Help burning big files to VCD

[s.side]

Hey, I need help burning divx movies to VCD.

I have Nero 7 Premium and I want to burn a movie that is under 700 MB, although the duration of the film is 87 minutes. I know I did this one way for a friend but I forgot how to do it since then.

The problems I get are obvious, when I try to burn it tells me I need 885 MB of free space, this baffles me, the file is 696MB and the length goes over by 7 minutes.

Any help here would be appreciated greatly.

[edsmith77]

some time back I used to burn VCD videos that exceeded the disk capacity by using the overburing ability of the drive. BUt a word of caution is that in the future not all drives will read this overburned area and hence you will lose that portion of the video. Also, sometimes you cannot even copy the disk or files on it because it cannot read that overburned area.
So I would urge caution in that respect.
I would offer this suggestion if it is possible for you, recompile with a lower bit rate so that it does fit. You will most likely not see the difference. It is after all a VCD.
I would also suggest try using VCDEasy. You could give that a try instead of Nero.

[s.side]

Thanks for that, I'll try it and see what the results give.

I was actually thinking that it was impossible to use Nero for this file because of the length of the film I am burning, it is, as I mention, 87 minutes, and my disc is and 80 minute capacity, would I need a disc that allows more time, am I wasting my time trying to fit it on?

[TBoneit]

The file size of the Divx has no relation to the file size it will become after Nero encodes it to Mpg1 VCD format.

Whether or not it will fit on a 90 minute disc? the answer is yes. Can you drive burn a 90 minute CD, Don't know. Will it play in another drive even if you burn it? Only testing will tell. Normal size CDs we can be pretty sure they'll work everywhere. Once you go off spec who knows.

Also there is a chance of drive damage by overburning a CD.

[edsmith77]

s.side,
The most overburn I have ever tried was 84 minutes. And unfortunately, today, that disc is not usable except in the drive that I used to burn it with. Its a good thing that I can live without that VCD, since the drive is history.
In my humble opinion, if you manage to get 87 minutes on to an 80 minute disk without reencoding to a lower bit rate, it will in most cases, only play in that drive, if at all.
I think you would be money ahead to reencode using a lower bit rate to get it to fit within the confines of an standard 80 minute disk. Yes, the lower bit rate will cause some quality loss but since it is a VCD, you will probably not be able to see the difference.
Or you could split the video across two discs (CDs) and not lose any quality.
Or if you have an option, you could demux the video and audio, resample the audio to 48k and remux and author on a DVD. I have done this several times for some of my older VCDs that I wanted to keep (save for the one I mentioned above). Did not get any quality increase but I was able to get 3 VCDs onto one DVD with menus.

They do make 90 minute CDs, although I have never seen one but a query on this site will find some old threads (that is if they have not already been removed and archived) discussing the pros and cons and locations of those discs.

The short answer is time is never wasted learning. You can learn the steps to fitting 5.5 lbs of feathers into a 3 lb sack. The real point is if you are satisfied after you have done that.

I am only offering my insight from past experiences regarding the over stuffing of CDs. My experience says that the short lived fulfillment of that accomplishment will not meet your long term desires.

[jman98]

edsmith77 - I find your posts a little strange. I've never heard of anyone being able to overburn 84 minutes on an 80 minute CD. While I suppose in theory that might be possible, no CD-Rs I've ever worked with could be overburned more than about 2 minutes. I don't remember the manufacturer, but one of the big names for making CD and DVD burners had some weird technology that only worked on their drives where they would not fully burn all the pits and thus squeeze extra space out of normal CD-Rs. If you used that, yes, I'm not surprised it doesn't work now. Also, you don't tell us what brand of CD-Rs you used, but maybe you used a low quality brand and the disc is just bad.

I've burned a decent number of 90 minute CD-Rs, mostly in audio CD format, and they ALL still work, even 4+ years later. In fact, I've never found anything that couldn't read them except for one case. The only problem I ever had with a 90 minute disc was that I had a lot of problems playing a Divx video burned to a 90 minute disc where some devices could play it and others couldn't. I've never had any problems with VCD or audio CD format burned to 90 minute CD-Rs.

My suggestion to s.side would be to buy some 90 minute CD-Rs and use one of those to burn the movie. You'll need to set Nero to overburn up to 90 minutes and 0 seconds and note that Nero will recognize the 90 minute CD-R as an 80 minute one and warn you that you are about to overburn and terrible things may happen, but you can ignore the warnings and burn. I must point out that while most drives can correctly burn 90 minute CD-Rs, some have been tested and only go up to 84 minutes or so. You'll just have to try it and see if it works. TBoneit is correct that in theory, you can damage a drive by overburning. I never have done it, nor do I know anyone who has, but if you end up being the exception to the rule, I won't accept responsibility for it.

