questions about making VCD from AVI

[brimeis]

I made my first VCD yesterday. The format I was going from was AVI, and it seemed like it was really good quality. I had to split the file in two using virtual dub so I could put it on 2 cds...it would not fit on one. I also had to compress it into MPEG4 format. The movie that I was going from had bars on the top and bottom like it was widescreen. When I played the movie on my DVD player, the bars had gone away and it had seemingly been stretched into almost a fullscreen format like I would find on some other DVDs that had been modified to fit my TV. Is there a way to keep it in the original format so it is still in the widescreen type version?

Thanks....I am a newbie and have only been reading on this board for about a week...I still don't know very much...

[KingJohn]

I guess you used TMPGEnc to convert from AVI to mpeg 1, if not why not ?

In TMPGEnc select setting > advanced > full screen > keep aspect ratio
You could also select the crop, and experiment with the screen size output while removing any small black borders. If they are large you wont be able to remove them without the stretch or the loss of the right and left of the movie.

You can also convert the whole AVI, then use TMPGEnc again and file > mpeg tools > merge & cut you can add your mpeg 1 then use the source range to save out half of the movie at a time, producing 2 mpeg files ready for 2 VCD's

[brimeis]

no actually I used virtual dub to do that.....but I will try it with the other program. THanks for the help!