Player says 0 tracks. Is VCD bad or is CD-R unsupported?

[Dave_LF]

I created a VCD 1.1 on a CD-R. When I put the disc into my DVD player (Toshiba SD-3750), the VCD light comes on and the disc begins to play. However, it stops immediately and if I use the seek feature, I'm told that the disc contains 0 tracks. Does this mean that the disc is corrupt or that my player can't handle CD-R media (the manual says that some CD-R media may be unsupported)?

Here's how I created the disc (I'm hobbled a bit by not having the right software). I first converted the two .avi's to .mpg's using TMPGEnc (no problems there). I next authored the VCD using VCDEasy and created the .bin file. Here's the suspicious step: since CDRDAO doesn't support my USB CD writer, I fed the .bin file to Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4 in "Create CD from CD image" mode (it asked for a .cif or .iso but didn't complain when I gave it a .bin) and burned it to a CD-R. The files all appear to be there when I open the disc in Windows Explorer, and I am able to play the .dat files in Media Player (though there's a lot of static in the audio). So what's wrong?

[markums2k]

Instead of authoring in VCDEasy, try making a VCD using Adaptec software, or any other burning software you can find. If that doesn't work either, I would suspect unsupported media and try another brand. However, if the media was unsupported, I wouldn't expect the VCD light to come on.

I encode in TMPGEnc, Author-to-image with VCDEasy and burn the CUE file with Nero. The resulting VCDs play fine in my Apex and Sony, and resulting SVCDs play in the Apex.

Just FYI, in one case, I burned an SVCD and had the SVCD light come on when I tried to play it in the Apex. However, it wouldn't play at ALL. I burned the image again to the very same CDRW (after I had erased it... I use CDRWs for testing so I don't end up with coasters) and it worked fine. Just a bad burn, I guess. Maybe you don't have any problems at all and just need to re-burn the image? Hope that helps.

[Dave_LF]

I just got finished burning an audio CD to the same media, and it plays fine, so I suppose it must have either been a bad burn or the result of trying to trick Easy CD Creator into using an image file saved in what I suppose is a slightly different format. I'm going to download CDRWin and see if I can burn the .bin with that instead (I have the "cheap" version of Easy CD Creator that doesn't include any VCD features).

[markums2k]

Much better idea than mine, using the audio CD! Glad you've narrowed it down. You may want to pick up a demo of Nero. Like I said, you can tell it to burn the CUE file. I've been too busy to try anything other than Nero, especially since it works so well...

[Dave_LF]

This gets more interesting. The first 2 VCD's I burned using VCDEasy and Easy CD Creator won't play in my DVD player (it says 0 tracks), but work fine on my computer with WinDVD. The third one I burned using CDRWin works in my DVD player, but WinDVD won't play it and says it has 0 tracks! Is there a difference between "computer" VCD's and DVD player ones?

PS: Does Nero include support for menus and the other advanced features?

[vitualis]

Don't use Nero to author VCDs. It is extremely limited.

As for burning CUE/BIN formats with Easy CD Creator... I didn't think it could even do that...

BTW, VCDEasy comes with CDRDAO and can burn the CUE/BIN file just fine if your ASPI layer is set up correctly (which it should be if you've installed Easy CD Creator)... If not, just download "ForceASPI" from http://www.doom9.org and install that.

Regards.