Playing MPEG4 on a Standalone DVD

[jackman]

Ultimate goal is to take home movies (on Digital Video and Analog) and Classic TV Shows (on VHS and direct from TV/Cable Box) capture on computer, edit, and write to disk. Currently have CD-R/RW, not DVD-R/RW. I will be reading lots of stuff on vcdhelp.com. Just one question before I start:
CD-R/RW holds, what, about 74 minutes in VCD format? At same time, I've seen that MPEG4 is super compression, perhaps allowing me to put more than 74 mins on a disk. But I get the sense that I will NOT be able to play MPEG4 on a standalone DVD, even one that plays VCD? Will I eventually hit a dead-end trying to put MPEG4 on a disk and expect to play it on my DVD player?

Thanks,
Jackman

[alkieman]

At the moment no DVD player will play MPEG4 files. The DVD Forum is looking at incorporating it within the DVD specs so future players probably will do so. At the moment you're stuck with VCD or DVD on most and SVCD on some stand alone players.

Try VCD and SVCD first but stick to the standards first of all. If they work try deviating a little modifying bitrates etc. to create xVCD and SxVCD discs, some players will play non standard discs like these too and you may be able to imrpove on quality or length of movie on one disc. Don't be surprised if your player spits it out though, the vast majority of DVD players designed to play VCD and/or SVCD wont play non standard discs. Some do, so at a cost of what, 39p a blank, it's worth a try.

[MaDmiZe]

Like said above....dont mes with mpeg4 till it more widly used...
Go with VCD....Some of the nonstandard templates get 90 to 120 minute of great quality video....but thats if your stand alone unit suports it.....
Other wise its like me sending you all the new movies on beta tapes ....
Well at least the VCD's can be viewed on your pC even if not on standalone unit......but Beta ??? Whats that stuff good for now...

[alkieman]

Could be the brand of DVD-R you are using. Although the Pioneer A03 and A04 can burn at 2x that only works with certified media, usually brand names from the likes of Pioneer themselves and TDK.

Unbranded media normally burn at only single speed so it will take a full hour to burn a full 4.7gb disc. If your final movie is a lot less, say you encoded it down to only 2Gb, then it will take less time to burn simply because it's a smaller file.

[mpb]

Can't be done....yet.

I've read some material from the industry side and my old roommate installs home theater systems for a living, and they both have made mention of upcoming DVD players with the codecs being 100% software-based and not hardware-based. Apparently Sony and JVC are already working on these. Saves them big bucks on production... just put faster processors into the players instead of costly custom MPEG2 decoder hardware.

Theoretically, with that in place, you could flash some firmware into the player to add any codec, so divx, wmv, and so forth are not out of reach (licensing and legal issues notwithstanding). Apex already "almost" has this with the 1600 player, which plays windows media. I'm curious to know how they've got that set up. Anyone own one? I still have a 1500.

At divx.com they say they're already working with DVD player manufacturers to add compatibility, so I imagine that's the other side of this same coin. Player manufacturers know that features and compatibility are what sell boxes, and that's money in their pockets. Divx stands to make money from licensing. Consumers want the best equipment possible and they want to pay as little as they can get away with. It ain't rocket science for us to figure out what the next step is.

-Mike

[MaDmiZe]

That windows media is just another type of windows audio file.... just another Bill Gates stab at a proprietary file so nobody else can have it.
Its a wmp or wpm extension...something close to that anyway....
Got that out of the manual for the 1600.

[MOVIEGEEK]

That windows media is just another type of windows audio file.... just another Bill Gates stab at a proprietary file so nobody else can have it.
Its a wmp or wpm extension...something close to that anyway....
Got that out of the manual for the 1600.

It's .wmv