VCD on DVD-R

[nemethmik]

Is there a way to combine multiple VCDs and burn them on a DVD-R?
Will any standalone DVD player play such a "VCD on DVD disc" movie?

[Visoblast]

You would have to format the VCD data to DVD spec and then author a DVD. The good part is that the video format of VCD is supported directly -- MPEG-1 at SIF resolution (352x240 with NTSC) at up to about 1.8Mb/s. The audio will need some work. You'll have to resample the audio to 48kHz, because 44.1kHz isn't supported, and reencode into MPEG-1 layer 2 audio (unless you want to use PCM). In any case, this requires you to demultiplex the VCD data.

As for combining them, you have two options: keep them in seporate titles and allow them to be selected through menus, or combine them into one title. Keeping them in seporate titles is much easier becasue you just have to make a simple DVD menu to select the different VCD titles.

Combining them requires you to concatenate the MPEG video streams and the audio. The audio part can be done in some audio editor, the MPEG part requires some utility program. I've got the stuff for Linux, but not Windows. Also, you'll need to be very careful to maintain synchronization between audio and video. It can be tricky to get right.

In short, just make them seporate titles and resample the audio. Its a lot easier.

[nemethmik]

Thanks a lot "Visoblast",

I'm using Windows tools at the moment and I'm a bit
out of luck.
To convert the VCD files to VCD with 48kHz was easy with
the free TMPGEnc.
However, none of the low end DVD authoring applications (Ulead DVD MovieFactory, Sonic MyDVD) accepted these mpeg1 files.
Then I tried Sonic DVDit SE ($300) and I found that it is capable of using standard VCD files to create a DVD disk. It transcoded the audio just before burning the DVD. The entire process was easy and straightforward.
TMPGEnc is still needed to convert between NTSC and PAL formats
because I'm a European living in the US.

Thanks again for the hints.
The results made me clear that on Windows
I should go for the more expensive Sonic DVDit SE or more sophisticated DVD authoring tools.

[Visoblast]

Glad you were able to figure it out. I'm surprised that so much DVD authoring software doesn't support the video on VCD. I'm using SpruceUp, which was really cheap but is no longer available. It can handle MPEG-1 video just fine, but it does stuff that now only $500+ software does. Really strange.