VideoHelp Forum




+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 22 of 22
  1. I can't see how people paid $1500 for this program, I've downloaded the tutorial and have been following it and when I go to add some audio it won't accept anything that I give it, and to top it all off now when I run the mux program that came with it it isn't producing a .mmd file it just spits out the .psc file. Has anyone had any luck with this program and is it worth spending a few days reencoding and reading and rereading the tutorial just to make a vcd with it.
    Quote Quote  
  2. joe,

    Creating compliant assets is definitely the hardest part about using the Toolkit. What audio files won't it accept and what video format is the .psc file?

    RF
    Quote Quote  
  3. Member
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    London, UK - Bonn, Germany
    Search Comp PM
    It seems that video encoding and everything that goes with it, defies convention.

    1.)The cheapest or free programs work better than more expensive ones.
    2.)The cheapest media works best than branded named CD-R's and CD-RW's.
    3.)The best DVD Players are also the cheapest.

    What is this world coming to?
    Quote Quote  
  4. <TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
    On 2001-07-10 18:55:35, aldus4 wrote:
    It seems that video encoding and everything that goes with it, defies convention.

    1.)The cheapest or free programs work better than more expensive ones.
    2.)The cheapest media works best than branded named CD-R's and CD-RW's.
    3.)The best DVD Players are also the cheapest.

    What is this world coming to?
    </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>



    I have to mostly agree with the first point (i.e., VCDImager).

    As for the second point, this isn't really true. Good quality CD-R media (e.g., Kodak, TDK, Verbatim) are still the best if you have a DVD player that is manufactered to understand CD-R/W media. If you dont' have one of these players, it is just pot luck (and since there are more cheapo brands than named brands --> it artifactually looks like cheapo brands are better).

    I also disagree with the third point. What is the first and foremost function of a DVD player? It is to play DVDs. The more expensive models in general do play DVDs better. Some of the cheaper brands may be more feature rich and more lax in compliance, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are "better".

    IMHO, if you want perfect (or near perfect) VCD2.0 compliance, zero problems with CD-R media (within limits), then get yourself a good stand-alone S/VCD (not DVD) player.

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
    Quote Quote  
  5. RFontenot, it was any audio file, wav, mp2, mmd, I tried just about everything I could think of with tmpgenc with creating an mpg with just and audio stream and a black stream and then demuxed it down to the .mv1 file and the .mp2 file and tried the .mp2, after this I tried to mux the two files into a .mmd file using the program that came with vcdtoolkit which is what I had done with all of my mpg's and vcd2TK accepted those. Anyway I gave up on adding audio to the menu and just kept on following the tutorial (VCD Toolkit : The short story) and finally was in position to perform a build, when I did I got this list of errors:

    [error 1] in file "c:/VCD2TK/BUILD/TUTORIAL_1.MSC" AT LINE 20,
    COULD NOT FIND THE LAST PACK START CODE, IS C:/TEMPCD.FINALI~.MMD MUXED WITH
    2352 BYTE PACKS?

    [error 2] in file "c:/VCD2TK/BUILD/TUTORIAL_1.MSC" AT LINE 20,
    ERROR ACCESSING SCR DATA IN C:/TEMPCD/FINALI~1.MMD

    [error 3] in file "c:/VCD2TK/BUILD/TUTORIAL_1.MSC" AT LINE 22,
    COULD NOT FIND THE LAST PACK START CODE; IS C:/TEMPCD.FINALI~.MMD MUXED WITH
    2352 BYTE PACKS?

    [error 4] in file "c:/VCD2TK/BUILD/TUTORIAL_1.MSC" AT LINE 22,
    ERROR ACCESSING SCR DATA IN C:/TEMPCD/FINALI~1.MMD

    in the build folder there was no .cd file (because of the errors) so it didn't work.

