Newbie ?'s unsure..

[DaKid]

I want to convert some avi movies to mpeg to make some vcd's. I know nothing about what im about to do, so I know I will mess up a few times. I have a yamaha S-510 DVD player, it supports svcd. So should I convert to vcd's or svcd's? How long is the process take to convert? should I use cdr's or cdrw's? Are the audio/video setting already preset or do I have to set them myself? If so what is a good setting?

[Sefy]

Hopefully i'll be able to answer some of your questions shortly and to the point, so here goes, get yourself for starters TMPGEnc, you can use it to convert (encode) your AVI to VCD or SVCD or any other hybrid format out there, there are pre-set Templates that already come with it that will help you set to the desired format, and you can get user made hybird formats from this website as well.

as for quality, that depends alot on the source, don't expect it to look good if your source is not all that good, always expect the quality to be less then the source, and you will be surprised, if you expect it to be the same or better, you'll be disappointed, now as for encoding time, that depends on the CPU, it could take you 4 hours from DVD 2 VCD using my guide on a AMD Duron 850, which is pretty good for a 90min movie. SVCD usually takes twice as long and not always worth it, especialy considering that each movie will be atleast 3 to 4 CD's.

[DaKid]

Im watching some of these avi movies on my computer and they are not that good in quality. I downloaded them off morpheus. There good enough to see whats going on, but now I doubt if I would want to take the time to put them on vcd or svcd if they quality will get lower. What are some good sites to get some good quality movies?

[Sefy]

I'm afraid I can't help you there, i'm on a 56k modem, i don't download movies, takes too long, I just get the DVD and rip it myself, it gives the best quality, even if you just encode to a VCD