dvd to vcd

[xtreme02]

i'm new here and i just ripped my dvd to a vcd, but its not as clear as the dvd copy. is that how its supposed to be? i'm using dvd2avi, smartripper, and tmpgenc. I have a couple of dvd screeners on a vcd and the quality of that is like a dvd. Is there any way i can rip a dvd to vcd and make it look as clear as a dvd? thanks

[batty]

Opinions on the subject may vary but you are probably never going to get the same visual quality on a VCD as a DVD. I DVD has 720 x 480 frame sizes where a VCD is 352 x 240. However, you can always encode in an XVCD format which gives you higher resolution capability in an MPEG1 format but your stand alone player (if that's what you want to play it on) may not play it. You could also encode it so SVCD which is an MPEG2 format and has a 480 x 480 resolution and is obviously closer to a DVD. It really depends on how many CD-Rs you want to put the movie on to and what your DVD player is capable of playing. By making an XVCD (i.e. a higher bit rate VCD) you can get much better visual quality in a VCD format but you will limit what you can put on a single CD-R. The same thing applies to the SVCD format.

I hope that helps.