Newbie need help with VCD burning

[cybernut]

Hi everyone. I am kind of new to the VCD creation thing although not to burning. Recently I downloaded a couple mpegs from newsgroups that were supposedly VCD ready.

Here's my problem - this is the first time I am attempting to create VCDs. I've tried Nero 5.5 & VCDEasy to create the CD images and then burn it - in both cases I got the same result. My DVD player doesn't recognize it. I know my DVD player is compatible with VCDs because I've played VCDs on it before.

The VCDs that I created have one difference from the ones that I am able to play...the diff. is that my self-created VCDs on putting in my PC show the VCD as an Audio CD with 2 tracks whereas the VCDs that work on my DVD player shows up with folders that are normally present on a VCD (MPEGAV, etc.). I also couldn't get these problem VCDs to play on my PC using WinDVD. I have created all types of VCDs and failed - both 1.1 & 2.0 compliant VCDs, with and without chapters for 2.0 VCDs. And it seems like everything's fine before I start burning because neither Nero nor VCDEasy complain about the imported files.

Anyone who might have an idea on what I am doing wrong - please, your suggestions will be really appreciated. Sorry to make this such a long post.

Many thanks,
Avik

[sumibas]

i think you creaded the CD's as some toher cd's not VCD's. did you select the Vedio CD template in nero.

[cybernut]

Hi sumibas - to answer your question...yes, of course i picked the correct template from Nero...it has a wizard that leads you to the VCD template...and as for VCDEasy - that program only does VCD (& SVCD). I am not new to burning - I had a burner since '98 and have gone through 3 burners on my computer so far and several burning software (I still primarily use CDRWin & CloneCD) - so I am not a newbie at burning CDs...just a newbie at creating a VCD image. Your query is much appreciated though.

[jbrondum]

cybernut,

That was a very looong post indeed
...but let's cut to the chase.

I'm using EZCD5 mostly and sometimes Nero, so that is what I know about. What I don't understand here is, why make an image - when you have the .mpg file ?!?
Using EZCD5, I would just follow the wizard and the burn the baby.
With Nero, select VCD and simply drag & drop your .mpg file and hit burn.

I know my answer was not as long as your question , but I like to keep it simpel
...if this does not help you, please feel free to explain further.


Regards,
John Brondum

[cybernut]

jbrondum - thanks for the tip. To clarify - well, I only make the image when using VCDEasy - for Nero, I only drag-drop the file after choosing VCD template. I did it again after reading your reply just to make sure and same result - a coaster. I simply drag-dropped the mpeg file to the large blank area and then after it analyses and is satisfied that the movie is properly encoded I simply burn it. I am currently doing the EZCD wizard thing but EZCD gave me a warning on my movie when I loaded it but I aked it to go ahead and make the VCD anyway.

To let you see the warning in EZCD & the burn process completion in Nero I have 2 screenshots that i took - they are at www.dattaroy.com/Ezcdwarn.jpg & www.dattaroy.com/Neroburn.jpg. Maybe that might give you an idea what might be going wrong. the ezcdwarn pic has a lot of info on the type of movie the mpeg file is - if you or anyone else is familiar with the details might spot something thats off in that movie that i am not seeing.

[jbrondum]

cybernut,

If you are getting that error message when using EZCD5, I would say that your video is not fully formated to VCD standard. I can however not tell you based on that screen capture what is wrong with it, all I know is; that when the video is accepted, it will not show you this screen but a preview window of the video instead.
I have a few video clips downloaded of the www, that looks very much like yours when trying to throw it into EZCD5. After re-encoding it with TMPGEnc or run it thru AVI2VCD, then it works fine.
Please let me know how it goes...


Regards,
John Brondum

[cybernut]

Hi John,

Thanks a lot for your replies. I am currently encoding my movie using TMPGEnc as you suggested. This is the first time I am using TMPGEnc but after going through the guide here on this site i realized it was fairly straightforward - and it IS a good idea to try this because then I'll be 100% certain the movie is encoded for VCD.

Thanks again for taking the time to post your suggestions and about your past experience. It is really appreciated. I'll definitely post an update here as to how the VCD burning went sometime tomorrow morning because the encoding seems like it will take a few hours.

