VCD wont play on my MAC

[petetschudy]

Hi all. This is my forst post to this forum. I hope somebody can help me.

I created my first VCD on mac in toast. I popped it my DVD drive on my PC and it plays fine. When I put it in my mac DVD drive nothing happens. I open the DVD player, still nothing.

Has anyone else run into this problem.?

Thanks! Pete

[AntnyMD]

Mac OS X does not support VCD. To play your VCD, boot into OS 9 and open the .dat file in the MPEGAV folder in Quicktime.

Although you can easily produce VCDs and SVCDs in Mac OS, Apple is really focused on DVD/MPEG-2 and streaming MPEG-4, as such, offers more support for those formats.

[petetschudy]

I sort of understand what you are saying.

I am still confused as to how to get my apple dvd player to play my VCD.

[petetschudy]

and I'm using OS9.

[tgpo]

You don't use DVD Player. Using quicktime open the movie file on the root of your vcd.

[steiggl]

I could not play vcds in my mac until I looked into other programs loaded with toast, iview media will open and play vcds in both os9 and osx systems. It may run a little choppy at times but mostly is very good.

[SCB]

Use VLC or MacVCD X to play VCDs in OS X. No need to boot into 9.

[AntnyMD]

This person is using OS 9 so whats needed is:

[a] Start Quicktime
[b] Tell Quicktime to open video in new window
[c] Navigate to the .dat file(s) in the MPEGAV folder on your VCD
[d] Enjoy the movie
[e] Do a SEARCH in this forum for questions already answered

[tgpo]

This person is using OS 9 so whats needed is:

[a] Start Quicktime
[b] Tell Quicktime to open video in new window
[c] Navigate to the .dat file(s) in the MPEGAV folder on your VCD
[d] Enjoy the movie
[e] Do a SEARCH in this forum for questions already answered

Best way to watch VCDs, plain and simple!

[Cornucopia]

You guys need to listen more closely to what the man said. There are good things (more apps and app possibilities) and bad things (unavailable Filesys drivers) about being on OSX, but since he SAID he was using OS9 and not, it is more helpful to refer to solutions that work with that OS.

Pete-
OS9 shouldn't have any problem with the ISO9660Mode2Forms1and2 and MPEG1Mode2Form2 tracks, so that narrows down your problem to apps that recognize the type of file/track.
You got 2 kinds of apps-those that see a VCD in "Disc" mode and operate on the PBC info as well as the MPEG tracks, and those that see a VCD in "File" mode and just operate with the MPEG tracks. The former AFAIK just includes Query's NetviewDisc player, the latter includes Quicktime itself, Apple VideoPlayer, MacVCD, VCDPlayer, BetterPlayer(?), and others. My guess is you will only be able to find the latter (sorry Mac fans ). There are plenty of places on the net to get these-you already have QT and AppleVideoPlayer (comes with every OS install).
Next you have to figure out what to look for and where. Some apps such as AppleVideoPlayer (when it's not been screwed with to the point where it won't work correctly anymore ) or MacVCD or VCDPlayer already know this and will find the files/tracks and correctly display them as "Track1", "Track2", "Track3" etc. QT, OTOH, is versatile in many things but is still dumb when it comes to VCDs and must be told where to look. If it's a VCD ver1.1 type disc, this is what you do:
1st, open QTplayer.
2nd, do [File|Open] and look for the MPEGAV folder.
3rd, open any of the "AVSEQ##.DAT" (aka "MUSIC##.DAT") files. Give it a little bit extra time for it to recognize and convert to something (header parsing and temp creation) that it can work with. Should be no problem.
A VCD ver2.0 type disc will work similarly. You may be able to get QT to play segment items too, but this isn't guaranteed. This is how to do it:
1st, again open QTplayer.
2nd, again do [File|Open], this time look for the SEGMENT folder.
3rd, open any of the "ITEM###.DAT" files, and cross your fingers.

That's about it.
One thing--you may be expecting it to "Autorun" like on a PC. This probably won't happen unless you have done the authoring yourself and--this is the really complicated part--made track 1 a hybrid ISO9660/MacHFS volume, with autoplay incorporated on the Mac SVD ("secondary volume descriptor"). Don't try this at home, kids!

Good thing is you CAN create a QT movie filepointer/shortcut/alias/ref movie in the root directory of the VCD, by using Toast to encode the QTmovie to MPEG, as well as burn the disc.

One nice byproduct of this is that this ref movie can be incorporated into the root ISO volume when you're doing what I do--making the clean high quality movie in TMPGEnc and VCDEasy/VCDImager (through VPC if you have to). Extra versatility and smooth user interface for both Mac and PC.

HTH,

Scott

[Cornucopia]

Update:
Sorry I was so delayed in typing up the lengthy explanation that I didn't see the more appropriate responses come in in the meantime.

also-
I said

, but since he SAID he was using OS9 and not, it is more helpful to refer to solutions that work with that OS.

I meant to say:
, but since he SAID he was using OS9 and not OSX-even in compatility mode, it is more helpful to refer to solutions that work with that OS.

'nuff said for now

Scott

[SCB]

Just to clarify; when I said this:

Use VLC or MacVCD X to play VCDs in OS X. No need to boot into 9.

It was in reference to this post:

Mac OS X does not support VCD. To play your VCD, boot into OS 9 and open the .dat file in the MPEGAV folder in Quicktime.

[tgpo]

If it's a VCD ver1.1 type disc, this is what you do:
1st, open QTplayer.
2nd, do [File|Open] and look for the MPEGAV folder.
3rd, open any of the "AVSEQ##.DAT" (aka "MUSIC##.DAT") files. Give it a little bit extra time for it to recognize and convert to something (header parsing and temp creation) that it can work with. Should be no problem.
A VCD ver2.0 type disc will work similarly. You may be able to get QT to play segment items too, but this isn't guaranteed. This is how to do it:
1st, again open QTplayer.
2nd, again do [File|Open], this time look for the SEGMENT folder.
3rd, open any of the "ITEM###.DAT" files, and cross your fingers.

Isn't that exactly what AntnyMD said? I played VCDs for over a year in OS 9 through Quicktime. No need for ANY other programs.

[Cornucopia]

Yes that is exactly what AntnyMD said. Which is why I apologized already for taking so long to type in my post. He hadn't posted when I started.

Sometimes there is a need for other programs. Some users NEVER want to have to go "looking" for something, and it makes sense to use a player that finds the stuff for them and just plays.