How can I add a data folder (for computer viewing) to XSVCD

[cris]

I have authored an XSVCD that plays fine on my stand-alone DVD player.

However, QuickTime Player will not play the .dat file in the MPEGAV folder on the CD.

I want to know if there is a way that I can add a data folder our even an entirely separate CD title to the disk so that I can include an mpeg file that QuickTime will play (OS X).

Thanks,

Cris

[pixeljammedia]

Download a copy of VLC and use it to watch your Video CDs.


Just make sure you click Video CD


I don't have a VCD in my drive at the moment, but if you have multiple drives, make sure it is seeing your disk in the Device Name field.

[cris]

My video is XSVCD (720 x 480). It has been disguised to look like VCD inorder to be more widely compatible with DVD players. http://homepage.mac.com/rnc/SonyTrick.html

From the documentation for Videolan for various operating systems:

SVCD [6] Incomplete Incomplete Incomplete No Untested Incomplete

[6] VLC on GNU/Linux, Solaris, and Microsoft Windows has playback control support via libcdio and libvcdinfo. On other platforms SVCD support varies depending on the availability of these libraries. (Volunteers for adding support is always welcome.). Handling still frames (often used in menus) and switching between different video formats is a problem.

[pixeljammedia]

Have you tried authi\oring it as a VCD 2.0? Using Gnu VCDTools X you could set up the different directory structure rather than using xsvcd.

[cris]

I'd rather stay with 720 x 480 I have now. I just followed the instructions on how to set it up to look like a VCD to some players that do not recognize XSVCD.

I am wondering if one of the following burner applications might help:

Burn the .bin and .cue files using either Missing Media Burner or Firestarter FX.**
a. Missing Media Burner.* Choose VIDEO, use the pulldown menu to select .bin/cue buring and then choose your .cue for the 1st .bin file.
b. Firestarter FX..* Choose VIDEO, then drag your .cue file of the 1st .bin to the drop here window

[pixeljammedia]

I'm not saying you should re-encode, but that you should try wrapping your MPEG inside the VCD 2.0 file structure. There is no reason you cannot take your mpeg untouched and build a vcd 2.0 qith GNU vcdtools x.

[cris]

I thought that is what I did.

(1) I used Media Pipe to encode DV to a muxed mpeg file for XSVCD. I used a preconfigured MediaPipe DV-to-(XS)VCD and (XS)VCD-to-DV templates are still at http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/MediaPipe_templates.sit). Specifically the template I used was xsvcd_interl_720x480.mpline)

(2) I used MissingMpegTools to build a XML file with a VCD 2.0 file structure.

This plays nicely on two stand-alone DVD Players I have tested so far. However, I am trying to create a more versatile CD that can be easily copied and encourage diffusion of the content. I don't have a Windows PC so I don't know if the video will open with Windows Media Player.

Neither QuickTime nor any other player I have triesd on my Mac will work. That apparently is because the QuickTime wrapper doesn't allow for the need codec (I am really confused over this point, but unquestionably, there is no way I can play this video from the CD on my Mac G4 running OS 10.3 and I am not interested in a file conversion scheme to make it playable because I already have that because I have the original content. Rather, I want to disseminate the copy-lefted material.

I have ample unused space on the CD-R. I'd like to have either a separate data folder on the CD where I can put various one or more encodings of the 4-minute video that folks can play on their computers (Mac or PC).

I want a single disk that is easy to replicate using a copy function in CD burning software.

--Cris

[havema-1]

> preconfigured MediaPipe DV-to-(XS)VCD and (XS)VCD-to-DV templates

BTW, I just added new MediaPipe _DVD_ templates to:

http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/MediaPipe_templates.sit

There are now interlaced and progressive PAL/NTSC 720x576/480 @ 7500 kb/s and Half-D1 352x576/480 @ 3750 kb/s for DVD encoding.

For DVD-encoding I also added low-resolution 352x288/240 @ 1875 kb/s (MPEG1 @ CBR because AFAIK DVD spec doesn't allow MPEG1 @ VBR. MPEG1 is also AFAIK technically limited to about 1800 kb/s for DVD use).

You can fine-tune the templates' bitrates by changing the mpeg2enc -b value. I haven't much experimented with different mpeg2enc -N values (high frequency filter that softens the image and can help lower the average bitrate slightly). Besides, today -N has been effectively replaced with "-K" - you can use the builtin TMPGEnc or KVCD tables or create your own and use "-K file=yourtables".

...I still prefer MediaPipe because it is so flexible and it is AFAIK still the only GUI mpeg2enc variant that allows interlaced output -- I dislike the jerky pans that progressive output gives.

Unfortunately MediaPipe hasn't been updated for a long time and some of its components do not work with new Mac OS X versions.

