Newbie VCD to DVD question - please check what i have done

[tyders]

Hi all,

I have finished preping my first VCD to DVD and was going to burn today but the ass wou was going to install my dvd burner got a + and I wanted a - as per all the media I have bought - Grrrr...how annoying!

Anyway i just wanted to check that what i have done is ok to this point and to make sure there are no glaring mistakes or duplication of work.

I used VCDGear to rip the .Dat files to MPEG.

I used TMPGenc to make one large mpeg file of all the episodes

Then Main Concept to make another file(i think this was to encode the file).

TMPGenc DVD Author to make chapters between the episodes. This created a Volume 1 file with the audio and video in.

Now I just need to burn the Volume 1 file to DVD i think - I will probably just use Nero to drop the file in and burn.


One question though. The initial mpeg (after joining with TMPGenc) was only 1.4GB for 3hrs worth of cartoons. After the Main Concept part it was 8GB in size for the same amount in time of cartoons.
Due to this i think im going to have to use dvd shrink to make the file a suitable size to fit on a dvd but it will need a level 9 compression - from what i have read this will effect the picture.
Is the increase in file size like this normal?

Thanks all and thanks to everyone who has answered my questions in the past - with your help im nearly there!!!!!

Best Regards

[poopyhead]

why don't you put the VCD MPEG-1 files directly on a DVD w/o converting....i.e. make a VCD-DVD.

https://www.videohelp.com/vcddvdr.htm

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when you convert your VCD MPEG-1 to DVD compliant MPEG-2, you are just making it compliant with DVD, but you are NOT increasing the quality. the original VCD you have is poor quality (i.e. only 1150 kbit/s CBR). i'm guessing when you encoded the files, you chose a pretty high bitrate for them. however, because your source VCD is already poor quality, you can't improve on it. all the video information is already lost because of VCD's low bitrate. so, when you encode to DVD compliant MPEG-2, you can choose a lower bitrate. what bitrate are you currently using to convert??? try maybe 3-4 mbit/s. that might make the files smaller. maybe you can even go under 3 mbit/s.

[tyders]

Hi Poopy Head.

I assumed that by converting to DVD Video the picture will be increased but as per your reply that is not the case. I suppose the only advantage of putting the vcds on dvd then is too save space.

Thats fine by me though as my dvd player plays vcds so dvdvcd is no probs.

I just checked the advanced settings on Main Concept which is the encoder and it say 6000 Bitrate. Do you mean reduce it to 3000? If i do this what would happen?

[poopyhead]

@tyders,

since VCD specs are part of DVD standard, it would be easiest if you can make a VCD-DVD.

this means you do NOT need to convert/encode...you can directly author the VCD files directly to a DVD...

so, don't worry about any encoders yet...only, if your DVD player for some reason doesn't like your VCD-DVD

go here....the guide is pretty easy to follow:

https://www.videohelp.com/vcddvdr.htm

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however, to answer your question:

I just checked the advanced settings on Main Concept which is the encoder and it say 6000 Bitrate. Do you mean reduce it to 3000? If i do this what would happen?

your VCD has a bitrate of 1150. all the video information already has been lost because VCD has such a LOW bitrate. if you were to encode to DVD compliant MPEG-2 with bitrate of 6000, it's going to be a complete waste because the source VCD only has bitrate of 1150...you will basically be wasting space on the DVD.

crap in=crap out

so, if..and that's a BIG if, you need to convert your VCD to DVD compliant MPEG-2, you can actually use a bitrate of 3000...maybe even lower...you need to do some testing yourself. since your source VCD has such a low bitrate, there's no way to recover any video quality, so even if you use a lower bitrate to convert to DVD compliant MPEG-2, the video can't be worse off than the VCD.