newbie: dvd-r as a vcd?

[supertoom]

ok here's the scenario: every week i downlaod the new friends episode in divx. then i convert it to mpeg1 and burn it as a vcd and watch it on my dvd-player. this way i get three episodes on one cd. is it possible to use a dvd-r as a vcd? so i can put more episodes on one disc. 4.7 gb instead of 700 mb.

[havema-1]

I don't have a DVD burner but PAL/NTSC 352x288/240 MPEG1 is also a legal DVD resolution. Maybe you just need 48 kHz audio with such video?

So maybe you could just concatenate and author them to a DVD?

[MichaelLAX]

is it possible to use a dvd-r as a vcd? so i can put more episodes on one disc. 4.7 gb instead of 700 mb.

Some DVD players will apparently play DVD-VCDs; you might want to check out users comments for your model machine in the "DVD Players: Compatability & user comments" in the menu to our left. I have not been able to figure out how to burn a DVD with the file structure of a VCD, so I have not been able to test it in my Sony 315. Toast seems to reject my attempts to burn a VCD on DVD media.

That being said, I have previously posted my results using Capty DVD authoring software using MPEG-1 source programming with great results. I now am able to create a "TV Week" DVD-RW that compiles over 6 hours of programming onto one DVD so that I can make more room on my DirecTiVo. I use RWs, because after I watch them, I erase the disk; I, of course, use DVD-Rs for the programming that I want to archive.

Capty works really well with MPEG-1 that are digitized from its sister program PixeDV. Using DirecTiVO as a source, results in excellent quality MPEG-1s, even when authored to a DVD. I can either use PixeDV to "trim" out the commericals, but lately I favor using the "chapter" feature of Capty to just make a chapter mark at the conclusion of each commercial break.

Check out Capty on its author's website: www.Pixela.co.jp or through its USA distributor La Cie, which sells it for about $149.

The major advantage of making your DVDs in this way, instead of DVD-VCDs, is that they will probably play in a greater number of DVD Players.

[samabuelsamid]

If your dvd player is capable of playing straight mpeg files (such as the philips dvd724 that I have) this one is a no brainer. Open up toast and select dvd. Drag the mpeg files that you want into the toast window. Burn. Done. You don't have to do any extra encoding or create any separate file structures like you do for a standard dvd or vcd. When you put the disk in the dvd player, it will show a simple file directory, select the episode you want to watch and hit play. When I bought the philips dvd player ($99 at target) and discovered that feature it was a major bonus. This player will also play any jpeg files and mp3s that you have. With the jpegs you can just put them on a cd or dvd as data without creating any special slide show and it will play them in sequence as a slide show.

[galactica]

another option is to just do .mpeg2 to dvd conversion.

then you have each episode set as a chapter.
that way, if it doesnt play DVD-VCD it will play DVDr, with each episode set as a chapter.

[bilestyle]

not necessary...a common misconception about dvd is that it doesnt accept mpeg-1.. if you re-encode the audio to 48000 khz and the video is either 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio you should be okay... obviously there are size limitations, but if you are encoding as standard vcd the size will be accepted fine... i have yet to find a single dvd player that doesn't play these mpeg-1 dvd's. i've tested everything from p2,xbox, to a whole slew of old and new brand dvd players.. think about it this way.. if your dvd player will play mpeg-1 off a cd, why in the hell wouldnt it play mpeg-1 off a dvd? that would be kinda backwards.... if you have dvd studio pro you can just re-encode the video, but dont bother multiplexing, and when you encode just make sure the audio is 48000 khz as the sampling rate... dont bother encoding to mpeg-2 for 4 reasons 1) it will take longer 2) its not necessary (that may be the most important reason) 3) you get more episodes on one dvd since mpeg-1 is inherently smaller. 4) divx is already much lower quality (your typical 1 cd movie divx/~80 meg tv show episode) than a solid mpeg-2, so you really wont see any improvement in quality, and thas why one would use mpeg-2 over 1 cuz the quality is much better.... and if you dont have dvd studio pro you could PROBABLY use sizzle w/o problems.