Re: MPG frame rates and the VCD standard

[ming2020]

Hi all,

I have a bunch of MPG's I want to burn onto a VCD. All of the MPG's have either 352x240 or 352x288 resolution. Now some of the MPGs conform to PAL (352x288, 25 fps) or NTSC (352x240, 29.97fps). But some have frame rates of 23.97, 30 fps.

So:

- will the 'non-standard' frame rate MPGs be playable on some standalone VCD player?
- can PAL and NTSC MPGs be put together onto one VCD and still be playable all the way through?
- I'm using CDRWIN and VCDImager to create the VCD => is this a reliable way of ensuring compatibility with most standalone players?

I don't have a standalone player so I can't really test it. I managed to test burn on a CDRW and all played OK on Creative SoftMPEG but then I guess PC-based players are a lot more tolerant.

I did a search and someone mentioned virtualDub, frameserve and tmpg. How does it work and how can it help in my situation?

Pls help. Thanks.

[adam]

First off yes you can put all those different types of mpg's onto a vcd and it will still be compliant.

Now as to standard pal (352x288, 25fps) and ntsc (352x240, 29.97fps) both being on the same disk...As long as your dvd player has both a pal and ntsc mode or a multimode then your fine but unless you are running in multimode you might have to manually switch to pal or ntsc depending on which clip is playing.

if this were a svcd then files encoded at 23.976 would be no problem on any player, assuming they were done correctly with a 3:2 pulldown. Since this is vcd this framerate is supported under the standard but unfortunately not all players support it. You should try burning a vcd with this framerate and testing it on your player. If it plays ok then you can put it on the vcd with all the other formats and it will be fine.

30fps is nonstandard and I don't know if it can play on standalone dvd players. Its so close though all you would need to do is just convert to 29.97fps. The difference in speed will be imperceptible. Conversions like this also require a pitch change, but again its so close the difference would probably be imperceptible.