Is VCD cable of selectable audiostreams like a DVD? noob needs help (nnh)

[taninandre]

dear forum,
as a true newbie to VCD i face some general authoring problems.
normaly we work with DVD author software and our latest project demands us to use VCD instead of DVD.

the optimal endresult would be:
one vcd with five selectable chapters, where after you choose one chapter it plays that chapter and then returns to the main menu. the problem is "language", it should be also two languages, so that you select your language and
then hop to your chapter or similiar...

my questions are:
is vcd cable of selectable audiostreams like a dvd? and if yes, wich software to use and where are the guids to that?

seconds ago one friend of mine showed me a vcd karaoke cd, where they simply used one stereo audiofile but uses seperate audio data on left line and right line! i doubt that this is a good idea, because not everyone knows how to switch between left and right speakers and the default mode would sounds like rubbish (two languages at the same time!!!), but it also could be only me (never sing karaoke...)

any ideas, suggestions or tips?

thanks a lot for your time!
cheers
tanin andre

[Cornucopia]

Assuming you never want to play all the chapters seamlessly one after the other, you're really talking about 5 separate titles, not 5 chapters. That makes flow organization a little easier.

You've also seem to already figured out one of the relative weaknesses of VCD audio as opposed to DVD audio. Since you rightly don't want to have users messing with the balance control, the only foolproof way that gives a seamless user experience would be this:

1. Create 5 titles in Language 1 and encode to MPG1-VCD profile.
2. Repeat with the same 5 titles, but in Language 2. Now you have 10 mpegs.
3. Create your MENU (in photoshop, etc), and encode to MPEG still in VCDEasy tools.
4. Load the menu into VCDEasy (VCD 2.0 or SVCD template, with PBC) main section 1st. It will be designated as a "segment".
5. Then load the 10 titles into VCDEasy. They will all be designated as "sequences". Change ALL titles to segments. Add an 12th item of the "sequence disclaimer" (provided w/ VCDEasy for when ALL other items are ONLY segments).
5. Adjust the PBC so that it starts on the menu, and each menu choice leads to its corresponding title, which on ending leads back to the menu. You will have 10 items on the menu.
6. You could alternately do it with 1 main menu and 1 or 2 submenus, so that you choose title 1st and then language next, or vice-versa.
7. Make sure there is nothing in the PBC flow logic that accesses the disclaimer, nor anything from the disclaimer to the rest of the PBC items.

What will happen is that your user will put the disc in a DVD player and, if PBC is activated, it'll show the menu and everything will work right like you hoped. If PBC is NOT activated, it'll play the disclaimer which tells you to turn on the PBC (and then stops).

Obviously, you're gonna have to learn to use VCDEasy, but there are good guides here to get you started. You could use Nero, etc., but you wouldn't be able to make it as professionally working.

Good luck,
Scott

>>>>>>>>>>>
edit: In VCD, there's really no other way around duplicating the titles for this kind of job, sorry.

[taninandre]

thanks a lot for the input!

good idea to seperat the content that way, but it seems that the movie material will be around 55 mins and two times 55 mins will exceede the disk! perhaps there will be a way to "save some space" by compressing and so on

again thanks for input
cheers
tanin andre

[jman98]

You can't compress and save enough space to fit two times 55 minutes on a single VCD disc. My suggestion would be to do what commercial VCDs do - the format only allows for one audio file, so put language 1 on the left speaker and language 2 on the right and rely on the user to be smart enough to turn on only one speaker. Most DVD and VCD players will allow you to play only the left or right speaker on a VCD. If you do this, you only need one times 55 minutes on the disc, which is no problem, but the users have to be smart enough to play only the language they want.

[Nelson37]

I would count on the user being stupid and just make 2 different VCD. That way, you KNOW they will have a playable disk in the correct language.

If you have to depend on the customer to do a complex task to make it work, you are doing it wrong. Period.

[AlanHK]

I have a lot of bilingual VCDs from Hong Kong (English/Cantonese or Cantonese/Mandarin). They all do the left/right stereo trick.

The VCD remote has an audio switch that goes stereo/right/left. If you play it in a DVD player, the DVD remote button that switches between DVD soundtracks has the same function.

So this really is a standard hack. If your customers insist on VCD not DVD, this is the only way to put them all on one disk.

Maybe you should make a 5-10 second introductory screen explaining this, if possible check out the players your users have to give precise instructions.