    Just to avoid any confusion this is how I got vcd toolkit to accept my mpg's
    1. simple demux with tmpgenc into .m1v file and .mp2
    2. remux using VCDMUX.exe that came with VCD2TK into a .mmd file

    If anyone can shed some light on this I'd really appreciate it. It seems like the more control a program gives you the less userfriendly it is.
    Quote Quote  
  6. joe,

    MPEG audio files are processed according to White Book specs. But, CD-DA files, such as *.wav files, are processed according to Red Book specs. There are additional steps you must take to include CD-Audio files in your project. I'm working on the guide for using .wav and other CD-Audio files. I should have it posted by the end of the week.

    As for the video file, what are it's specs, such as bit rate, CBR or VBR, NTSC or PAL. How was it captured and/or encoded, and what capture device and/or encoder did you originally use?

    I've got a MPEG video which Toolkit will accept. It's the scene in Deep Blue Sea where Samuel Jackson gets eaten by the sharks. Do you know of a place I could put it? It's 8.5MB in size.

    RF

    Quote Quote  
  7. Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    new york
    Search Comp PM
    With all due respect, this toolkit SUCKZ!!!!! IVE ONLY FOUND HERIUS MPEG POWER PRO (suckz more) TO MAKE MPEG STREAMS TO WORK WITH THIS OBTUSE THING! Tmpgnc (which by far is the best encoder availible)not good enough, panisonic (how standard can you be) not good enough, nothing of quality not good enough. maybe those ancient pmpro encoders for mac quadra series will do it. Videopack 5 will be out by winter... for now find videopack 4, get a nice copy of winoncd 3.7 or 3.8 and burn real CD's, not "science project" .cd image files. nice gui on the program, but my god.... what was they thinking when they made this thing? a $1500 headache! currently deleated and forgoten. good for vcd purist on a mission.
    Will Smash
    Consumer Surround Sound Inc
    CS2
    Quote Quote  
  8. Member
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    London, UK - Bonn, Germany
    Search Comp PM
    [quote]
    On 2001-07-10 20:28:44, vitualis wrote:

    As for the second point, this isn't really true. Good quality CD-R media (e.g., Kodak, TDK, Verbatim) are still the best if you have a DVD player that is manufactered to understand CD-R/W media. If you dont' have one of these players, it is just pot luck (and since there are more cheapo brands than named brands --> it artifactually looks like cheapo brands are better).

    /[quote]

    If you check the compatibility list and especially the comments section you will find proof for my comments. Memorex has been named in most cases to be incompatible with most people. In Europe especially brand named goods are meant to be of high quality. Funnily enough, when looking as to who actually makes whose CD-R(W) you often find that the manufactorer delivers to many "re-sellers".
    The consumer however thinks he is getting a good quality product - especially as the prices for brands often is 3 or 4 times that of the "no named" media.


    <TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>

    I also disagree with the third point. What is the first and foremost function of a DVD player? It is to play DVDs. The more expensive models in general do play DVDs better. Some of the cheaper brands may be more feature rich and more lax in compliance, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are "better".

    </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

    Again I contradict, but understand your point. Sony, Hitachi etc. are selling DVD Players with the minimum of features but charging 2 or 3 times that of what one pays for the Sampoo range for example(i.e. Afreey, Encore etc.). This range comes equiped with 5.1.,DTS etc which many Sony's etc. don't have. If you just turn the DVD Players around you'll see the major difference: Connections. Usually you'll find a Scart and 2 composite audio connections. My Encore came with Scart, Composite, S-Video, 5.1 Channel out,Toslink etc. As for picture quality between the 2 I have seen no noticeable difference.

    Now this was just taking into account the DVD Player as a DVD Player, not as a VCD,SVCD,mini-DVD,Audio CD and mp3 player.


    P.S. Maybe the term "best, better" was not quite precise. More Value for money, may have been a better choice

    <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: aldus4 on 2001-07-11 07:03:08 ]</font>
    Quote Quote  
  9. Aldus4 - I agree on two of your points. I burn at 16x so the cheaper CDR's don't work well for me.

