iBook 500 vs. Terrapin what up with Firewire!?

[harshba]

With all the horrendous hassle it seems to be to make a VCD (I haven't tried it yet), wouldn't it be easier to just buy a Terrapin VCD burner (assuming price isn't that big of an issue). I mean I assume that a software based encoder will look a little better, but is Terrapin that bad?
I have the new iBook with 375 Megs of RAM, Toast Deluxe 4.1.3, iMovie, etc.
I'm not concerned with editing or ripping as I have a Professional NLE at work without any hassle at all, I just want to output an hour's worth of edited video (and audio) to VCD format without bending over backwards to get it done...and have it look reasonably professional. I understand that MPEG-1 is lower quality, but a VCD will play in more DVD players than and SVCD, etc.

Opinions? Any other TV pros out there?
Another question, I digitized some video footage from a digital 8 camera into iMovie and it looked all pixelated? Is this normal? The same thing happened using Adobe Premiere (on the laptop). Is this just a preview mode or is it going to look this crappy when I output it back through firewire or as a quicktime file or whatever file?
I appreciate your responses.

[major]

i wouldn't spend a further penny on VCD technology as image quality is too low, there are immensely superior choices with SVCD (for CDR media.. there is a good variety of compatible players) and DVD

concerning your DV captured media.. yes it's a preview mode, if you want to see the actual quality then open it with quicktime player and select 'Get Movie Properties', then select the video track, then select the 'High quality option' and enable it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: major on 2001-08-18 04:50:09 ]</font>

[harshba]

Point taken about spending the money, but that assumes that there is a comparable machine to the Terrapin that can encode to SVCD. Besides, my DVD player will only play VCD, not SVCD even though it is better.
Personally, I wouldn't mind getting one to get rid of all my VHS tapes since VCDs are only slightly lower quality than VHS.
On the professional side, I tend to wonder if my clients would notice the difference since a high quality image would be going into the Terrapin (assuming I had one) and my clients are mostly mom and pop stores and businesses in my community.
It certainly would be nice to have a real time encoder rather than waste my time and my mac's time crunching video.
Anyone out there have a Terrapin?

[rbrantley]

I had a Terrapin for all of two weeks before I returned it for a refund. The quality of its MPEG-1 was worse than every software encoder I've worked with. Worse, it tended to lock-up during finalization, creating numerous coasters at the end of your recording session. There were also occasional problems with video stutter and audio drifting out of sync.

Trust me, you DON'T want one.

Will most people see the quality difference on a VCD? Yes, my experience is most will but probably won't care all that much...unless they're paying for it.

If you want to make VCDs, go and get Roxio Toast Titanium (5). It includes an MPEG-1 encoder that works reasonably well (reasonable for MPEG-1, anyway) and can take any quicktime file for input. It's only $90 or so, and is a good CD burning package.