VCD won't play.

[javarn]

Hello,

I am new to this board and to making VCD's. I'm just trying to distribute video of the grandkids to the grandparents in a simple, cost-effective way and figured this would be it. It isn't proving to be so easy though.

I overcame some video capture issues I was having initially by going with an Adaptec firewire card/cord/software from Circuit City (opposed to USB 1.1). I don't recall the exact name of the software that came with it, but that is what I used to capture the video and burn the VCD. With that software you can either capture to HD, modify an existing capture, or capture/burn to VCD all at once. I did the latter of the three and captured/burned straight to VCD. I captured 60 minutes of video from a digital8 (Sony TRV250) camcorder and put in a chapter every 10 minutes.

I took it straight to my standalone DVD player (toshiba) which is showing up on the compatable list on this site (not to mention it says it on a sticker on front of the player itself). The menu screen shows and plays the accompanying audio, but it will not play or do anything past the menu screen. I took it downstairs to my other DVD standalone (Denon 900 - shows up as VCD compatable as well) and I couldn't even get the menu to show, just an error message telling me to remove the VCD.

I am really hoping to avoid the expense of making DVD's, but if this is going to be a continuous battle it may be worth my time. Does anyone have some suggestions that might get me up and running?

Thanks for your help!

[mujahid7ia]

Don't give up!

That software that came with the cable may be creating non-complaint VCDs (XVCDx). You can try cap-ing to HD and doing the conversion and authoring with tools known and trusted to create compliant, standard VCDs.
TMPGEnc and VCDEasy will do the trick.