BTW, MPEG Streamclip 1.2 has become my main multiplexer because it is so handy to mux .m2v and .aiff as a MPEG with PCM or .m1a (a.k.a. mp2) audio with it: just have similarily named .m2v and .aiff files in the same folder, drop the .m2v file on MPEG Streamclip, and convert them to MPEG with PCM audio, or .m1a audio if you want a smaller audio component. MPEG Streamclip doesn't resample the audio so make sure the .aiff is 48 kHz which DVD uses.

MPEG Streamclip uses 384 kb/s as the bitrate for .m1a it encodes. This is fine but it might be too much quality and size for DVDs with low video bitrates.

[cris]

I appreciate all the work to develop these tools, and I am planning for the new "music without borders" web site to have links to open source media players, but what I need to know now, is there a way to add a data folder that will appear and can be opened on a computer (PC and Mac) on a XSVCD disk.

In other words, I want to burn a CD-R disk that will play a short video clip in as high a resolution and quality as feasible on most standalone DVD players AND on the same disk, have a data folder with the mpeg file and perhaps even a player installer.

--Cris

[Case]

If you use vcdtoolsX, then you could edit the xml file by adding

  <filesystem>
    <folder>
      <name>FOLDER_1</name>
      <file src="foo.mpg">
        <name>FOO.MPG</name>
      </file>
    </folder>
  </filesystem>

Not as easy as point-and-click Nero, but possible.

[Nelson37]

Anybody who uses "copy-lefted" in a sentence deserves some help.

Simply add a data folder to the XSVCD structure. Perfectly acceptable and within spec. DVD standalone will ignore the extra folder.

Tools to do this with on a MAC I don't know. Piece of cake on a PC.

[cris]

Thanks. I figured it would have to be done in code, but this is all new to me and so I appreciate the help.

vcdtoolsX --at least what I have-- doesn't have an editor. I tried BBEdit and added the script for making a folder and adding a file. When I go to run vcdbuild, it doesn't. I made sure that there were no spaced in the paths, double checked that I had no typos, tried inserting in various places in the existing XML code, but to no avail.

I searched for an XML editor for the Mac, and found


XMLmind XML Editor is a highly-extensible, multi-platform, validating XML editor featuring a word processor-like view.

Maybe this editor is s\'smart' enough to guide me through what should be a simple task.

--Cris

[Case]

I used TextEdit for xml, but BBEdit would be just as fine. It's just a text file.
Make sure all files for the XSVCD are in the same directory, including the xml file, because I'm not sure how flexible the line <file src="foo.mpg"> is, with regards to the path.
For <name>FOLDER_1</name> and <name>FOO.MPG</name>, keep the naming in simple/strict ISO9660 format, 8.3 upper case, no spaces or special chars, etc.

[cris]

Well, I'm getting closer, but I still need some help.

I tried both BBedit and Textedit. I.ve tried placing the new block of script in various positions in the XML file. I keep getting the same error when I go to build the image files:

/Users/cmcc/Documents/vcdtools.doc/mpeg/vcd2.xml:11: validity error: Element file content doesn't follow the Dtd
Expecting (name), got (CDATA name CDATA)
Ê Ê Ê </file>
^
/Users/cmcc/Documents/vcdtools.doc/mpeg/vcd2.xml:11: validity error: Element folder content doesn't follow the Dtd
Expecting (name , folder* , file*), got (CDATA name CDATA file CDATA)
Ê Ê </folder>
^
/Users/cmcc/Documents/vcdtools.doc/mpeg/vcd2.xml:11: validity error: Element filesystem content doesn't follow the Dtd
Expecting (folder* , file*), got (CDATA folder CDATA)
Ê </filesystem>
^
/Users/cmcc/Documents/vcdtools.doc/mpeg/vcd2.xml:32: validity error: Element videocd content doesn't follow the Dtd
Expecting (option* , info , pvd , filesystem? , segment-items? , sequence-items , pbc?), got (info filesystem pvd sequence-items pbc)
</videocd>
^
**ERROR: parsing file `/Users/cmcc/Documents/vcdtools.doc/mpeg/vcd2.xml' failed
[Cris-McConkeys-Computer:MissingMpegTools.app/Contents/Resources] cmcc%

[cris]

Oh, never mind.

Everything is fine now. Thanks to everyone's herlp.

I'm not sure what the problem was. Perhaps somehow I copied over one of those notorious invisible control characters? Whatever. The XML file for my XSVCD disk mascarading as a VCD2.0 now builds an image with a 'files' folder.

I am happy. Now that I understand the format, I can develop the folder/file structure that will be visible on computer.

My problem now is that the muxed mpeg file when opened in Quicktime Player plays the audio but not the video, and when opened in MPlayer OSX 2, the video playswith audio, but it cuts in and out whether played from the CD or played from the mpeg file copied over to computer hard drive.

Intestingly, I have no problem playing a Video_TS file on Apple's DVD player from CD, but with Media Player, it skips either from CD or hard drive.

So...

I'm looking for an opensource media player that is going to work.

--Cris