    As far as Players you are right on. The comments by Virtualis were so rediculas I almost choked. So now if manufacturers want to produce multi purpose players that do DVD, VCD, XVDC, SVCD,XSVCD, MP3, etc they are somehow "lax"?
    Come on give me a break. They've got these features stamped all over them. And it doesn't take a tremendous amount of foresight to do this. Those $400 players will catch up soon. I guess they'll be "lax" as well. I guess the new portable CD players are "lax" too because many of them can play MP3's as well. Non-compliant WAV players huh?

    Poor Michael has compliancy on the brain and he's going to turn into a dinosaur soon. Same thing with all of this recoding, muxing, remuxing, and 100 hours to produce a decent video. That's going to be ancient history. The masses simply will not stand for it. It's all going to be "Digital VCR" stuff but I'm sure we'll still see the Model-T's chugging along with the proud owners wearing their nice little antique caps on their way to their DOS boxes they still have at home. Except of course for the professionals who are in the business. And by that I mean the real professionals who could care less about most of the stuff around here. I have a family member who is a television producer. He chuckles at all this stuff.

    And by the way, how tough was it to come up with the VCD standard anyways? It doesn't even require a slide ruler to figure out that 74 minute CDR's need a CBR of 1.15 to fit 74 minutes of video on them. Whoop t do. Wow - alot went into that one. That's one hell of a standard. Let's stop the world forever and crush these "lax" players into landfills because they are capable of doing more.
    Quote Quote  
  10. next, I've just about had enough of your comments. Please refrain from twisting my posts out of context.

    Players must play according to standards. There are only three video disc standards of importance in terms of players which is VCD, SVCD and DVD.

    No player can be guaranteed of playing back XVCDs or XSVCDs for obvious reasons. If they do so it IS because they are lax in the adherence to standards. If actually read one of my posts properly for once you'd realise that I consider a player being "lax" or tolerant actually a good thing.

    Playback of MP3s having nothing to do with them being lax -- and I never stated they were.

    The problem with some of the cheaper players is that although they can play some variants of XVCD and XSVCD, they in turn have problems playing back normal standard S/VCDs, or play them poorly. Furthermore, as others of mentioned, some of the cheaper players result in poorer quality video on playback on TV.

    Furthermore, the VCD standard is a lot more than just CBR of 1.15. Your obvious distain of it shows nothing more than your ignorance.

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
    Quote Quote  
  11. Get Slack disturbed1's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    init 4
    Search Comp PM
    How to get TMPGenc files to work with Phillips 2.0 toolkit:



    1.)Video File must be VCD standard. 352x240/288 1150Kbit/s video stream. Save as .mpv file. You must use a GOP of I=1, P=4, B=2 for NTSC 29.97 fps. For PAL and Film, I=1, P=3, B=2. Uncheck detect scene change in TMPGenc. Then run your .mpv through Mpeg sequence maker http://www.vcdhelp.com/MPEGSequenceMakerv02.zip to add time codes to all GOP's.

    2.)Create audio at 224kbits/s mpeg1 layer 2 save as .mpa. DO NOT USE Toolame. You'll get an error code! I use CDex and it's built in MP2 encoder/normalizer, works every time.

    3.)Start Mux.

    If you still recieve errors, your files don't meet specs. This method works every time for me. Once in awhile it will throw away the last 4 Audio Units, this is ok, it's usually just silence anyway. You can open the .mmd file with media player to check it out.

    The toolkit is bent on sticking exactly to the spec. Once you get the basics down it's a breaze to make multichaptered autopausing discs, you can even add multileveled menus with back ground audio. Maybe print out the help files (~120 pages) and spend some reading.

