Changing the aspect ratio of a vcd?

[mephoneno]

I downloaded a VCD film but when burned it is compressed - 320x240 pixels in QT.
It looks normal at 320x180. I tried save-as a copy in Q. It plays on the MAC fine, but Toast won't recognise that as a VCD.

How do I get the film to burn at the proper aspect ratio?

Thanks for any info.

Dave

[tgpo]

What does Toast say when you try to burn it? You way just need to change the screen size to 352x240.

[mephoneno]

The error message that I get from Toast is:
"the_file_name" cannot be used to create a Video CD because it contains MPEG data in an unsupported format.


I changed the pixel dimansions of the file to 320x180 and saved as a copy in QT and after converting mpg ->mpg with VCDGear, was able to burn that as a VCD, but the dimensions of the movie reverted to the original settings of 320x240

Thanks for any info,

Dave

[AntnyMD]

The VCD encoder in Toast either falsely reports a pixel height/width of 320x240 (as this is spot-on 4:3 aspect), or it really encodes MPEG to 320x240 which makes these discs off-spec VCDs.

The NTSC VCD standard is 352x240 (exactly one-quarter DVD), but 320x240 will also display correctly on your 4:3 television. Apparently, videos at 352x240 are "squeezed" back to 320x240 for playback.

If Toast balks at a downloaded true 320x240 encode, just use vcdToolsX to make CD-ROM/XA tracks and burn those in Toast (Toast doesnt complain about data it can't really "see").

[mephoneno]

Thanks for the tip. I'll try making the CD-ROM/XA tracks.

Dave