Advice please

[Brad M]

I have been backing up MWC (Married with Children) using my ATI All In Wonder 7500 Video Card Using the standard VCD setting MPEG-1 Video: 352 x 240, NTSC [525] 1.05 M Bit/Second Audio: 44,100 KHz, 16 Bit, Stereo. And when I review it, it looks good. So the problem is when I use Nero 5.5.9.9 and burn it to VCD. It looks blocky when I play it back. The video is much worse then the MPEG original. I have created a Custom Setting for the ATI for Video CD 2.0 with the only changes in the recording of 1.15 M Bit/Second instead of 1.05 and I plan on using that for my next backup but I would like some help on why it is so blocky. Is Easy CD bettor than Nero for this? I just want a decent quality VCD when I'm done without going up to SVCD. Thanks in advance for any help. BTW if I have overlooked a recent post about this please point me in the right direction. I may have missed some setting in Nero, I don't know. Thanks again.

[Thorn]

Nero is probably re-encoding the video (I know the first batch wouldn't have been VCD-spec due to the bitrate). You need to make sure your VCD is actually VCD-spec before you bring it into Nero (Nero's encoder isn't that great). When you drag a non-vcd compliant mpeg into Nero it asks if you want to re-encode (if you don't see it maybe you selected an option to do it automatically?). If you have to re-encode (or even just turn on the correct flags in the file to make it look like a VCD) use TMPGenc. It's a great (free) encoder. I think you need a patch or manually enter some settings to make MMC correctly capture to VCD-spec mpeg1 (at least the old MMC had didn't write the VCD flag to the file). BTW capturing direct to mpeg won't give the best quality, but if you're satisfied with the quality before this blockiness busines then you might as well stick with that for now.

Easy CD creator is not a good product, in my opinion.

There are a plethora of articles on encoding and burning VCDs. Check the howtos on the left and search around the forum.

[Brad M]

Thank you!!! It worked changing the bitrate from 1.05 M B/Sec to 1.15 M B/Sec made all the diffrence in the world. Thank you Thank you!