    Good luck and happy authoring
    Quote Quote  
  12. Member ejai's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    New York USA
    Search Comp PM
    vitualis,
    I'm sorry but I have to agree with Next. I own a $500 Sony DVD Player and a $129 Apex 600 DVD player. The Apex plays VCD,SVCD,DVD,XVCD and Mp3 formats, and the Sony just plays three DVD, VCD and XVCD. The quality of the Apex in terms of picture is much better than the Sony. I actually see the difference.

    I wished I had the money back from puchasing the Sony and bought two more Apex DVDs.
    Quote Quote  
  13. You are talking only of a specific example. If you say that your Apex is better value for money than your Sony I wholeheartedly agree. But that doesn't mean that in general cheaper DVD players are "better" than more expensive players which was the point of debate (point 3 of aldus4's original post).

    Regards.



    _________________
    Michael Tam

    <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: vitualis on 2001-07-12 16:44:29 ]</font>
    Quote Quote  
  14. RFontenot, sorry this post got turned into a general bitchfest, maybe some of them should just start a new post where everybody can just vent their frustrations. Anyway I anitcipate your tutorials and I hope I can get it to work but I doubt I'll use the program much unless I am very impressed with the results. I'm still confused over the video thing because it did accept them it just gave me those errors when I tried to build. I beleive I used the NTSC Video CD template that came with tmpgenc so I figured it'd be to spec. Anyway thanks again and as far as that movie sample I don't know where you could put it, maybe they can add it to the samples section?

    Happy VCDing
    Quote Quote  
  15. <TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
    choked. So now if manufacturers want to produce multi purpose players that do DVD, VCD, XVDC, SVCD,XSVCD, MP3, etc they are somehow "lax"?
    </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

    by definition, XVCD and XSVCD are 'lax' since they don't use the standards. this does not make these players worse. however, i've seen some of the cheaper players side by side against some pioneer models, and i have to go with pioneer there, even without the features like MP3 support. but it's also true that companies like Sony produce some crappy products at ridiculous prices. there will always be cheap and expensive players, and high- and low-quality ones, and sometimes cheap and high go together, but that's hardly the rule. part of the reason the cheaper players are packed with features is that they're lacking in build quality or some other area. but it's a matter of taste. you get what suits your needs for the best price you can get it.

    <TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
    Poor Michael has compliancy on the brain and he's going to turn into a dinosaur soon. Same thing with all of this recoding, muxing, remuxing, and 100 hours to produce a decent video. That's going to be ancient history. The masses simply will not stand for it. It's all going to be "Digital VCR" stuff but I'm sure we'll still see the Model-T's chugging along with the proud owners wearing their nice little antique caps on their way to their DOS boxes they still have at home. Except of course for the professionals who are in the business. And by that I mean the real professionals who could care less about most of the stuff around here. I have a family member who is a television producer. He chuckles at all this stuff.
    </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

    tremendously intelligent comments there. yes, it's obvious that soon, and thankfully, the hours of re-encodes and all WILL be history. however, at this point they aren't. especially for those of us who aren't television producers and have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars of professional equipment.

    and there's something to be said for doing it right, as long as you dont' get obsessive and excessive about it. otherwise, what's the point of dvd? isn't VHS acceptable enough?

    <TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
    And by the way, how tough was it to come up with the VCD standard anyways? It doesn't even require a slide ruler to figure out that 74 minute CDR's need a CBR of 1.15 to fit 74 minutes of video on them. Whoop t do. Wow - alot went into that one. That's one hell of a standard. </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

    that's ridiculous. why do you think there's a hundred posts a day about "what's wrong with my player? why won't it play my VCD? why can't it just play MPEGs burned to a disc? why does this disc work in my player and not in my friend's? why can't i play a DIVX file on my dvd player"
    just because the standard has been exceeded by technological developments hardly makes it worthless. what about VHS? isn't SVHS better? why isn't everyone getting that? SVCD evolved from VCD, and soon DVD-R will allow the DVD format to become a homemade creation format. but that's still just another standard...



