Hello all, my first post here... hope it's in the right place?! I have an AVI file that I would like to burn to VCD. I first tried to use Nero 5.5 and it seemed to encode ok but the file size increased from 700MB to 940MB in the process. I then tried converting with AVI2DVD with the same results. I have not tried going the burn to DVD route as my source file is only the 700MB AVI. I tried to search for this (AVI to VCD) and got a sticky but some of the relevant links in the sticky just take me back to the forum home page. Before I try the AVI to DVD I would like to know if there is info here to burn to VCD. Nero 5.5 can't do SVCD so I thought VCD would be a good first learning step. There is a huge amount of info on this site and I admit to being somewhat overwhelmed by it all! I do have experience with DVD copying and authoring using DVDShrink, DVD Decrypter and Nero 5.5. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Randy
You can try software TMPGEnc to make Divx file to (S)VCD. I have not try that VCD thing but I hope it work And how to convert AVI to DVD? Well here is easy to use software (and freeware) -> http://members.home.nl/thefilmmachine/
More in general keep this in mind: the 'movie' business is usually split in three steps: 1) Encoding (most of the times you'll do AVI --> MPEG, but you migth do MPEG (PAL) <--> MPEG (NTSC), ASF --> MPEG and so on ) 2) Authoring (the process which transforms mpeg --> VCD/SVCD/DVD image) 3) Burning (often made toghether step 2), but not necessarily) The MPEG types are: MPEG-1 (VCD): 352x288/240 (PAL/NTSC) resolution, 1150 CBR (Constant Bit Rate) kbps MPEG-2. For SVCD: 480x480/576 resolution, VBR (you set only the average; usually 1500 < bitrate < 2500 kbps) For DVD: 720x480/576 resolution, VBR [as before, but the encoding type and the bitrange range is different: you could have a 1000-8000 range or a 1000-8000 Constant Quality (CQ) threshold]. Remember that you have to encode more pixels than SVCD , and the media type is a single/dual layer DVD (4.5/9 GB), not some CD-R (N*800 MB) Finally, but not so important, the audio. (S)VCD have MPEG Layer 2 (MP2) @44.1 kHz audio. DVD usually have Dolby Surround (AC3) audio @48 kHz, even if DVD player also support MP2 audio. For authoring you have many application. Few of them (DVD Lab) allows authoring (S)VCD movies on a DVD. Some of them (Nero, for example, which I don't like for this reason) wants a spacific type and tries to encode (badly) the input ovie into 720x480/576 form. And remember: garbage in = garbage out. The most stupid question I hear (and, alas, I hear often) is 'AVI --> DVD'. Which result do you expect by putting 700 MB movie into a 5 (or 9 GB) media (apart the length of the movie which can if in it)!?!?!?? The quality of the output movie will never be larger than the input movie's. You can decrease the quality [encoding NTSC --> PAL putting, in TMPGenc, Settings___Video___Motion search precision = very low (fastest), or converting DVD --> VCD], but [bold]you can never increase it![bold] The rest of the story is long. You have to study a lot, to choose a good encoding aplication (TMPGenc is the simplest but is very slow for MPEG-2 encodings, Cinema Craft Encoder [CCE] is the fastest but is very hard to learn - and it is the most expensive!) and a nice authoring application [my favorites are VCDEasy for (S)VCDs and DVD Lab for DVDs]. There's lot of stuff to do...
Thanks for the reply's! After doing more reading it became clear that the project I wanted to encode would take more than 1 CD. I then downloaded AVI2DVD and followed the guide and was able to create a DVD with the AVI movie on it that is now playable in both my computer and stand alone player (Sony). I will read further to find out about how to put chapters where I want them, etc., but I was happy to have success on my first attempt. Thanks again and thanks for your great, informative web site! Randy
About the splitting in more CDs, the ruls is this: - about 82' MPEG-1 (VCD) movie on a 80' CD-R. - for MPEG-2(SVCD) you choose the bitrate. Using FitCD (read the FitCD step in http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/dvd2svcd_with_tmpgenc.cfm ) you decide, using the "Select Range" feature, a 80' CD-R for every 'piece' you convert. For MPEG-2 (DVD) the process rule is similar, but you have more free room and for this reason a 'FitDVD' program doesn't exist.
