Playing SVCD's In Windows without ripping the MPEG track.

[jdratlif]

> To play a SVCD you need a software DVD Player, insert the SVCD in
> your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM and open the .mpg file in the MPEG2 or
> MPEGAV folder with any player like PowerDVD or WinDVD. Or if you
> wanna access SVCD menus and still pictures use WinDVD or PowerDVD
> and insert the SVCD in your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM and hit Play.
> To play MPEG2 with Windows Media Player you need a software DVD
> Player installed or a MPEG2 Codec. But note that SVCD on a CD can't
> be player with Media Player.

This is what vcdhelp.com says about playing SVCD's on your Windows machine. I have Windows XP and want to play SVCD's from my CD WITHOUT ripping the MPEG2 stream off the disc. I am NOT talking about VCD's. SVCD's are what I use.

When I try to drag the mpeg into PowerDVD, it crashes. When I try to access the MPEG through Windows Explorer, explorer crashes. It only crashes when accessing the MPEG2 stream. These discs play in my standalone DVD player, so I know they work.

When I hit play on the disc in PowerDVD, it says something to the effect of 'bad disc'. But I know the discs are fine.

vcdhelp.com's page also says this:

> In order to play VideoCD's on a PC (or even copy the dat files from a
> VideoCD in the CDROM drive to the PC's disk) you have to have the
> virtual device driver SCSI1HLP.VXD in Window's \SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS
> directory; otherwise, the file structure will not be recognized by
> Windows. My file was there but some program had changed it's
> extension. After renaming and rebooting, my VideoCD's now run
> without a hitch. Read more here.

I have Windows XP, and it doesn't seem to have this device driver. Is there an equivalent? Can other people play SVCD (Super Video CD's, NOT simple VCD's) from their CD drive without ripping the mpeg track off the disc? Most of the playing guides I've seen say to rip the mpeg, but that takes a long time. I don't want to spend 10-40 minutes ripping mpeg tracks off CD's that shouldn't need to be ripped anyway.

I know my CD drives support MODE 2 / CD-ROM XA, because I can rip the track using IsoBuster. I haven't used VCDgear, but I will assume it works similarly.

Is there ANY way to play SVCD's direct from a burned SVCD CD disc?

Thanks.

[resnullius]

you can play the with either windows media player or powerdvd/windvd by selecting the mpeg2 on the disk ( can't get them to play the menu and such, i have to direcly select the file i want played)
i know in the how to's it says you cant do that with windows media player but i often do it...

[pet_head]

The simplest answer is to get a newer version of PowerDVD. PowerDVD XP is SVCD compliant, even allowing playback with chapters.

If you have older DVD software, opening the mpeg track in the MPEGAV directory of the SVCD will also do the trick.

If you wish to use Windows Media Player, download and install the Elecard MPEG-2 codec from the tools section and then open the mpeg-2 file using Media player.

You should not need to rip in any of these cases.

[jdratlif]

It seems as though PowerDVD 4 (PowerDVD XP) does not work correctly under Windows 2000. It says bad disc, check the disc for scratches. But I can use WinDVD and it works fine. PowerDVD works fine under Windows XP though, so I must assume it's a Windows 2000 problem.

Thanks for your help. I can now play SVCD's fine using WinDVD 4.