Tip: Too many coasters? Try CD-RW!

[jbarr]

If you are going through a lot of "convert > burn > view on DVD player > tweak > repeat" cycles, consider burning to a CD-RW instead of a CD-R. I'm not sure of the compatibililty in all DVD players, but a VCD burned to a CD-RW plays just fine on my Sony DAV-500. When I want to make changes, I just erase and re-burn!

The only down side to this tip is that RW speeds tend to be slower. My CD-writer burns at a quick 16X with CD-R, but only 4X with CD-RW. So, you will have to weight your time against the cost of inexpensive CD-Rs.

[Gargoyle]

An additional tip: just encode a short (1-2 minute) clip of a high-action scene to check your encoding results - this works for me, and I don't have to wait for my burner to burn an entire disc......

[Devnull]

I picked up some Pocket-CDRWs. They are for lack of a better word, sexy!

Very cool, 24 minutes and very small, reuseable.

I burn a lot of stuff to cdrws to see how it comes out first. It's almost impossible for me to get a decent capture most of the time =/