If you drop the bit rate from 1150 Kbps to maybe 1050 or 1000 (I need a bitrate calculator) as edsmith77 suggested, you should be able to squeeze the video down enough to get it on an 80 minute CD-R, but you MUST use something other than Nero to encode. I'd suggest TMPGenc, which does a fine job of encoding MPEG-1 for VCD.

[Alex_ander]

The CDR capacity in minutes is labelled for CD audio only, the length of VCD video on a CDR is different and is about 60-70 minutes for standard encoding. However there were developed modified types of MPEG1 encoding like KVCD allowing to encrease movie length up to 120 min and you can find some DVD to VCD rips of this type on torrent trackers. You can find free templates for KVCD encoding by typing this word in Google. These templates are developed as set of files to be used in TMPGEncPlus2.5 for KVCD encoding. This method is not recommended for highly compessed input avi's.

[ZippyP.]

...the length of VCD video on a CDR is different and is about 60-70 minutes for standard encoding.

Standard VCD is about 1 minute of video per MB of disk space. A typical 80 min. CD will allow 800 MB's of VCD data burned mode 2. Mode 2 has no error correction and that's why you can get 800 MB (80 mins) on a supposed 700 MB disk.

My advice to the OP, don't use Nero to encode your VCD's. It's poor quality and has very few settings for you to adjust like bitrate. If you lower the bitrate a little you'd get your 87 mins. on a standard disk. Try TMPGEnc to encode (free for mpeg-1) and VCDEasy to author and burn (older free version available).

[Nelson37]

I see no clear indication from the OP that the Divx movie has been encoded to MPG1 at all, and my first question would be if he or she is aware that this is necessary in order to make a VCD?

87 Minutes would require either a 90-minute cd, or deviating from the VCD spec. Bitrate below 1150 and KVCD would be two methods of possibly making a disk that might play in some players, but it would not be a VCD.

Use two disks, get a DVD burner, or a Divx DVD player. Simple, cheap, better quality.

[DereX888]

Some batches of standard 80min RiData CD-Rs, Ambassador 48x CD-Rs and few others can be overburned up to 85-88min, depends on your luck.
In Nero options you have to allow overburning, and probably select "use short lead-out" as well.
Other trick to fit more would be to lower down audio bitrate. Standard VCD audio is MPEG-1 Layer II at 224kbps CBR, you can easily reencode it down to 128 kbps and save quite few megabytes that way - and still be withing VCD's specs.
Also if your dvd-player allows playback of non-standard VCDs, use variable bitrate for video. This would significantly shrink the size of the mpeg file (Nero and some other will bitch about file being non-compliant).

Or if you want to be safe and within specs - buy a 90min CD-R, theyre like $0.25/ea or less.

[s.side]

Thanks to everyone for the help, I am pleased there are many alternative's to this.

I think my best bet would be to split the movie in 2 with TMPGenc and use 2 discs. If overburning risks damaging my writer I best steer clear from it. I don't know where to buy 90 minute CD-R's, infact I didn't even know there was a disc like that, I live in London and I've never seen one, but I'll have to try PC World next time I am near one. I thought they'd be expensive too 25 cents is about 10p or something here.

Thanks again.

What about using Ashampoo Movie Shrinker & Burn, then to changing it to VCD using Avone Video Converter?

This is a method someone gave me in another forum, is this a good way?

[Alex_ander]

Maybe it's worth at least to have a look at KVCD capabilities in extending playback time for VCD:
http://www.kvcd.net/portal/index.php?lng=en

[s.side]

how do i make it in KVCD, what program do I use?

[Cornucopia]

Most of the time TMPGEnc is used, at least, most of the guides for KVCD are written with that in mind (since they have templates for that).

Scott

[TBoneit]

Doesn't matter how you shrink the AVI it is the MPEG1 that will be 870 Mb if it si standard VCD. IOW a 100 mb avi that runs 87 minutes will be 870Mb in standard VCD format.To squeeze it onto 1 CD KVCD will work and probably play in most VCD players but may not Fast forward snoothly etc.

As cheap as DVDs are the days. I only paid 28 Cents US, for Verbatim last batch I bought and DVD burners are low priced these days too. In terms of cost be MB that 25 cent Cd will end costing $1.50 to hold as much as a 28 Cent DVD. 6 Cds at 700 Mb each times 6 equals 4.2 Gigabytes on one DVD with some room left over on the DVD.