Can you fix a bad quality vcd?

[budgirl357]

When copying a vcd, can you only make the copy as good as the original you are copying from? I mean, if you make a copy from a copy and it has some glitches in it, is there any way you can "edit" it or even prevent it in the first place? On some of the originals I have, there are no problems, but when I copy it to another disk, it shows brand new problems that didn't exist on the original.

Also, I have a copy of frailties that in the beginning the picture stands still for about 40 seconds (I call it a popcorn break.). So I made copies, totally accepting the fact that there will be the same problem on the copies. Only when I played the copies in my dvd player, the 40 min break was much longer, and in fact I could never even get the movie to keep playing. Why? Is there anything I can do to fix both of these frustrating problems?

Peace,
budgirl357

[agzz]

the copying problem shouldn't have to appear.
It is probibly a media or to-fast-burning problem. you could try using a diffrent brand of media (or rather medai from diffrent factory) and not burning full speed.

[athrak]

It might be due to the fact that the CD has a scratch on it as well.. I've found that while making an image of a VCD, (it was scratched.. the CD-Burner read thru the scratch fine, but the DVD drive crashed on about 20%)... the orginal played thru the scratch on the DVD Player fine. When i burnt the image to a cd and played it, i had glitched on the copy... if there are no scratches though, try burning it at a lower speed. VCDS are burnt using Mode2 - the same as a n audio CD. When an audio cd is burnt at a high speed, i always have problems, but when i take it down to around 8x-12x, I never have problems.

If it plays okay on the computer, the DVD player doesn't like the brand of CD-R - try CD-RW - they are much more compatible with DVD players.

Hope, this helps, cheers!

[budgirl357]

I usually use imation cd-r, but this time I bought a small package of pro-media and some sonys in addition to the imation. I just wanted to try the pro-media. However, since they were the cheapest - I won't be surprised if they are crappy. I almost bought the pny, but I remembered seeing someone on the forum say that they are also pretty icky. I have been burning at 8x, and I still get the glitches. I heard that the quality is always better the lower you go, but I am still having the problem. I am beginning to think that I can't make the copy any better than the original? But then what about the glitches that are only on my copy?

So you're saying that you recommend copying my vcds onto cd-rw? The dvd will play it better, right? But will the quality be better or worse than a copy on a cd-r?

Thanks for your response...more input would be appreciated.
Peace,
budgirl357

[athrak]

Ewww... I've always hated imation CD-Rs... I've found them to be the worst of any brand of CD-R I've used, but then again, I'm also using an unsupported CD Burner

You shouldn't be able to make a VCD any better than the orginal - the best you can hope for is identical to the orginal... maybe changing your Burning program might help (to CloneCD for example... it makes perfect 1:1 copies of almost any CD... even copy protected ones)... or, it might help to copy the VCD back to the hard drive, and then re-burn it to another CD using Nero or similar... there are programs about that will convert DAT to MPG, supposedly, but I just copy the DAT to my hard drive, re-name it to an .mpg, and it's always been fine...

As for quality on a CD-RW, well, you can't improve on what "Isn't there" (in the video), but it should play fine on a DVD player fine - usually better than a CD-R (assuming your player can support CD-RW's - it should be able to if it can do CD-R)