VCD to DVD Area Limitations Problem

[chlegend]

I've finally managed to burn a DVD from a VCD original file. When I try to play the disk on my dvd player I get a message that says "prohibited by area limitations."

Background:

I get vcd files of shows video taped off of tv in europe (I live in america). If the files are <700mb I can just burn them to a VCD and watch them on my TV with no difficulty.

Many of the files are more than 700mb however and these have proven to be a problem. This has nothing to do with commercial DVD's so I don't know where a region code would come from. I tried to use MacTheRipper to rip the DVD that gave me the problem and reburn the DVD without a region code, but that failed as well.

Any ideas?

[Cornucopia]

Just a guess (but an educated one): Are those VCD clips formatted for PAL tv systems? If so, your DVD player can't do PAL correctly (if at all).

Before incorporating them into the DVD, check the properties of the MPEG files--as per this site's, and many others' info--VCD systems are:

352 x 240, either 23.976 (Film rate) or 29.97 FPS (Video rate) = NTSC
352 x 288, at 25 FPS = PAL

One other problem to check for:
You can't mix and match NTSC and PAL within the same VideoTitleSet (VTS). Either put it into a different VTS, or Make separate NTSC-only and PAL-only discs, or convert PAL -->NTSC before proceeding.

HTH,
Scott

[chlegend]

These files are PAL format, however the VCD's I create from the same files play fine on my DVD player... Strange, I agree. I'll try to figure out how to convert them to NTSC and see how that works...

Thanks for the reply!

[AntnyMD]

My silly DVD player too will play PAL VCDs but not PAL DVDs. Anybody wanna buy a cheap DVD player?

[deadsierra]

I suggest finding a tool that will allow you to cut your MPEG files and then burn as two VCD discs. That should be easier and faster than converting them to NTSC