mini DVD, anyway to be played on standalone DVD player?

[paulgab]

Currently, I dont own a DVD burner and I'm making CVD's from Hi8 caps.
Since CVD's are DVD compatible MPEGs I tried burning some of my encodes on CDR (burned as DVD, actually I'm after the DVD menus). It plays well on my PC but cannot on my DVD player.
Is there a way around to make it playable on standalone players?

[Craig Tucker]

Very few DVD players are capable of playing MiniDVD.

http://www.vcdhelp.com/minidvd.htm

But are you making MiniDVD/cDVD or CVD

http://www.vcdhelp.com/svcd

[mats.hogberg]

My standalone played a mini-DVD (recognised the CD as a DVD), but the playback was stuttering in both video and audio. Probably this is caused by the, for a CD, extremely high bitrate. After all, you expect the player to read a full CD in less than 15 mins - I guess not many players are fitted with readers of that capacity.

/Mats

[vitualis]

Remember, a 1x DVD drive (which what a stand-alone player only has to accomplish) can only read a CD at a rate equivalent to about 3x CD (in DVD FAQ).

Most PC DVD-ROM drives speed up when a CD is detected to improve CD read speeds. However, this does not seem to be as common in stand-alone players.

Regards.

[mats.hogberg]

...which makes one wonder: At least my stand alone is fitted with an ATAPI interface (or so the firmware page says). How about replacing the DVD drive with a standard PC DVD reader (with better capabilities)? With the DVD reader prices at current level, (in a month or 2 I'll find one in my cereal box! ) that upgrade path is not that longwinded... Anyone who's tried?

/Mats

[vitualis]

You're walking in Robshot's footsteps I believe...

There was a guy around about a year or two ago who did a lot of work on miniDVD (not on this forum though). He had an Afreey player that basically had the same problem as yours (i.e., could play miniDVD but there was a max. bitrate limitation problem). According to the articles on his website, the replacement PC DVD-ROM drive worked great!

Unfortunately, I don't think his site is up anymore.

Regards.

[mats.hogberg]

I was thinking that it might work - even ought to. There's no reason for DVD manufacturers to fit the stand-alone with non-standard DVD readers (like X-Box), as that would only make things more expensive.
Now, if only I could find a good reason for doing open heart surgery on my stand-alone - maybe "by mistake" insert a circular abrasive paper...

/Mats