VCD Bitrate? Can it be changed?

[greenmist06]

I am new to all of this, and as I was browsing around the site I noticed that every page said that VCD's video stream had a fixed rate of 1150kbps. Now I know a standard 650MB cd can hold 70 something minutes, but can I lower the bit rate to say 650kbps and still get it to run on a DVD player? I understand quality problems, but I want to look at this option.

Andrew

[Mirror_Image]

Sure, but it ceases to be a highly-compatible standard VCD, and instead becomes a less-compatible non-standard XVCD. Check out that "What is VCD" link up there on the top left. Some stand-alone players have superb XVCD compatibility, and some do not.

If your player supports it, the advantage of XVCD is that it allows you to use VBR encoding, generally resulting in smaller file size at the same video quality.

[greenmist06]

Ok. I think your opinion is enough. I should stick with the regular VCD to ensure that it would work. I reckon that if the movie is above the capacity I could always split it up onto 2 cd's. And I wouldn't be wasting the 2nd cd, I guess I could find something else related to the movie to fill up the rest of the 2nd cd.

Thanks for helping me. I already looked at the What Is VCD, but I took another look.

Andrew

[geek rock]

how long is the movie you want to fit to 1 cd? you should be able to get just under 80 minutes on an 80-minute CDR at the VCD standard template.

if your movie is 83-84 minutes or a couple of minutes more, if you change the audio bitrate down to 128kbps, you'll be able to fit a bit more on the disc.

try this guide..

the newbie's guide to fitting a movie on 1 CD with tmpgenc

of course the best thing to do is encode a couple of minutes of the file first, then cancel the encode, and burn it to a CDR-W and test it in your DVD player.

if it works.. go ahead and convert the whole thing.

Mark

[greenmist06]

Well, the movie is 102 minutes. But when I tested it--I have Roxio VCD Creator--it said something about compatibility about the audio at 160kbps and I left it at 224 and quit out.

by the way--I have experience with TMPGENG, which is what I made the Mpeg-1 conversion with.

[Mirror_Image]

I guess I could find something else related to the movie to fill up the rest of the 2nd cd

I do older films most of the time. I have (already converted to VCD format) an assortment of classic Chuck Jones/Tex Avery cartoons, a few dozen old commercials, old wartime proaganda, some of the "one reel wonders" segments from the TCM network, as well as other various clips dealing with motion picture history, star bios and that kind of thing that I use for just such a "filler" purpose. I try and pick timely material, such as a 1958 Chevy commercial for a movie made in ~1958, and so forth; it helps you "settle in" with the time period in which the film rolled out of the studio. Suppose my movie is only 130 min long, but 2 disks are 160min. What I do is to start the VCD with one or two of the above clips to eat up some of that 30min. I put them on the begining, rather than the end (but allow easy skipping with the menu - just start with chapter 2 - if you don't want to see them again).

[KingJohn]

Well, the movie is 102 minutes. But when I tested it--I have Roxio VCD Creator--it said something about compatibility about the audio at 160kbps and I left it at 224 and quit out.

by the way--I have experience with TMPGENG, which is what I made the Mpeg-1 conversion with.

If the VCD is to be fully compliant, you need to load a VCD template in TMPGEnc, that way you wont have the audio at 160kbps and VCD Creator wont complain about it