DVD-lab PRO

[pchan]

DRP,
I did not encountered any problem with my mpeg1 files. Only had problem with one of the audio file the DVDLab Pro reject. I recode it with TMPGEnc to a PAL DVD complaint audio file.

Here is the screen of the project.


EDIT : I saw your problem. Change your mpeg1 file extension to mpg. I faced the same problem. DVDLabPro doesn't like m1v ext.

[briansmccabe]

Hey guys -

I am making definite progress on this project, but I am getting some weird things happening when demuxing in tmpgenc.

I put in a 510 MB file that I used ISOBuster to extract and VCDgear to convert to MPEG. The demuxed files that TMPGENC gives me are very small - the video is only 18 megs and is a few minutes long, and the audio is only three megs!

Is there perhaps another program to use for demuxing? or is this an indication that demuxing is not neccesary?

Thanks -

Brian mc

[pchan]

Hi brainsmccabe,

If your source is already in mpeg1 format, just use the TMPGEnc mpeg tool to demux the your mpeg1 file and author it to DVD.

[briansmccabe]

hello -

As my post stated, it is when I use tmpgenc to demux that I encounter the problem I am having.

[pchan]

oops..

Please use GSPOT and confirm your video source is mpeg1.