Tricking DVD player into playing SVCD

[consume247]

I have attempted to use the newest version of TMPGEnc to "trick" my standalone dvd player into playing SVCD's. I'm trying to do the trick w/ an MPEG-1 file. However, I can't even get TMPGEnc to work. It always freezes whenever I try to use it in the way described at this website: http://www.geocities.com/newestmoviesencode/dvdvcd

So basically, I haven't even gotten to burning the mpg file onto a CD. Please help or email me.

[consume247]

Whoops... I meant a ^MPEG-2 file

[ColtWalker]

I fail to understand what you mean when you say 'trick'. If you create a SVCD standard format and burn it to a blank CDR as CDFS, there's no trick to it, you have just created a Super Video CD. I use TMPGEnc to convert my MPEG-2 file to standard SVCD format. Then I use VCDEasy provided at this web site along with vcdimager and cdrado which are both required by VCDEasy to write to your CDR disc.

I am guessing you have not even read any of the guides available from the VCDHelp web site. I suggest you take the time to read a bit, the information here is excellent and this web site is probably the best resource for creating your own VCD and SVCD standard CD's that I have come across as far as web sites go. I am sure the authors have put a lot of work into the guides and you really should stop and read them before asking here.

As far is 'tricking' your DVD player. Either your DVD player will play VCD and/or SVCD or it won't. Some will play VCD and not SVCD. Some will even play MP3 CD's that you can create. Some are fussy about CDR media. I was at Best Buy last weekend and every DVD player they had in the store, including an APEX brand for only $99.00 would play my two test CDR discs I brought in. One was VCD 1.1 standard and the other was VCD 2.0 standard.

I have noted that Hitachi brand and Samsumi (spelling however) band DVD players I tried at another store would not read my VCD discs. I have also heard that Mitsubithi brand is a culprit unwilling to play VCD of CDR media also. (specific models tested unavailable)

No trick to it, just open up a blank cd, stick it in, and do it!

[oberkfell]

There is no trick to make a VCD work on a DVD player. Just burn the file as a compliant VCD. XVCD or SVCDs are a different story.

Some have to do a simple multiplex to get their file to play, others do a demulitplex then multiplex as a non-compliant VCD, then burn as a non-compliant VCD.

[[Luc]]

I know what he means, and i'm looking for the same kinda info. My Pioneer 646-D won't play SVCDs as standard, but changing the header (link given in the first post) and burning with Nero as a VCD does do something.

It'll play the MPEG2, but seeing as it's 480x480, and the header has a 1:1 aspect ratio flag, it squishes the image to the left hand two thirds of the screen. Changing the SDE in the MPEG2 so that it would play properly on my Pioneer (tool here > http://www.geocities.com/eby_vdo/ ) is useful, but seeing as my player won't play SVCDs as standard, i have to change the header to burn it as a VCD, and this foobars the SDE again..

Anyone know of a way to change the header of an MPEG2 file and at the same time change the SDE values?

[mcorpse]

this also seems to work with my Panasonic RV-31

[schamp]

Well, for all of you out there trying to "trick" your player to SVCD, before you bother with this weird attempt, why don't you try to trick it in a much easier and in my opinion much better way. XVCD is the magic word. Try the following:

Instead of using the standard VCD size of 352x288 (ex. PAL), just make it 720xNNN (where NNN would be the height of the movie after clipping, ex. 720x420 and then burn a small part with Nero using the option non-standard VCD and check if your Player takes it, next step is to higher the bitrate from the standard 1150 to 1500, 2000, 2500 and so on and check out how far you can go until your Player won't take it anymore.
I have a plain Sony 325 modell and at first I thought it wouldn't even take anything but DVD's, until I discovered that it just can't read CDR's, but CD-RW's work fine (strange, but oh well), so I started making my first VCD's. They worked fine, but the low resolution wasn't great, so for shits and giggles I just tried it with a short movie with 720x388 and wow, it worked and was great to look at, then I started experiments with the bitrate and found out that my Player doesn't really care what the bitrate is, as long as it stays under 3000. With this high resolution (same as DVD) and the higher bitrate and using VBR (Variable Bitrate 2-Pass in TMPGenc) I can get any movie on 2 VCD-CD-RW's in nearly DVD Quality (you wouldn't see the difference). I use DVDx 1.6 just to calculate the bitrate that I can use to make the movie fit on 2 CD's, then I use DVD2AVI and split the movie into 2 equallength projects with it and then let TMPGenc process the 2 parts in Batchmode over night. In the morning, I have 2 perfect mpg files, and all thats left to do, is burn them on 2 CD-RW's and voila!! And I bet the quality is alot better than SVCD.

Soooooo, check out if your DVD player can do it, and if so, just forget about SVCD !!