For what program and what format? (SVCD/VCD). Here's an EXCELLENT guide for converting to SVCD format using DVD2SVCD 1.1.2 using CCE (Cinema Craft Encoder) SVCD format is by far the best format to go here as VCD video quality really bites!(sucks) How to backup your DVD to SVCD with VCDEasy This would have to be the best method to produce top quality SVCD's from your DVD's. The guide is substantially quicker than using DVD2AVI/TMPGEnc and the final results have an improved overall quality, for both Video and Audio. It uses DVD2SVCD with the aid of Cinema Craft Encoder. The latest version of DVD2SVCD can now produce VCD's, however, I would not recommend it, stay with DVD2AVI/TMPGEnc method for VCD's and this method for SVCD's. Although this guide uses SmartRipper to rip (remove the movies encryption and transfer to your Hard Drive) the movie off the DVD, the built in vStrip ripper can also be used. DVD2SVCD is used basically as an enhanced but simple GUI of many command line freeware programs to produce the Audio WAV file and then CCE ( a commercial product) to actually do the final encoding. Then further programs to mux Video and audio together and cut them ready for burning. So far I have not experienced anything other than perfect lip-sync as well. This guide is based on using VCDEasy to burn the final SVCD, I have found Nero to continue to create playback problems on DVD Players, like FF or RW wont work, jumpt to button wont work, etc etc. These all appear to work with VCDEasy and it burns both MPG files as well as CUE/BIN images so only one software title needs to be installed. I have tested this method with PAL Region 4 & 2 DVD's and only a few NTSC Region 1 DVD's. I know it works for PAL, there may be some tweaking needed for NTSC. If the DVD is detected to be of FILM variety at 23.976fps, Pulldown will automaticly be run to convert to true NTSC at 29.97fps. Software you will need: 1.DVD Decrypter 3.1.40 or later, if needed (d/l from http://www.dvddecrypter.com/download.asp )or SmartRipper 2.41: http://www.riphelp.com/downloads/smart-ripper.html 2. DVD2SVCD 1.0.9 Build 3 or later (d/l from _http://www.dvd2svcd.org/ ) 3. Cinema Craft Encoder 2.50 4. VCDEasy 1.1.2 or later ( d/l from _http://www.vcdeasy.org/ ) You will also need a Computer with: * Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000 or XP installed. * A Pentium III 550mhz or equivalent as a minimum. * At least 128meg memory, 256meg prefered. * An internal DVD Rom player (any speed) * Hard drive with at least 10 gb FREE space in one partition. * A CDR(W) Burner to produce the SVCD and a box of good quality CDR's * A sound card and SVCD player to check the finished product. Tips before we get started: * Turn OFF your Screen Saver, it will simply slow the conversion down by hours. * Do not run any other program in the background while DVD2SVCD is running, especially if you have a slower computer. * Turn the screens colour depth to 16bit colour or better. * Re-boot the computer BEFORE you start the conversion. So you have downloaded the software and checked that you have the right stuff in your computer. Sounds good, then lets get stuck into it! Step 1: Getting Ready. 1. Install SmartRipper (if needed) 2. Install CCE 3. Install DVD2SVCD 4. Install Nero or CDRWIN as required. Step 2: Copying DVD files to harddrive. 1. Put the DVD movie into your DVD Rom player. It doesn't get much easier than this! 2. I prefer to use SmartRipper than DVD2SVCD own internal programs as I can strip out unwanted Audio and Subtitles. This speeds up the conversion. I can also do this part at my leisure. 3. Run SmartRipper, it should detect your DVD and unlock all files. If it has problems, actually play the movie with WinDVD or other DVD player first, then run SmartRipper. 4. Select Settings and for Key Check set Every VOB File. For File Splitting, set Every VOB File and for Options select Unlock Drive, DeMacrovision, Copy IFO File and Create Directories. 5. Click on Stream Processing tab and check which audio stream is English or the language you wish to rip. Also, if you enable Stream Processing and unselect the langauages and subtitles you DONT want, then the final conversion can be sped up considerably. The VOB files will now be smaller on your HD than they are on the DVD. 6. Selecting Start to start ripping the VOB files of the DVD to your hard drive. This can take 5 to 30 minutes depending on your computer setup and the actual DVD. A typical directory of a DVD is similar to : VIDEO_TS BUP 16,384 VIDEO_TS IFO 16,384 VIDEO_TS VOB 43,008 VTS_01_0 BUP 77,824 VTS_01_0 IFO 77,824 VTS_01_0 VOB 1,695,744 VTS_01_1 VOB 1,048,565,696\ VTS_01_2 VOB 1,048,565,696 \ <-- This is the Main movie VTS_01_3 VOB 1,048,565,696 / VTS_01_4 VOB 589,365,248/ VTS_02_0 BUP 18,432 VTS_02_0 IFO 18,432 VTS_02_0 VOB 43,008 VTS_02_1 VOB 296,014,976 <-- This is normally the Trailer, Interviews, etc What you end up on your Hard Drive after ripping the above DVD is: VTS_01_0 IFO 77,824 <--- IFO file VTS_01_1 VOB 1,048,565,696\ VTS_01_2 VOB 1,048,565,696 \ <-- The Main movie VTS_01_3 VOB 1,048,565,696 / VTS_01_4 VOB 589,365,248/ Step 3: SVCD Conversion. 