From: El Rocho (Adman)
Date: 03-01-15, 21.39

HOW TO MAKE A xDVD

WARNING: Not all DVD players accept these babies. But it's a lot of fun if they do. Oh, and since I just started experimenting with it, don't be surprised if you find an easier/better way. But still, it's a lot of fun

This is a brief tutorial on how to fit your SVCDs onto a DVD. I finished my first one a few hours ago, and it features 1 track with 5 chapters. The chapters are:
1) My Cousins' Wedding SVCD 1
2) My Cousins' Wedding SVCD 2
3) My Cousins' Wedding SVCD 3
4) My Entirely Different Cousins' Wedding SVCD 1
5) My Entirely Different Cousin's Wedding SVCD2
All in all, 4 hours worth of SVCD quality video on a DVD-r disc. Great stuff. You can rew/ff, GOTO specific timecode etc - all works great. And, of course, perfect sync.

ISN'T THERE AN EASIER WAY?
Probably not. The problem with SVCD is that they use a resolution (480x576 or 480x480) that is *not* part of the DVD standard. If you were to try and import SVCD streams into DVDSP or such a program, it would not accept it. This is the best way I've found *without* transcoding all the material into 720x576/480 (takes a long time) and changing the audio from 44.1khz to 48khz (also takes time) etc. There is another way too; hacking into the file itself w HexEdit to try and change the headers so DVDSP thinks the file is properly spaced, changing it back again before muxing - this sounds really dodgy to me, and I've never been able to get it to work... yet hehe... This way is the easiest for now...

PROGRAMS USED
I used VCDToolsX, ffmpegx and MMT (latest version). That's really all you need. And some HD space, and a bit of patience Oh, and Toast to burn of course... Anyone know another DVD burning software?

STEP BY STEP...
1) Use VCDToolsX to extract the MPEG-2 stream from a svcd .bin file
2) Use ffmpegx to Demux the MPEG-2 stream (look under the Tools flap, and choose your MPEG-2 stream in the Video-box. Click "Go!" and not "Encode".
3) Use MMT to multiplex (mplex tab) the .m2v and .mpa streams you got from the previuos step. Mux them as DVD (very important).
4) Repeat the above steps for all the files you wish to put on the xDVD. In my case, I did it 5 times (well, 6 actually because I forgot to rename the file once... MMT muxes to "movie.mpg" and overwrites the existing file... d'oh! -- and yes, I *did* try to change to mux-to-name but the app kept crashing when I did...)
5) Use MMT to vcdxgen a DVD (click the vcdxgen tab and then the DVD radio button). Check the Multi-box, choose the folder where all your newly dvd-muxed MPEG-2-files are stored, and select an output folder. Click Generate, and sit back and wait... This step takes a while, and it increases incrementally. The first GB takes only a few minutes, but the next is slower, and then slower still... I'm guessing there is a way to divide the MPEGs up into several tracks/chpaters and that it takes less time then -
that it actually takes so much time just because you are making one looooong Track (mine was 4 hours worth of film, and that's almost how long it took to generate the DVD files!)
6) Fire up Toast, choose DVD, drop your newly created AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders in there, and burn...

Please do yourself the favour of trying this first w a CD-R. You can author a CD-R as a DVD; just put some short clips on it - as long as the amount of data isn't larger than the available sectors on the disc, Toast won't complain if you burn DVD to CD-R. Your player might thought, but that's another story...

Oh, and don't be too sad if your player won't recognize the test disc either. It's not *really* a xDVD, but something like a minixDVD I guess, and compatibility for miniDVD isn't all that great either. But if it *does* work, then congrats to you. And if not, hey - Apple DVD Player handles these files fine, regardless of size/resolution/pal-ntsc etc.

Just a thought...

/Wizeman a.k.a. El Rocho of the Movie Madhouse