MPEG (VCD) to MPEG (DVD)

[JC12]

I did a search on this and didn't find anything that really answered my question, so I thought I'd ask for some help. I extracted the MPG files out of some old VCD's I had using ISOBuster. Now, I want to author some DVD's using those MPG files, but TMPGEnc is telling me they aren't in the right format for a standard DVD. Is there software out there to convert the VCD MPG's so that they can be used to author a standard DVD?

Thanks alot for the help.

JC

[jimmalenko]

I'm gathering you mean TMPGEnc DVD Author ?

Is your VCD is fully compliant (1150kbps Video and 224kbps Audio) ?

What is the exact error message ?

[edsmith77]

JC12,
If you have time can you please repost your exact error message. It might be such that the following is not what you need. I am only presenting this to potentially save some time.

I have done what you are seeking to do with good success. I have gone down two paths and both seem to work. It may be that my equipment is not very picky but you can try and see if it works for you.
First path. Just import the extracted VCD mpg "directly" into TmpGenC DVD Author (TDA) as a track. Hit continue. If the audio needs converting it will do it for you (you may not like this approach or prefer a better audio converter). Once it has finished authoring your movie. You can then burn the folders to DVD with your favorite burner or let TDA do it for you as well.
Second Path. Demux the VCD mpg file into its video and audio portions. Then resample the audio portion from 44.1 KHz to 48 KHz with your favorite tool. I like SSRC but there are many others to choose from. I have noticed that some DVD players are picky about the audio that is fed to them. My equipment is just not that picky in this area. From my perspective you can try the first path and let TDA do it for you. This saves a couple of steps. Anyway after the audio has been resampled, remux the new audio with the video (using TmpGenC, not TDA, of course). Then feed this into TDA. And the rest is history as they say.
These steps have worked just fine for me and I think, others as well.

My setup does not complain about the resolution, bit rate or audio frequency. But it does complain very loudly when I try to author a 23.97 fps film.

[bugster]

If your source VCD's are PAL (25fps) or NTSC (29.97fps) you should have no problems. All you need to do is resample the audio. However, if your source VCD is NTSC film (23.97fps) you are in trouble. DVD does not support this framerate and the mpeg-1 of VCD does not support 3:2 pulldown that is used to playback film rate mpeg-2 files at 29.97fps.

Solution? The only one I know of is to re-encode. Keep the resolution the same (352*288), set fraemrate to 29.97fps and increase the bitrate a bit (to about 1500Kbps) to compenstae for the extra frames being encoded. Playback may be slightly jerky but I don't know of a better way of getting these types of VCD on to DVD.

[JC12]

OK....here are my error messages.

"The video resolution 480x480 cannot be used for a standard DVD"

"The video framerate 29.97fps cannot be used with the resolution 480x480"

"The video GOP is too long"

THe first two messages are in red and the last message is in black.

I get this error message when I choose my extracted MPG file as the file to add to my project in TMPGEnc Author. Am I doing something wrong using this type of file as my source?

JC

[Baldrick]

480x480 is SVCD. You must reconvert to compliant DVD. Or make a "DVD-SVCD", no reconverting.

<------------- Click on guides, select SVCD to DVD under convert.

[JC12]

OK...I went to SVCD to MPG in the guides. Here is the instructions it gave me.

SVCD(MPG) to MPG
This method will let you copy the SVCD video to compliant mpg file(s). If you just copy the .mpg file(s) with windows explorer you may experience problems because windows copies all sectors in "raw mode" instead of "svcd mode".

Tools: Isobuster.
Install and run Isobuster.
Select your CD/DVD Drive.
Click on the MPEG2 folder.
Select all mpg files and right click and select Extract but filter only M2F2 Mpg frames.
Save the new file as filename.mpg. Remember that you must have a MPEG2 codec or a software DVD Player installed to be able to play SVCD mpg files.

This is the process I used to extract the MPG files from the VCD in the first place, so you are saying that the files SHOULD be in the correct MPG format for DVD authoring? If so, then it either didn't work correctly or I did something wrong (probably the latter), but I did the exact steps that the guide you pointed me to said to do. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

JC

[Baldrick]

SVCD to DVD, not SVCD to MPG. And it is a SVCD!

[mats.hogberg]

Try svcd2dvdmpg, then author. Only tried with one 2-disc SVCD, but it worked 100% with that one... Exactly the same q as on SVCD (as expected) and no need to swap discs. Perfect.

/Mats

[JC12]

mats and baldrick,

Thanks alot for the help guys. It looks like SVCD2MPG is exactly what I was looking for. It turns out that I know the developer of that software (small world), so I'll ask him if I have any trouble using it.

JC