VCD Plays like dodgy Satellite broadcast in bad conditions

[Xanataph]

Having just gotten into this VCD thing a few days ago, I became very keen on burning some Divx's to VCD so I could watch them away from the PC in the DVD player.

I had learned of the appropriate MPEG1 format and found out about Nero.

I installed Nero and banged the Divx into it in VCD creation mode. After it spent 3 hours producing the correct file format it sprang into life and thus a new VCD was born.

Disapointment was experienced at the test in the DVD player. The index picked it up, it started playing...picture looking all mosaic'd out and the sound with random artifacts (loud pierceing).

Opened the .DAT file on the VCD in Media Player and that played exactly like in the standalone DVD.

*decided to find out more, went here*

got my codecs all sorted..they pretty much were before, got VirtualDub, Tmpg and VCDEasy.

So this time got my wav seperated from my Divx with virtual dub.

Combined it back with the video in Tmpg. It was an NTSC divx, but my TV is pal so I used the PAL template.

All these procedures went without a hitch. Checked the produced MPEG1 in Media Player..played absolutely fine. Was quite happy at this stage.

Used VCDEasy no prob, soon enougth VCD MK2 pops out!

Testing in DVD player..even WORSE..picture more or less just blue with some dancing pixels in rainbow colours at the top and bottom, audio exactly as before, loud high pitched artifacts.

Went for VCD MK3 using VCDEasy to make the image file and Nero to burn..exactly same result as MK2! PC playback more or less the same as DVD player..

Whats going on? I have since learned that it's best to keep NTSC Divx's NTSC, but the playback of the MPEG1 to be burned appeared to be fine.

[K2]

Sounds like you are doing fine. I find VCD compliant format unwatchable. Others are OK with it. I recommend you find out if your player can play SVCD. If done right with VBR the results are far better.

[Xanataph]

Perhaps I understated what the picture and sound are like....this is more than a quality issue....when I mean mosaic'sd out, its definitely erroneous pieces of data creeping in there & the picture is corrupt in random ways too..the audio sounds like over top someone has dubbed a random note generator playing random bursts of tones. The MPEG1 is pretty good before burning the VCD..i'm happy enougth with the quality of that..