No Disc error with VCD in Genica DVD player. Please help!

[captainhall]

I found this great web site and started in the How To / Newbie section. I installed several programs including the Pic Video codec, Virtual Dub, TMPEGEnc and EasyVCD, following the directions in the Newbie section for each one. I captured some video directly to Virtual Dub, converted it to MPEG VCD file with TMPEGEnc and burned it with EasyVCD, all with no problems that I could see. I used a TDK CDR disk. It will play on the PC, but it doesn't play on my Genica DVD player. I looked up my DVD player in your database. Users were raving that it "plays anything they through at it" including CDR, CDRW, VCD, SVCD, DVD, MP3, etc...

By the way, I have burned MP3 CDRoms and played them on the Genica, using the same CDR media with no problem

I also downloaded an MP3 file from the internet and burned that to a VCD using EasyVCD, and that also shows the "No Disc" message on the Genica.

I've run out of brainy ideas (That didn't take long!). My wife is ready to kill me because I've been sniping at her all day because I'm so frustrated. Isn't there some way to tell for sure if the problem is the way I burned or encoded the disc VS a problem with the player? Since nobody else seems to have had any trouble with their Genica, I'm thinking the problem has something to do with something missing on the CDR recording itself, but I don't know where to look.

Please help!

Sincerely, Rick Hall
captainhall@cox.net

[Tommyknocker]

Since your media works, and the burner works, I can only guess it may be your authoring program (EasyVCD). There is a freeware program called VCDEasy (go figure), that I use more than Nero. Maybe it can be of some use. I do know I use TMPGEnc to encode the file before burning, just as you do, so I do beliveve you are not too far from success.

[captainhall]

Thank you for your post. Actually, I just got the name backwords. I use the VCDEasy, not EasyVCD. I'm still confused and frustrated, so please help! -Rick

[Tommyknocker]

Okay, exactly how big is your file, and did you use the wizard or manual mode in TMPGEnc to encode?

[vitualis]

Make sure your player can actually read CD-R/W discs.

Burn an audio CD on the same media and see if that plays...

Regards.

[captainhall]

Thanks to Tommy and Michael for your replies!

Tommy asked how big the files were I was trying to burn. The first disc had a mpg I downloaded from the internet which was about 40 meg or so. The second disc's Mpg was a file I captured myself, and was also around 30-40 meg, I think. It was only a few minutes long. I used the wizard in TMPGEnc. Tonight I tried the two "bad" vcd disks on a friends DVD player, and neither worked on his machine either. His DVD is a Toshiba. This leads me to believe there is something wrong in the way I made the discs, but I don't know what is wrong with them!

I do know that my player has no trouble with CDR(s). I have burned both CDDA and MP3 discs and played them in my Genica. Also, numerous people on this site have the same DVD player model and reported success with CDR and CDRW. I am using CDR media from TDK and HP.

-Rick

[captainhall]

OK, more information:

I downloaded the "Sample VCD" from this web site (Thank you Michael Tam from Sydney!) and burned it with VCDEasy (or EasyVCD, whichever it's called) and it works fine on my Genica. So, now we have confirmed that my Genica DVD player DOES play VCD 2.0 NTSC with no problems being recorded from my HP CDRW Writer on TDK CDR media....

So, Michael and Tommy and the rest of the crew:

Any ideas what I may have done wrongly on my first 2 attempts to cause them not to work?

-Rick

[Buffist]

Please excuse my bad english, but I'm german ;-)
The authoring program is ok. The burner is ok. The DVD-Player is ok. So it could only depend on the TMPGEnc. Did you encode a standard VCD? With CBR or VBR? Did you try SVCD? With what result?

[vitualis]

Okay, let's try to eliminate the problem step by going step by step...

If you have a video clip handy (in captured AVI would be handy), then use TMPGEnc to encode the video clip to MPEG. Make sure you load either the PAL or NTSC VCD template.

Once that is completed, try and play the MPEG file with Windows Media Player. Does it play okay?

For the next step I'm going to use GNU VCDImager Tools GUI ( http://www.michaeltam.com/vcdimager_tools_gui.html ). This is as it has less options than VCDEasy so there is less chance of you misinterpreting anything I write...

After you've installed it, load it up and click on the vcdimager option.

Then click on Add -- Load and load your file.

Set an output file for your CUE/BIN image.

Leave the other settings on the default and click Go!.

VCDImager (which is also the backend to VCDEasy) will create the CUE/BIN image of the VCD. If there are any errors at this stage, try to take them down. The process will also create a log file so you can load it up to see what messages were created.

Since you've successfully burned the CUE/BIN image of the Demo VCD, I know that you can burn CUE/BIN images. Use the same process you did for that and burn this new CUE/BIN image of a VCD you just generated.

If the disc works, then you've created your first VCD!

Now, try the same process with VCDEasy...

Regards.