My recipe for creating awesome-looking VCD's

[GORDYmac]

I abandoned VCD a while ago, but this looks very interesting. I downloaded TMPGEnc and will give it a spin and post back later.

One more thing: On the download page, be sure to request a Mac OS/Mac OS X version on this software in the survey at the bottom of the page. I requested a Mac OS X version.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: GORDYmac on 2001-07-02 10:09:26 ]</font>

[markpith]

I can't find a survey on http://www.tmpgenc.com

[GORDYmac]

http://www.tmpgenc.com/e_enq.html

[GORDYmac]

I'll have to pass on this one. It requires Win98, which is unbearably slow on VPC 3 on my iMac. I'm using Win95.

[colinwan]

After I encoded a clip using Tmpeg as recommended, when it drop into toast 5 (video cd type was chosen), an error msg appeared saying that the file cannot be used to create a video cd and asked me to use the "Video CD" option in my MPEG encoder / multiplexer. Did I miss out anything in the settings?

[markpith]

I've use TMPGEnc on VPC win95, it was 12a.

Mark,
The Netherlands

[Noopie]

colinwan: How long was the file that you were encoding? Make sure you have the option selected so that the MPEG created is VCD compatible. Which program were you using to create the avi file. Thanks

[colinwan]

Noopie, I was just testing out with a 16s clip. When you mentioned "have the option selected so that the mpeg created is vcd compatible", is that option available in TMPEG coz I can't seem to find it?
For the avi file, I used media cleaner 5 to convert from final cut pro movie to an uncompressed avi file.

[blips]

Warning newbie questions.

How do I get the movie from the camcorder to Quicktime Pro? Can Quicktime Pro import from the camcorder or do I have to use iMovie?

If I have to use iMovie what is the best format (quality) to export from iMovie in so I can open it in quicktime pro?

[silver356b]

blips,
Your best bet is to use iMovie to capture and edit. Then export your movie as either "Full size" or "iDVD." If you want to follow the instructions in the original post, then you have to open in QTP and export as AVI for encoding via TMPGEnc/Virtual PC. I personally prefer to use Cleaner, which is faster than the TMPGEnc/VirtualPC combo. You can use a high rate, e.g., 2500 kbps for better quality.

[blips]

Thanks for clarifying it for me.

I will have to use TMPGEnc seeing as Cleaner is way to pricey for me.

One more questions though. If I change the rate to 2500 kbps is it stil VCD or is it considered XVCD?

[silver356b]

It would be an XVCD. You will have to experiment with the rate to see if your standalone DVD player plays it smoothly. My Sony starts to stutter at 2600 kbps.

[blips]

Well I imported my movie to iMovie.
Exported it as DVD.
Moved it to my PC.
Encoded it with TMPGEnc.
Put it back on the Mac and burned with Toast 5.

TMPGEnc blew Toast away for VCD. Using TMPGEnc gave me the quality I expected from VCD. I have only made a couple of movies so I'm just begining. I was really disappointed with the Toast VCD quality.

My only problem is transfering the files to the PC.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: blips on 2001-07-09 07:22:43 ]</font>

[rnusser]

How to transfer files over 2 GB over ethernet to Win2K?

[blips]

musser,

You can see my post here if you want to know how I did it.

[markpith]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
When I used the VirtualPC on original iMac it was rather slow.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

What's rather slow? slower than cleaner 5?
It would be great if people posted their results.

Mark,
The Netherlands

[markpith]

I've tested it myself; I used to be a bit sceptic about TMPGEnc but after comparing it to Cleaner I have to say it's pretty good.
I took a .mov in MJPEG A, 720x576, 12 sec. I tried to use the quicktime plugin for TMPGEnc but it only accepted my audio. So I exported it to .AVI with the "none" codec in QT pro.
TMPGEnc took about 12,5 minutes in VPC to encode 12 seconds.....
Cleaner did in 5,5 minutes with "slower but better" encoding.
TMPGEnc had the better result!
But it still wasn't better than Cleaner 5 from MPEG2 DVD to MPEG1 VCD, this quality is GREAT better than commercial VCD (at least the ones I've seen).

Mark,
The Netherlands
P.s. I have a iMac 400 with 128 mb.
P.p.s. TMPGEnc does work under Win95.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: markpith on 2001-07-13 10:13:00 ]</font>

[spleck]

Instead of decompressing your movies AVI with "none" for compression, you can just export from iMove to "iDVD" which will just create a MOV file without recompressing the DV compressed files.

Then, on the PC make sure you have Direct X 8.0a and QuickTime 5 installed. Media Player 7.1 may help too. With these installed, I can open my DV compressed movies in TMPGEnc with no problem and begin encoding.

This saves me tons of time, quality, and file size.

[blips]

spleck,

How do you tranfer the files to your PC? Can you transfer any files over 2.1 GB?

[plg-tae]

all u lamers give it up....all of u have no clue......saddening..i bet ya think u got skills too..lewser

[blips]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-07-28 00:34:20, spleck wrote:
Then, on the PC make sure you have Direct X 8.0a and QuickTime 5 installed. Media Player 7.1 may help too. With these installed, I can open my DV compressed movies in TMPGEnc with no problem and begin encoding.

This saves me tons of time, quality, and file size.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I don't have QuickTime installed but Media Player opens and can play the iDVD file for me.

What does Direct X 8.0a do?

I don't have this but I am able to get TMPGEnc to read and encode my files to the MPEG format for making VCDs.

[MacPimp812]

How do you use win98 on a mac????

[paulhagstrom]

As mentioned in the opening post for this thread, the current best way to do this is to use VirtualPC. The product page is at:

http://www.connectix.com/products/vpc4m.html

Outpost.com lists it at $180. This is obviously not the optimal situation for us Mac people, because VirtualPC is an emulator and running things on it is therefore inherently slow; it would be much better to have Mac-native applications, but right now the pickins are slim, so for certain things the only easily accessible alternative is to do things with existing Windows applications under VirtualPC.