Need help burning edited compressed mpeg VCD

[dredd3505]

Hi all. hope someone can help me out with this.

I've been trying to copy some video to vcd and ran into a problem.
I copy the video to my Terapin- that vcd plays fine on my DVD player.
I then edited the video with TMPGEnc Merge & Cut as an MPEG-1 Video CD, did a test burn with Nero as a VCD compliant and the VCD played fine on my DVD player.

What I want to do is shorten the video so it fits onto one 80 min VCD. I used TPMGEnc to compress the video to make it fit on the VCD. I burned it using Nero as a VCD with compliance, and the video is all jittery. Is there a way to correct this?

Thanks.

[mats.hogberg]

What did you do to "compress" the video?
If you use Nero and burn VCD with compliance, Nero will once again reencode your MPEG if it's out of specs (and probably even if it is!), with only loss of quality as result of the process.

/Mats

[dredd3505]

What did you do to "compress" the video?
If you use Nero and burn VCD with compliance, Nero will once again reencode your MPEG if it's out of specs (and probably even if it is!), with only loss of quality as result of the process.

I'm using TMPGenc custom template to reduce the file size so it will fit on the VCD.
Here's what the settings are:
Creates MPEG-1 File
Video:Resolution 352x240 pixel
Framerate: 29.97fps
Bitrate 1066
Audio:Sampling Frequency 44100 Hz
Number of channels: 2ch Stereo
Bitrate 128 kbps

Stream Type is MPEG-1 Video-CD(Non standard)

Nero will burn it, but the playback is terrible on my DVD player.
When I play the final MPEG with Windows media player, its fine.

I'm just trying to find the best way to make the MPEG small enough to fit on the 80min CD and have work in my DVD player.

As you can tell I'm relatively new to this.

[mats.hogberg]

OK, my guess is that it's Nero that's causing your troubles.
Nero is good for writing data to a CD, but not at authoring VCD's. I'd suggest that you try VCDEasy instead, and either use it for both authoring and burning, or, if you're more comfortable with Nero or can't make CDRDAO (that's the CD writing engine that VCDEasy uses) work with your CD writer, just use VCDEasy to create the CD image (bin/cue) and write that to dics with Nero. That way, you avoid Nero meddling with your MPEG.

/Mats

[dredd3505]

OK, my guess is that it's Nero that's causing your troubles.
Nero is good for writing data to a CD, but not at authoring VCD's. I'd suggest that you try VCDEasy instead, and either use it for both authoring and burning, or, if you're more comfortable with Nero or can't make CDRDAO (that's the CD writing engine that VCDEasy uses) work with your CD writer, just use VCDEasy to create the CD image (bin/cue) and write that to dics with Nero. That way, you avoid Nero meddling with your MPEG.

/Mats

Tried VCD easy, but my CD-RW was incompatible for a direct burn, so I instead created a CD image(bin/cue) and the end result was another coaster.

Basically what I'm trying to do is make a perfectly good MPEG-1 smaller to fit on the cd. Is there any software that will do this and keep the video compliant for burning to a DVD player?

Thanks for your help.

[mats.hogberg]

You mean the disc is unreadable in both PC and DVD?!! Then there is something wierd going on! You didn't write the cue/bin as files to the CD, did you ?
Remember, you can't "compress" a video by any other means than altering the bitrate, (or using VBR) and as the specs says 1150 kbps Video, 224 kbps Audio for a compliant VCD, there's only 1 factor left in determining MPEG size, and that's the length of the movie!

/Mats

[dredd3505]

You mean the disc is unreadable in both PC and DVD?!! Then there is something wierd going on! You didn't write the cue/bin as files to the CD, did you ?
Remember, you can't "compress" a video by any other means than altering the bitrate, (or using VBR) and as the specs says 1150 kbps Video, 224 kbps Audio for a compliant VCD, there's only 1 factor left in determining MPEG size, and that's the length of the movie!

/Mats

No, it was playable in the computer, just not on the DVD player.
I understand that if you alter the bitrate, you don't have a compliant vcd, but I've tried two or three guides on fitting 90 min movies onto 80 min CD-R, and none worked. How do I go about making a VCD that will play? I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[mats.hogberg]

If it plays (as as VCD using PowerDVD or other software player - not playing the MPG file) fine on your computer, then there's some incompatibility with your standalone. Have you checked that yours support VCD AND CD-R/CD-RW?
Use a bitrate calculator (there are plenty here at VCDHelp)to find what bitrate to use for a given size of medium. You're lost without one.

/Mats

[dredd3505]

If it plays (as as VCD using PowerDVD or other software player - not playing the MPG file) fine on your computer, then there's some incompatibility with your standalone. Have you checked that yours support VCD AND CD-R/CD-RW?
Use a bitrate calculator (there are plenty here at VCDHelp)to find what bitrate to use for a given size of medium. You're lost without one.

/Mats

When I burn a compliant VCD using the MPEG-1 template from TMPGenc, the bitrate is fixed and the VCD plays fine in both machines I use to test. My understanding is that altering the bitrate will give you a non-compliant VCD. How do I burn a non-complaint VCD that will work? I realize the whole point of compliance is so it will work in most DVD players, but I've ripped DVD's, adjusted the bitrate to make them fit on one CD-R and burned them as non-compliant and they've played fine.
What settings should I be using with TMPGenc and NERO to get the same results?

Is there a guide that explains what the settings should be?

Thanks all.