MPEG Stills support in VCDEasy 1.0.9

[vcddude]

Hello all,

I see that VCDEasy 1.0.9 (now available on this site) has added support
for MPEG Stills creation. Dumb question: what would you do with the
resulting MPEG Still file in the context of VCDEasy 1.0.9? (e.g.
why would you use it?)

Thanks,
Kevin

[whodges]

The stills can be used most commonly for menus. You could also have screens that displayed static text like show discriptions and character bios.
You could even create photo slide show (s)vcds.

After creating the still you can load it in vcdeasy as a mpeg file.

[vcddude]

Cool, so how do I set up a menu in VCDEasy using the
MPEG Still as a menu item? I didn't think VCDEasy
supported menu creation.

Thanks,
vcddude

[gonz0]

VCDEasy does support menu creation although it has not been very obvious how to do it. Refer to this discussion for more info (the most pertinent information is toward the bottom):
http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=220600#220600

[vcddude]

Hey, thanks for the info, but honestly I have no idea what you mean by "propogate the chapters to ALL play items. Now all of your MPEGs (including stills) will have the chapter information, so you can navigate though your VCD via the number keys. " Can you clarify? If not, I am happy to wait for someone to put together a quick guide for how make menus with vcdeasy.

Thanks,
vcddude

[gonz0]

How about this one? I just finished it last night. I hope this makes more sense. http://forum.vcdhelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=84327

[jbaraga]

I tried this technique to make a SVCD photo album from MPEG stills encoded by VCDEasy. I had each still linked to the next one in the "interactivity" menu with a 5 second delay, and assigned a different key to each still and propagated to "all". However, when I put the disc in my DVD player, it brings up only the first image, and then alternates between "play" and "pause" on the LED display without advancing the image. I am not able to get to any other images with the remote keys, either by number or by using the search keys. What am I doing wrong?

[gonz0]

That seems like it should work. Although I haven't tried SCVD because my player doesn't support it.

- Does the disk play properly on your PC (assuming you have a DVD-ROM)?
- Are you sure your player supports SVCD?
- Are the "timeouts" set to the correct items?
- Since it's a photo CD, is there any advantage with SVCD over VCD? Why not just burn as VCD?

Note: If you don't have a DVD-rom, there's a VCD Player program called STHSVCD (or STHSDVD) that will allow you to play a VCD with still images (and utilitize the previous and next buttons). You can find it in the Tools section. That might help you debug.

[vcddude]

Thanks for the guide Gonz0! I will check it out.

vcddude

[jbaraga]

I just tested the SVCD photo album disc I made in my computer DVD-ROM player and it worked! My stand-alone DVD player is SVCD compatible, and it plays and an SVCD video disc I made with VCDEasy without a glitch.

Gonz0: Can I make a VCD photoalbum with VCDEasy with the same image resolution/quality as with SVCD? I assume I will need to re-convert all my Jpegs to VCD Mpegs.

[jbaraga]

I made a VCD photo album with VCDEasy (instead of a SVCD). Now in my stand-alone player (Samsung V1000), it plays the album. but each still is distorted-the image is diagonally shifted from top to bottom along each 10th raster scan line or so. Again, the VCD played flawlessly in my computer DVD drive with WinDVD.

I'm still not sure if this is a problem with my player, the VCDEasy software, or in my method of authoring, but I'm ready to give up on VCDEasy. Is there a better, more reliable solution for making a VCD or SVCD photo album. I have Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.1, and it absolutely sucks (very poor resolution).