Thanks,
Avik

[jbrondum]

cybernut,

Glad to hear that
While you do that overnight, I'll set my PC up to encode Bandits


Regards,
John Brondum

[cybernut]

Hi John,

Sorry for the delay in replying. Hopefully you or someone else might still have some help for me because I still am nowhere closer to my problem's soln. After encoding that movie in TMPGEnc as per instructions on this site I had the movie ready. This time I didn't get any warning dialog when trying EZCD's VCD Creator - however my EZCD software is giving me trouble. It freezes at 97% - I know its not a hardware problem since i just burnt two other data CDs today.

So I tried using Nero. After burning showed up finally as a data CD with all those folders you normally see on any VCD (not as an Audio CD like before). But both my DVD player & WinDVD refused to recognize it as a VCD.

So finally I tried VCDEasy. Only this time, unlike Nero, after burning my computer recognized the CD as an Audio CD (like w/ my problem burns before).

BTW, I use CDRWin 3.8g to burn the image produced by VCDEasy. I don't know what i am doing wrong with the authoring or burning process. Any ideas, John or anyone else?

Thanks,
Avik

[ninjee]

Ive been using Nero and it works fine. I would say check the Compatabilty list for your DVD Player and make sure that the type of media your burning to is compatable. My sony dvd player only reads CD-RW.

[cybernut]

Actually, I've burnt pre-imaged VCDs on same media (Imation CDR) before (image created by others and downloaded from the Net) and those VCDs worked fine. Problem is happening when I am creating my image and burning them. So I am sure its not a media issue. Thanks for the idea though.

[mrsstu]

Avik,

I am having the same problem you are having with trying to burn a vcd using Nero. I am curious...what brand is your cd recorder. Mine is a Sony crx-175e. I sure wish someone could help us...because this is very frustrating.

MA

[cybernut]

MA,

I totally understand your frustration - I just used another tool today on my brother's advice (called VCDImager) and same results - coaster. My burner is Toshiba SDR1202 - a burner & DVD ROM combo drive. Thats the only thing diff I can think of from most burners out there. And you may have a point...this burner is brand new - I just installed it 2 weeks ago...my last burner from Ricoh didn't give me any problems (but I never attempted making the VCD images on my machine then - I only burnt pre-imaged VCDs successfully).

I have a screenshot of the TMPGEnc profile I am using at www.dattaroy.com/Tmpg.jpg (highlighted profile in pic). If anyone familiar with the process could comment whether or not its the right one I'd really appreciate it BTW, my source movie is 29.97 fps so i chose that profile based on the guide here...not sure if thats correct.

Thanks,
Avik

P.S. to MA - I suggest you take a couple screenshots and put them out on the web and see if someone has any ideas

[cybernut]

John, MA & everyone else following this thread - Great news...finally success!! I did everything slightly differently this time so I'm not sure what did the trick :) But I was finally able to have my VCD be recognized both on my DVD player and WinDVD on my PC.

Okay briefly - I used a diff. encoding template in TMPGEnc than what I was using all this time (the guide here said use VideoCD (NTSC) but I used the one above for a change - VideoCD (NTSC) - MPEG1 352x240 CBR 1150 kbps). Not sure if thats what I should've been using all this time. Then I used VCDImager to create bin/cue image. Finally, I used Nero 5.5. instead of CDRWin 3.8g to burn the image.

Note to MA - see if doing any of the combinations above work for you (also for the encoding part try it with a much smaller movie - that quickens the whole process...and try encoding at the lowest quality so its fastest). I am going to play around with these combinations a little more and find what was wrong in the first place. I already burnt about 30+ coasters...a few more won't hurt :)

Anyway, a big thanks to John and others who pitched their suggestions. Without your continued interest in my endeavor I probably would've given up sooner.

Thanks,
Avik

[cybernut]

Okay, here's the gist of my discoveries of what the problems were:

First of all - the guide on this site is indeed correct about the TMPGEnc template. Next, CDRWin 3.8g - doesn't work for VCD bin/cue images - my guess, its doing regular DAO burning (see next point why regular DAO doesn't work).

Nero 5.5 does the trick - here's the most crucial discovery I made. Even with nero if you burn the bin/cue image with regular DAO it doesn't create the VCD...it was creating something that my computer saw as Audio CD. But when you choose DAO/96 from the write method dropdown list (www.dattaroy.com/Nero.jpg) then it works like magic.

