I have a Smart and Friendly burner and haven't had success with the first two attempts. I used TMPGenc to encode the avi and Nero 5.5.5.1 to burn the vcd and I followed the instructions on this site in painstaking detail. Strangely enough, when I insert the (NTSC) vcd into my standalone dvd player, I get "disk error." Once I choose stop, however, it will play but the video and the audio are very choppy (with black and white rectangular blocks interspersed throughout the picture).

In addition, I've tried opening the .dat file in Windows with three different players. Below are the players and the respective errors in which I encountered:

Windows Media: Incorrect function.

RealPlayer: RealPlayer has encountered a problem and needs to close.

QuickVCD Player v3.0: Error: Cannot play back the file. The format is not supported.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

regards,

Ashley