VCD Bitrates

[wolfwood87]

I have a question about VCD Bitrates (as you may have guessed from the title ). Anyway, I took DV video footage and put it through ffmpegx into a NTSC VCD, but I changed the bitrate from 1150 to aroung 1900 without thinking. I then checked on it when it had finished and it looked great, but I wasn't sure if it would play on my DVD player or burn correctly. I dragged it into Toast and it didn't load, but it loaded into VCD Builder an I burned it through Toast with VCD Builder's images from there. Now, I have a movie with less minutes on it and am going to and from the same inputs (DV to NTSC VCD), and I was wondering if I could have another successful VCD using a higher bitrate than 1900. Is there a limit to VCD bitrates? Should I not crank up the bitrates on my VCDs?

Thanks,
Wolfwood87

[sterno]

Using a high bitrate means you're making a nonstandard VCD (XVCD). There is a limit to how high a bitrate a player will handle. Some will not play anything but standard VCD. Check the comments on your player in vcdhelp's DVD player list to see what other people have found to work.

If you want to be certain that your disc will play in future VCD-compatible players, stick to the standard (1150k+224k). If you're willing to take a chance on not being able to use it on the next player you buy you can get better quality with higher bitrates and/or resolutions (or more capacity with lower bitrates, or use VBR encoding, etc.).

[bilestyle]

or instead of playing with the lower quality of vcd and chance, if u DO decide to get a new dvd player, stick with a good brand like pioneer, they may not play everything (i.e mp3) but there is yet to be a model that i find that doesnt play xDVD, xsvcd, xvcd, dvd-r, svcd, vcd, cvd... basically all the hybrid svcd/vcd/dvd formats under the sun, and they are reliable AND very reasonably priced (i got a 5 disc changer 2 years ago for 250$, i find it much more reliable than those hype crap unknown brands like apex, no matter WHAT u hear about apex i disagree with it, unless its something bad). depending on the player you have you should try givin svcd a try, its MUCH nicer than vcd AND its in the same format as dvd video mpeg-2 (as opposed to mpeg-1 which is vcd and just not nearly as good as svcd).... i know vcd has a limit with bitrate but i dont quite remeber how far it goes.

[jchansen]

I have to disagree, bilestyle. I've had a pioneer, and it has been the most problematic player I've worked with. Ours may be an earlier model. It won't play DVD-RW, moderately high bitrate DVD-R, xVCD, and many SVCD. I finally got (you guessed it) an Apex, and it plays everything.

I took my disks to WorstBuy as well, and the pioneers were the ones that gave me the most trouble. 4.5 Mbit was about the highest DVD-R I could make.

Jeremy

[bilestyle]

i dont know how early your pioneer might have been, but we have 3 of them in the house all 2-3 years old, about 5-6 of my friends have had them for a while too, there hasnt been a SINGLE disc i put in it that doesnt work. not a SINGLE one, i had 3 different apex models before this pioneer and they were ALL crap. Would play one svcd but not another, even if they were the same movie AND brand. didnt matter, played very jittery. all 3 of them, thats when i decided to get a GOOD brand, pioneer. i've had a dvd-r drive for a year now and it hasnt had a single problem with ANY dvd-r i've thrown at it.