DivX/AVI to mpeg/VCD works in DVD player...almost.

[modem]

I've been a big fan of this site secretly for quite sometime finding the wealth of information here invaluable by all means. Just not too long ago I began to work with Divx and other compressed file types for various reasons and that all of course lead me to making VCD's to be played on a DVD player.

To make my long story short here is the problem I'm having. I have a 650mb Divx based AVI movie. My goal is to make it playable in a regular DVD player for my friend. After following the directions on this website here is what I do:

My first step is to convert the AVI to MPEG using TMPGEnc. I do this by loading the video/audio source, selecting the preset PAL, VCD option and letting it take about 2 hours to encode into MPEG format.

My second step is to then use the MPEG Tolls of TMPGEnc to break the movie into two+ CD's of MPEG-1 VCD format and then burn them using Easy CD Creator 5.02's Video CD maker.

I admit all of that is relatively easy. Now this evening when I took the two CD's to my friends house to watch them we had mixed results. CD 1 after being inserted a Sony DVP-NC600 5 disc plays just fine. Audio/Video are in sync although quality is questionable. Not DVD quality, but much better than VHS. CD 2 after being inserted plays just fine but after approximately 45 seconds into CD 2 the audio stops while the video continues. We decided to try their second DVD player, a Sony single disc model. CD #1 would NOT work at all while CD #2 gave the same problem as I just mentioned with the 5 disc changer.

All of this tells me that either something about the DVD hardware just won't work with the VCD discs, or I'm really doing something wrong in the encoding process. If it wouldn't be too much to ask, could someone just go through what I have written and give me advice on the way to achieve the best quality AND less issues when converting? Remeber I am a newbie to this so any and all suggestions are welcome.

-Brad

[mrsleny]

I also have a similar problem. I have followed all the instructions from this wonderful site to convert my DIVX AVI file to MPG (eg rip the WAV with Virtualdub, convert with TMPGenc etc). The resulting MPG plays perfectly in WMP. I burned the MPG to VCD format with Nero and the resulting VCD dat file plays fine in WMP.

However when I played in on my DVD player (Toshiba 2700, which according to this site should support VCD), there was pixelation in the picture every so often and a popping sound once. Neither of these showed up when I watched it in WMP.

I also wonder if it's a DVD hardware problem or maybe I am also doing something terribly wrong.

As with Brad, I am a newbie and would greatly appreciated any suggestions. Thanks !

mrsleny

[modem]

Thanks for letting me know that I"m not the only one out there having these problems. If you can, can you give me in detail what steps you take and do and I'll see if I can follow those and get the same problems.

[herbapou]

Try playing your VCD`s (352x240) in full screen on a big monitor.

I have a 19 inc monitor and when I play a vcd mpeg-1 movie I see the same mpeg artifacts i see on my TV when play with my DvD player. The movie looks nice when its not enlarge, but when its resize all those video imperfection start to appear even in my computer.

On the other hand, I can fit an entire movie on a single CD-rom with DiVX 5.0 (bitrate 600 kbps) and the movie still looks perfect even when resize to full screen on my monitor. Also, when I use my TV out on my graphic card to play it on my TV, the movie still looks perfect.

Bottom line, I have never achieve good quality with VCD or SVCD, even if I use 2 pass VBR and an average bitrate of 2000, the movies still look like shit compare to a DivX 5.0 movie at 600 kbps!!!

I have no idea why people says VCD is better than VHS, cause its not at all, its not even close...

[mrsleny]

I followed the exact instructions in the Divx conversion guide here:
http://www.vcdhelp.com/divxtovcd.htm except for the burning. I used Nero instead.

I have watched the MPG results on my computer (19-inch) monitor and the picture and sound are perfect. Even the VCD plays fine on my computer (viewed the DAT file). All this on Windows Media Player.

As I said, I suspect it might be my DVD player. I will have to try to play it on someone else's and see if the results are the same.

thanks!
mrsleny

[KingJohn]

Hi, I use the 400 with no problems.

I checked here >

http://www.techtronics.com/uk/shop/510-summary-multi-region-dvd-players.html

http://www.techtronics.com/uk/shop/50-sony-dvp-nc600-multi-region-dvd-player.html

Says VCD/CDR same as mine. I guess you need to use a better quality CDR, try TDK or Maxell I use them with no problems...

I see the 300 wont work at all...

[KingJohn]

I have no idea why people says VCD is better than VHS, cause its not at all, its not even close...

Something is wrong, because the VCD's I have are "Almost" as good as DVD's. Having the movie on 2 disks or more, gives great results.

Provided the source AVI is good, then the VCD is also good. When you start making non standard disks, or trying to squeeze them onto one disk, the movie is never as good.