[aguz86]

hi im trying to burn a avi to vcd these r the step i have done

i used virtualdub first to extract the audio then save it as a wav then tmpenc 2.5 to convert the avi to mpeg and placed the wav file in the audio input ,then vcd imager to take the mpeg and convert it to a vcd format. Then use cdr win to burn the bin and cue files made from the cd imager.

all that works but when i put it on my dvd player only the audio works!!! there is no video picture. I know my dvd player is compatible because i have played vcd's on it before

Can anyone tell me what im doin wrong THANKSS 8)

[ninjee]

aguz86, check the format of your dvd player and tv. If you live in the us its NTSC, anywhere else it could be either of the 2 [NTSC OR PAL]. Depending on the location you need to burn it to what region you are.

[gmfoley]

I had the same problem. Every VCD I made did not play in any of my 4 DVD players. The help I got was you are not doing this correct or that, did you do this and what ever. I can read and follow instructions. I finally took the VCD I burned to Frys Electronics and on every cheap DVD player it worked fine. On every name brand it came up with disc error. I purchased a Apex 600 DVD player and every thing works fine. There is also someone on Ebay selling a upgraded Eprom for this unit

[aguz86]

thanks for replyin i live in the canada so that would be NTSC

does anyone know how to use nero. i tried using it instead of WiN CDR but it makes me save a image so how do i burn it in a VCD format??

Thanks

[vitualis]

Okay, here's the gist of my discoveries of what the problems were:

First of all - the guide on this site is indeed correct about the TMPGEnc template. Next, CDRWin 3.8g - doesn't work for VCD bin/cue images - my guess, its doing regular DAO burning (see next point why regular DAO doesn't work).

CDRWin definitely works for "VCD CUE/BIN images". I've done it hundreds of times as have many people here. Since the makers of CDRWin invented the CUE/BIN format, CDRWin is in fact, probably the only program that burns CUE/BIN images perfect. CDRDAO is pretty good too (and actually overcomes some limitations of CDRWin when it comes to oversized images).

BTW, CUE/BIN images are meant to be burnt in DAO.

If CDRWin looks like it correctly burnt the image but then you get a blank CD, there most like reason is that you've used a blacklisted pirate serial number or a crack. CDRWin is very devious in this respect.

As for Nero, the newest versions of Nero can burn CUE/BIN images correctly. The older ones cannot: http://www.hvrlab.org./~hvr/vcdimager/nero_bug.html To correctly burn a CUE/BIN image, you must load the CUE file.

Regards.

[aguz86]

hi thanks for replying can u tell me a program that will convert the mpeg format into cue and bin except vcd imager

these is what i did before
virtual dub -->> tempenc-->> vcd imager --->> cdr win

when i do these steps only the audio works not the video on my dvd player.

can u tell me if nero 5.5 burns the image correctly doess nero 5.5 convert it from mpeg format directly to vcd format. do u burn the image on the cd HOW DO U BURN WITH NERO ??

thanks again

[vitualis]

The only program that can build a VCD image properly (in CUE/BIN format) is VCDImager.

Did you load the VCD templates with TMPGEnc? Did you use any non-standard settings?

The older versions of Nero 5.5 do not correctly burn a CUE/BIN image. The latest versions/updates to Nero 5.5 do. I am not sure which version exactly when CUE/BIN image support was added/fixed. To burn the image, you have to select in Nero to burn a disc image and select the relevant CUE file.

If you want to author your VCDs with VCDImager, you can use Nero to burn a CUE/BIN image -- however, it shouldn't make a difference whether you burn it with CDRWin or Nero. If the end result doesn't play properly, there is probably something wrong with your VCD image to begin with.

You can also use Nero to create a VCD from just the source MPEG files. Nero can author simple VCDs directly.

Regards.

[cybernut]

CDRWin definitely works for "VCD CUE/BIN images". I've done it hundreds of times as have many people here. Since the makers of CDRWin invented the CUE/BIN format, CDRWin is in fact, probably the only program that burns CUE/BIN images perfect. CDRDAO is pretty good too (and actually overcomes some limitations of CDRWin when it comes to oversized images).

BTW, CUE/BIN images are meant to be burnt in DAO.

If CDRWin looks like it correctly burnt the image but then you get a blank CD, there most like reason is that you've used a blacklisted pirate serial number or a crack. CDRWin is very devious in this respect.

Hi virtualis,

Actually, I did burn VCDs using CDRWin successfully using ver 3.8D prior to upgrading to the current production release of CDRWin (3.8G)...since then its been a problem. And its not that CDRWin is creating bad CDs because of blacklisted #...because its not using a # I obtained off of the Net. It is able to burn everything else correctly - regular CDs using both bin/cue or ISO images. Just not VCDs anymore...I can safely bet that 3.8G turns DAO/96 burn option off that was on by default in 3.8D (never installed the intervening versions).

