Burning VCD using Roxio VCD Creator

[billyman]

I have read and read and cannot find the answers to my questions.

I downloaded a short film (no copyrights) off the internet in MPEG format and burned it to VCD successfully. The A/V quality is as good as, if not better than, my VCR recordings. I was very happy.

Next, I began camcordering my sons basketball games. I recorded them to MPEG format using ATI Multimedia Center that came w/my ATI AIW card and choosing the default VCD recording option. Then I was able to record the game to VCD. However, the quality was NO WHERE near comparable to the film I downloaded from the internet. It was pixelated and motion was choppy.

I went in and played w/the settings under the default VCD capture option increasing resolution, bitrates, etc. Yet, nothing I did worked. In fact, none of my movies met the criteria for VCD format (the Roxio VCD Creator import interface would flag them as incompatible). Therefore I couldn't even burn them to VCD.

Please, can anyone tell me:

1) Why was the first video so good & and all others suck? From what I can tell, the film I downloaded has the following criteria:

Video Format: Film
Frame size: 352x240
Frame Rate: 23.98
Movie size: 43750 frames
Play time: 30:31:08

That's all the info I could find out.

2) What the optimal settings are for MPEG recording for use with VCD. More specifically, should I use Constant or Variable Video Bitrate?

I know the:
Resolution must be 352x240
Audio Bitrate must be 224 kbit/s
Video Bitrate must be 1150 kbit/s

3) Motion Estimation Quality. What is this and what should it be set to? (O-99) * Default VCD preset is set to 99.

4) P frames. What is this and what should it be set to? (0-4) *Default VCD preset is set to 4.

5) B frames. What is this and what should it be set to? (0-2) Default VCD preset is set to 2.

6) System Clock Reference. I noticed when I made a custom preset in the ATIMMC, all parameters being equal to the default preset, the System Clock Reference was out of tolerance for recording VCD compatible videos. This was even the case when I duplicated the default preset parameter for parameter. NOTE: There is no setting for the System Clock Reference in the ATIMMC. I found this parameter when I tried to convert the file for recording in Roxio VCD Creator.

Sorry this is sooo looong, but it's my hope that by giving ALL available information, someone here can help me figure this out. I would like to record ALL of my home movies to VCD, but not if the quality is going to be so much worse than the 8mm tape it's already recorded on.

Thanks in advance.

[billyman]

:arrow: BUMP.

Wow, I can't believe no one has any advice. This is supposed to be a forum that specializes in this particular topic.

Perhaps this is just too advanced for the citizens of this community. No offense intended

[Cole]

In my experience, Roxio is very strict as to what it will burn, but Nero is much more flexible than Roxio's VCD creator. I would advise trying Nero as you can burn non-standard bitrate VCDs. Roxio doesn't seem to be able to do that.