Two problems I encountered, while trying to burn "VCD-ready" mpg1 files to VCD (and "SVCD-ready" mpeg2 files to SVCD). NOTE: All mpeg1 files played in Quicktime. All mpeg2 files played in VLC.

First problem: VCDs burnt at 16x, using Toast Titanium 5.2.1 and my Yamaha firewire burner, failed to play on my JVC XV-S300 DVD player. The JVC would recognise the format, display the correct number of tracks, and the time-remaining display would count-down during PLAY => but no video, or audio, to the TV.

Solution: Lowered burn speed to 1x or 2x. 20-30 VCDs and a few SVCDs burnt at these two speeds have had no problem on the JVC. Since this works, and is not too inconvienient (burns in the background on my G4 MP 450, under OS X) I haven't experimented to see what the upper-limit is on burn speed for my particular combination of burner/player/media.

Second problem: Some, but not all, of the mpeg1 files (Japanese TV-shows downloaded from alt.binaries.multimedia.japanese) are rejected by Toast - as being the wrong size/format(?) for VCD. Most of the rejected files have an associated warning, from the usenet-poster (Station KEAL), stating there was some kind of "dropout" during recording from Japanese TV - and that "black frames" were added to the file.

Solution: Tried MissingMediaBurner 0.6. It accepts the "problem" files, but displays a message, before burning, that it is using "libvcd 0.7.12" to perform "auto-padding" of the file - and states where the problem frames/markers are, and how many frames have been added to the file. Burn then proceeds normally (1x or 2x), and the VCD plays on the JVC. NOTE: After MMB 0.6 completes the burn, I've noticed it has generated a new .bin, .cue, and .xml file in the directory the mpeg1 file was located in. Tried dragging the MMB-generated .bin file to Toast => it was accepted by Toast as being the correct format/size for VCD. Since I'd already burnt a copy with MMB, didn't feel like burning a second copy with Toast - just to see if it would work.

Hope this helps other newbies, the way this forum has helped me.

Mike

"Dare to be Stupid!" - Weird Al Yankovic