I do know CDRWin invented the bin/cue format (I've been using it since '98) but I would bet that if you used 3.8G it'd fail on your PC too. It seems like in 3.8D it did DAO/96 (which is the best way to burn DAO images, there's also DAO/94 & DAO/16 - for more info on diff. between various DAO types check out http://www.elby.org/CloneCD/english/cdr_a.htm - towards the bottom of the page).

I myself get successful VCDs when I burn w/ nero 5.5.7.8 (its only a month old version) w/ the option DAO/96 but not with DAO (in CDRWin there's no such option).

As for programs that can create VCD images in bin/cue I was able to use a more powerful program called VCDEasy (freeware) that lets you set many options (chapters, sequences, etc.). It does use the VCDImager's engine but gives you more flexibility in creating the image.

Regards,
Avik

[vitualis]

I see. Interesting. It could be an idiosyncratic problem with CDRWin and your particular drive then... Have you tried CDRWin 4.0?

As for VCD Easy, it is only a GUI to VCDImager -- which is why I don't consider it a separate program (ditto for TSCV). VCD Easy helps you write simple XML scripts. However, for true flexibility and customisation, you can't beat VCDImager on its own (and writing the XML yourself with a text editor).

http://www.vcdimager.org/guides

There is one other proggy that can (separately) create CUE/BIN files that I know of. One of the late GUI versions of VCD Gear could do it. The last time I checked, though (and this was a long time ago), it didn't work properly.

[addendum] Actually, there is an old (long gone bust) S/VCD + DVD authoring package called "DVD Motion Pro" and "CD Motion Pro" that makes S/VCD images in CUE/BIN format too. [/addendum]

BTW, have you tried using CDRDAO to burn your images? VCD Easy integrates a GUI for this as well and if you use it, you may as well use it to burn your VCDs.

Regards.

[cybernut]

I haven't tried CDRWin 4.0 yet because its in beta currently. I'll try sometime soon and see the results with that in burning VCDs. You could be right - about this issue being idiosyncratic about my drive. I did get a new burner and upgraded to CDRWin 3.8G (from 3.8D) at the same time. My previous burner was a Ricoh MP9120A 12x CDRW/DVD combo drive - my new one is Toshiba SDR1202 16x CDRW/DVD combo drive.

But I am not that sure if its a drive issue. Because this drive supports most types of burning you possibly can - including SafeDisc 2 copy protected games using CloneCD - and there are only few burners with that capability. To be able to do that the burner must be able to write even the error bits correctly (if interested check out www.elby.org - CloneCD's site for more info). This new burner does indeed do that. So I am guessing if it can copy SafeDisc 2 CDs making VCDs should be a child's play for it. but who nows - maybe the burner IS the issue...but at least using Nero's DAO/96 I can burn VCDs correctly and both my DVD player & WinDVD on my computer recognizes it.

Thanks for pointing out about DVD Motion pro - I do happen to have that (thanks to my warez collecting habit for the past 7 yrs :wink: ) I'll check it out. I am for now finding VCDEasy pretty powerful - there are some really good guides here on how to convert a plain vanilla VCD to a downright groovy one with menus and music (even using Macromedia Flash movies - a la DVD menus), etc. So I'm learning and using some of those ideas with VCDEasy.

I actually didn't install CDRDAO when I installed VCDEasy - I knew I could burn the images with that but since at that time I had not known that i might have probs with CDRWin I thought I'll just use CDRWin to burn the bin/cue images - I love CDRWin...been my trusted burning proggy for years.

Regards,
Avik

[aguz86]

hi thanks for replying

i have tried to convert avi to mepg to make a VCD using lsx encoder, temgenc 2.53 and panasonic 2.5 encoder.

the conversion goes okay but when i play the mpeg file in real player i get only the audio no video. how can i fix this? ? ? i used the instructions from the vcdhelp.com website for each encoder.

how should i convert the avi to mpeg . if any one tells me heres my email aguz86@yahoo.com to send the instructions or or just reply back on the post

i know that vcd easy converts the mpeg to cue how will i burn the bin /cue files into a vcd format (CDRDAO) is not supported by my burner SONY CRX175E

THANKS AGIAN