I would like to convert a home movie to VCD so it can be played in Africa. I live in North America. I have no problems converting my home made movies to DVD's from my camcorder. What is the next step? Is there a diff format of VCD for Africa like PAL/NTSC? or is there a regional control thing, or do I just make a VCD and it can be played in any country in the world? Also if i make a DVD can it be played in any country, (how do I remove the country code, or set the software so it does not generate any country code when I am converting movies to DVD.
Making a VCD is not a "next step" from DVD, but a process that is very similar form going from an AVI to DVD. Just encode to MPEG-1 and use an authoring program that can create VCD. Just check your authoring software if it also can be used to create a VCD. Most African countries are on PAL, but some are also on SECAM (but I think that is interchangeable). There are no country codes for VCD; that was invented when DVD came on the market.
Thankyou. So I folow the guide and convert my DVD files to VCD format using??? So during encoding to MPEG-1, do I choose PAL as the format? Now afetr creating the VCD how could I check that it would work in Africa? Another related question to this is how do I burn my DVD region free so that it would work there as well. I think I will send both VCD and a DVD, cause some friends have DVD players.
No, you don't convert DVD files to VCD. You use your original AVI files to make a DVD. Which program are you currently using to make a DVD? Check if that program can also make a VCD. There is no way you can check if it will work. You will need to know on what equipment the VCD's will be played. You don't need to worry about regions. If you make a DVD with consumer DVD authoring software it will always be region free. I would suggest to read these three articles: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/techinfo/vcd.php http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/techinfo/dvd.php and http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/basics/createdisc.php