    <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: patrickm on 2001-07-12 18:41:27 ]</font>
    Quote Quote  
  16. Member
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    London, UK - Bonn, Germany
    Search Comp PM
    @joe-mamma

    I'm sorry for causing such a drift from your original post. I merely made a flippant remark regarding your "I can't see how people paid $1500 for this program.."
    Quote Quote  
  17. Patrickm - thanks for the comments.

    My comment on VCD was flippant at best. I agree. But actually my only real point was regarding the bit rate. As far as I am concerned the CBR 1.15 was "shoehorned" into the standard because of the minute to minute decision. In other words the 74 minute CDR being able to hold 74 minutes of video. That appers to be the only rationale. There are no technical limitations or logical thresholds that limit life to CBR 1.15. It wasn't too long before we started to see SVCD. Yes VCD its a standard and yes it is a complicated standard. But it's not a religion. Well maybe to some it is.

    I agree with you on all the confusion. That's one on the reasons I am a proponant of the simple approach. As somebody commented in another thread - let's get on with the popcorn. "Mine won't play on this but it plays on that etc". I sometimes wonder how much all of this complicated capturing and massaging requiring a half dozen programs plays into it though. Probably alot. Probably way too much. Especially if its the result of simply towing the compliancy line.

    I am a proponant of simplicty. Simplicity will attract the masses. By attracting the masses we create a market. By creating a market we attract the big boys who will develop the tools - reasonable tools and reasonable players. The masses will not accept anything less.

    I really hope we are not all defending a 1993 decision a year or too from now. I actually think noncompliancy (from a religious perspective) has a better shot a survival. Just look at all the overclocking sites out there. People love it. People always want to get more than what they paid for. Cramming your CDR full of higher quality video is not an unthinkable scenario. Especially since the players exist and more and more players are being procuced that will.

    But hey - that's thinking outside the box and I don't think that's permitted here. I still got my Adam around here somewhere but you don't see me pushing CPM do you?

    Your comments are well thought out Patrick.



    Quote Quote  
  18. <TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
    regarding the bit rate. As far as I am concerned the CBR 1.15 was "shoehorned" into the standard because of the minute to minute decision. In other words the 74 minute CDR being able to hold 74 minutes of video. That appers to be the only rationale. There are no technical limitations or logical thresholds that limit life to CBR 1.15. It wasn't too long before we started to see SVCD.

    </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

    that's because vcd was intended to be a cheap alternative to vhs in asia. it's hardware- just reuse the same technology as a 1x audio CD drive mechanism, then you don't have to reinvent the wheel. besides, at the time, with consumer level multispeed CD-ROMs becoming popular, i'm sure there was excess supply and it was old technology so production cost was extremely low.
    Quote Quote  
  19. Yes Patrick.

    That was then and this is now! Progress is a wonderful thing isn't it? When you look at all of the low cost gear available to us now it is a shame that we are still hanging on the the legacy of those 1x drives.

    It's almost like having to put a throttle on those 1.5 gig Athlons so we can all play our DOS games. Well not quite but I'll take my noncompliant real time captures and take advantage of my speedy 2x drive.

    edit -

    Hey I think I got a 4x....now there's progress for you.
    We're crawling when we should at least be walking by now.
    And to some out there it still a really sloooooowwwww crawl. But it will become simple.


    <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: next on 2001-07-12 21:46:13 ]</font>
    Quote Quote  
  20. aldus4, don't worry about it I was joking about that bitchfest thing, as long as I get some anwers somewhere down the line I'm happy.
    Quote Quote  
  21. The guide "How to use CD-Digital Audio files with the Philips Video CD 2.0 Toolkit" has been posted.

    http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=50500&forum=1&0
    Quote Quote  
  22. The guide "How to use TMPGEnc to create VCD assets for the Philips Video CD 2.0 Toolkit" has been posted.

    http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=50504&forum=1
    Quote Quote  



Similar Threads

Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!