Putting a video onto my audio CD release, help!

[cawright1]

Hi guys, I'm releasing a music CD and I'm about to hand over my masters to have the CD replicated from the glass master.

all along, I've had the idea of putting a video of one of the tracks on the CD. It's only now ocurred to me as to what format this video should be in? I've rendered it as Mpeg2 (dvd) but suddenly had a thought that a DVD file wont work on an audio cd. What's the usual protocol for putting videos onto audio CD's?

[Cornucopia]

I'm one of the few on this board who have done this frequently on a pro basis. I'll let you know some of what I know...

You really only have 2 consumer-friendly and supported formats with which to work:
1. Enhanced CD's (aka CD Plus or CD Extra)
2. AVCDs (VCD's with an Audio portion)

The first uses on a standard CD, with Multiple Recording Sessions. The 1st recording session is a standard Audio CD (with multiple tracks). The 2nd session is a single Data track, recorded in ISO-9660 (with possibly additional file systems). The sessions are recorded in SAO (Session-At-Once) mode - similar to DAO (Disc-At-Once) mode, but allowing for multiple sessions to be open until you get the desired amount and close the disc.

The 2nd choice uses a Standard VideoCD (see "What is" on the sidebar...), with additional audio tracks appended to the Data+MPEGvideo tracks of the VCD, all done in a SINGLE session.

BOTH types SHOULD be playable in standard AudioCD players. However, with the 2nd, you may need to skip over the first 2 (or more) VCD tracks to get to the audio portion. This isn't necessary in the 1st type.

On DVD/BluRay players, if the player doesn't support VCD, the 2nd version may act erratically - possibly Playing the video portion quite fine, but also possibly not reading the disc at all, or getting stuck. With the 1st version, it would look to most players as an AUDIO-Only CD and play that portion just fine, but completely ignoring the video.

So, I guess it just matters HOW you want your video to be played.

If you want your video to play ONLY on computers, go with the 1st type. If you need your video to play on settops, the 2nd type is a possibility (though, getting less likely as the years go by), whereas the 1st isn't really at all.

If you go with the 2nd format, you want to make your video according to strict VCD (MPEG1 System Stream ~1150kbps or less, 352x240 @ 29.97P fps NTSC or 352 x 288 @ 25P fps PAL. Audio portion is Mpeg1Layer2 @ 224kbps. (Look in the specs for VCD). The additional audio tracks take a certain amount of tweaking or special programs to get it just right to be recognized correctly as an AVCD, but it CAN be done.

If you go with the 1st format, you can make it whatever you think your audience can use (including multiple formats - MPEG, AVI, DivX, MOV, FLV, Mp4, etc). There actually IS a specific "BLUE BOOK" Enhanced CD format, but NOBODY uses it anymore.

If your player supports it (especially if the player can play the CD at the needed bitrate), it might be possible to create an Enhanced CD that is what I call an "ADVD", that being where the Audio session is the "A" (Audio CD) and the Data session is the "D" or "DVD" portion. This means that what is normally just an ISO9660 track is now an ISO9660+UDF1.02 track, allowing for standard DVD material to be put on that portion. If your player already supports Audio CDs (particularly burned ones) and ALSO supports mini-DVDs (CDs with DVD-Video data) on them, there's a very good chance it would support this. Obviously, YMMV. Also, one caveat to think about here is that, depending upon their firmware logic, some players will see ONLY the audio portion, some ONLY the "mini-DVD" portion, some will "see" both, but have difficulty playing the portion is doesn't normally EXPECT, and some will play BOTH, but possibly swapping the order of playback priority.

Let me know if there's anything else you want to know about this area...

Good luck,

Scott

[cawright1]

Scott, thanks for that. The thing is, I am not making the CD myself. I am merely sending the mastered songs off to be put onto a glass master, and then replicated to sell commercially. the CD making company just told me to send in the video as a file for addition to the CD so I wanted to know the best format for this. Someone suggested MP4. Would that be a good idea? And as the file is currently in DVD (Mpeg2) format, what best way to convert to MP4? Or maybe quicktime is better?

[Cornucopia]

You still need to ask them what kind of structure they're using (probably EnhancedCD), and you need to decide WHO your intended audience is (Mac users? Recent computers ONLY? Computer novices?, etc)

If it's Enhanced CD (and I would believe that it would be), you also have to figure out HOW MUCH ROOM is left on the CD after the Audio tracks.

For example, if your tracks total 50 minutes in length, you have between 24-30 minutes of audio left. That will translate into ~210MB on the low end. Subtract from that ~25MB for the Multisession and ISO9660 track & filesystem overhead, and you're down to 185MB.
That is what you would have to work with for your video file(s). If your clip is short, you can afford to put a number of formats on there. If it's long, you'll want to go with LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR (which means reduced quality).

In terms of no-brains-needed universality, you should go with MPEG1. Hopefully, you could do better than that quality-wise. Let us know what the replication house says...

Scott

[lordsmurf]

I generally suggest against this.
I know it costs more, but it's easier for all involved to just add a bonus DVD.

[Cornucopia]

Yeah, I thought of that too, but discounted it because of the additional cost (unless you get a good deal, it could possibly be double the replication costs). I assumed the OP would have mentioned it if it had been an option.

EnhancedCD doesn't really have any "hardware support" issues AFA the audio is concerned. And if the video is expected to be PC-only, it's probably a safe bet for the video, also (as long as it IS a LowestCommonDenominator type of format).

Scott