Backup DVD9 to single VCD

[panae50]

Have followed various guides on using TMPGEnc template settings etc, but can never achieved a good single VCD backup of a DVD9 disk. File size is always more than what a single VCD will hold. Is there a summary of settings that have been proven and work with backing up a 2-2.5hr DVD9 to a single VCD?

[Conquest10]

two and a half hours on a vcd? with standard vcd you can fit 80 minutes per 80 minute disc. you would have to create an xvcd for more. with two and a half hours you're better off looking into kvcd.

[ImaWeTodd]

You know, I never really did vcd because the quality was so low. Better to just copy it to vhs.

But 2 1/2 hours would give you about 1/2 the bitrate of standard vcd. Even if you butchard the sound.

I can't even imagine this would be worth doing.

Most definately vhs. Yeah vhs. I'd do vhs .....

[FulciLives]

I have to second the opinion that VCD quality blows donkey balls and to use an even lower bitrate than the standard would be the only way to get more than 80 minutes on a VCD and then the quality will be VERY poor.

Do yourself a favor and get a DVD burner. I just got the NEC ND-1300A and it cost me a total of $121.00 with shipping

The only other alternative is to use the DivX or Xvid format. Of course you would have to play it back on your computer unless you have a stand alone DVD player than can handle DivX/Xvid and that is unlikely as right now there are so very few.

But even using DivX/Xvid you are really pushing it to fit 2 1/2 on a single CD-R disc ... when I messed around with DivX I almost always put movies across 2 CD-R discs to achieve better quality. Of course even a long movie like THE GODFATHER (around 3 hours as I recall) would look good on 2 CD-R discs as a DivX/Xvid whereas standard VCD would need 3 discs for such a long movie.

You could get a stand alone DVD player that plays DivX/Xvid. There is one that gets mentioned on this site from time to time that is supposed to be really good and not too expensive. If I recall it is made my LITE-ON and costs around $130 but for that price you can get a DVD burner. Of course a blank CD-R is cheaper than a blank DVD-R so I suppose if you are on a very tight budget you might save money over time burning CD-R discs VS burning DVD-R discs but since the hardware price for that LITE-ON DVD/DivX/Xvid player is the same as a DVD Burner wouldn't YOU rather have the DVD burner? This is assuming you already have a stand alone DVD player that can handle DVD-R discs.

Of course you could start making DivX/Xvid back-ups now and slowly save up for the LITE-ON and at least in the meantime enjoy QUALITY back-ups even if only on your computer.

The other option is to hook the video-out of your computer to a TV assuming you have a decent quality video-out on your computer (which so many seem to lack).

Anyways some food for thought.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[bugster]

First thing, there is a guide and several pages of discussion on doing this kind of thing in the user guides section. For your convenience you can find the guide here

Second thing, if you are encoding with Tmpgenc, you have to set the stream type to Mpeg-1 VCD (non-standard) or it will pad the bitrate to 1150kbits for VCD. A warning here is that some versions of Tmpgenc have a bug where this setting is ignored and the bitrate still gets padded.

[RabidDog]

Actually I am thinking of doing all those things that you mention fuclives eg computer to Tv and buying a dvdnurner and a new DVD box. My thoughts are that say liteon £150 is equal to the price of burner @ ABout £100 and dvd box £50 and i can backup shedloads of data on a DVD. And I can get proper DVD quality and sofa comfort. just need to keep eating the "value" beans @ 5p a tin instead of the gourmet heinz beans at @ 12p a tin.
7p saved x 365 = £25.55, hmm x 6 = £150 Yikes!!