DVD on a CD??

[pablo180]

OK first of all I must point out that I am not an idiot (at least not a complete one! ) I know that CD and DVD are completely different formats. I also know about the physical impossibilities of burning a DVD to a CD (size 1Gig must be burnt etc) I know all about the different coloured books and all that. But let me tell you about something strange that happened and how I ended up burning a DVD on a CD and perhaps someone could explain it to me.

I was using VideoPack 5.1 and making a photo DVD with menus and sound etc. I only had about 20 pictures so thought that it would be a waste to have on a DVD so saved the layout and started anew this time I started a VCD. I opened up the layout that I had done for the DVD thinking that the program would convert it to VCD format. No error message came up so I put in a CD and just pressed burn. Normally it would say wrong medium inserted if I tried burning a VCD to DVD disk or vice versa. No error messages it just burnt.

Took out what I thought was a VCD and tried it in my DVD player and the pictures looked really good, just as good as on the DVD cos normally they don’t look as clear. Then I noticed that the DVD player said DVD as appose to VCD that it should be displaying. Switched it off and tried again and sure enough it came up DVD again.

I took it out and tried it in my computer (NOT in the same drive as I burnt it in) this drive has never played a burnt DVD from my burner it only plays VCD’s and commercial DVD’s. But sure enough it played the disk and also displayed DVD instead of DVD.

OK I know that it’s not a DVD it’s on a CD so what I want to know is why are the DVD players recognising it as a DVD? It is something to do with the header? Also what are the compatibility issues, ie will it play on all DVD players cos it is recognised as a DVD?

I hope someone can explain what I have done, thanks.

[Craig Tucker]

You can author for DVD and burn to a CD, this is known as miniDVD, see link.

https://www.videohelp.com/minidvd.htm

[pablo180]

I had always wondered what MiniDVD's were. For some strange reason I had got it into my head that they were VCD or SVCD with menu's. I don't know why I thought that

Thank you for clearing that up, at least now I know it wasn't some weird burning error. As my DVD player supports MiniDVD I think that I'll do all my pictures on MiniDVD instead, they looked much better.

Thank you for your help.

[dcsos]

WARNING to PABLO:
only 5% of the players out there will play a "DVD VOLUME" on a CD SURFACE..so If your machine breaks (god forbid) you might be hard pressed to replace it...as they are not making more and more players that recognize this format!

Of course the OPTICAL DRIVE in your computer will always play it...
as you noted, this DVD-ROM wasn't recent enough to recognize a burned DVD (only replicated store-bought will do) but it'll read a CD-R like almost all COMPUTER OPTICAL CD's (2x drives and earlier) excepted

I use this format and find odd player behavior..SOME PLAYERS play the DVD in SLO when in PLAY (a phillips 983 i think)

[pablo180]

I think that you have a point dcsos, the CD had some family photos on. Took it round to someones house today to show them and it didn't play on their DVD player. Quite a few members of my family want copies. Only a few of them have PC's so it is pointless copying the disk if it isn't going to work on the majority of their DVD players. I'll have to redo the disk to make sure it plays on everyone's DVD Player.

So whereas before I thought that this might be a great idea now I am just thinking it is going to be a pain in the arse. I think that I'll just stick to DVD or VCD for most stuff. Maybe I'll just do stuff for me as MiniDVD occasionally or something.