1. Run DVD2SVCD. It may complain it cannot find CCE, so click the Encoder tab and then browse your HD for CCE (cctsp.exe) depending on where you installed it. This will happen 1st time it is run only. 2. Click the Conversion tab, and load in the IFO file of the DVD you have ripped to your HD. It will indicate its length and select the correct Aspect ratio mode and mark the first English Audio track. There is no Cut or Trim features here. I do not recommend ticking NTSC to PAL box unless you like jerky movies. 3. Click the Misc. tab, then Default Output folder to select the Output folder where all the files will go. Un-tick Dont Delete any Files (not important if you dont), change DVD2SVD Level to Advanced. 4. Click on Finalize Tab, there is nothing in here to change. 5. Click the CDImage tab. If you dont want any fancy Chapters or Title pictures, etc, just click Dont Make Images and you will end up with 2-3 MPG files ready to burn with Nero. If you do want to include Chapter and/or Title Pictures, then select VCDXBuild. The dafault ChangeCD pic is excellent. If you click on Movie info (IMDB), it will extract all the movie data (Directors, actors, etc) and the DVD front picture from _www.imdb.com for inclusion on the CD. For Fixed Chapters, select a number in seconds that you want each chapter point to be set to. I use 240 (4 min.) so I get about 10-12 per CD. For DVD chapters, you need to rip the DVD with the internal ripper. 5. Click the Subtitles tab. If you want to include subtitles, tick the Rip Subtitles box and select either Permanent Sub titles or SVCD Subtitles (this allows them to be selectable on your DVD Player if it has this feature). In Subtitle Lang. 1 pick the language you want. It must have been on the DVD originally. When you start the conversion, it will ask you then to select the correct Subtitle track from those available. 6. Click the bbMPEG Tab, there is nothing to change except maybe the CD overlap in Seconds. Change to suit your own preferences. 7. Click the DVD Rip Tab and untick the Activate DVD ripping option if you have ripped the DVD to HD with SmartRipper, or tick if you wish to use the internal ripper. 8. Click the DVD2AVI Tab, nothing to change in here. Make sure NTSC Field Operation is set to Automatic. 9. Click the Audio Tab and click on Audio 2 Priority if your including a second audio track. Leave Audio downsample 48 -> 44.1 ticked as this makes a fully compliant SVCD. However, leaving it unticked will produce a better quality Audio playback, but if you burn the MPG file with Nero it will say its non-compliant and you will have to turn compliance off. All DVD Players (and now 99% of PC's) can play 48kHz audio. Change Audio Bitrate from the default 160bps if you wish but the higher it is, the lower the Video bitrate is used to fit it onto the CD's. 10. Click the Frameserver tab and select Resize Method to be Bicubic Resize. Make sure Resize is set to SVCD ('cause thats what we are making folks!). 11. Click the Bitrate tab to see the number of CD's and their size for the movies length. Leave these at default initially, just un-select Min Avg if its ticked. DVD2SVCD calculates the bitrate automatically for you to just fit onto your CDR's. But I would suggest you change all the 740 to 800 and use ONLY 80min CDR's. 12. Click the Encoder tab and make sure Cimema Craft Encoder is selected (and not TMPGEnc). Multipass VBR should be set at 3 or 4, remembering 4 takes 33% longer to encode than a 3 pass. If time is not an issue select 4, else select 3. There is very little quality defference between a 3 or 4 pass SVCD. Click on the Advanced button and un-select all MPEG2 Video Settings as most DVD's (well 99% of PAL) are not interlaced. If you are encoding a small 43min episode to fit to one 80min CD, then I would suggest ticking CBR instead of VBR 3 pass, as encoding time will be dramitically reduced and quality basically the same. Give it a try and compare. But if you have a 120min movie and trying to fit to 2 CD's, stay with VBR, or better still change to 3 CD's for a substantial improved quality SVCD. 13. All is now setup and we are ready to begin the encodeing. If you intend to be doing a few movies, all the setup above needs to be done once and will remain set to the same settings next time you run DVD2SVCD. Next time you will only need to load the IFO in, set folder to save to and change CDImage info. 14. Click the Conversion tab again and if all is ready, click the GO button. Click Start Conversion then confirm with OK. If you have selected Subtitles, it will now ask you to select the actual one from the VOB file list. 15. Go to sleep, work or school as this process may take a long time. On a P700 it can take over 24hrs with a 4pass VBR encode! On an Athlon 1800, most movies convert 3pass VBR in 5-7 hours. 16. When finished you will have in the default folder you selected, about 20-30+ files. There will be 2-3 MPG files like bbMPEG_Muxed_File00.mpg if you did not make an image. You will have 2-3 BIN & CUE files like CD_Image_File_CD1.bin if you did. 17. Play them with WinDVD (or your favorite SVCD player software, I dont recommend Windows Media Player) to check them for lip sync near start and finish of each file and any other problem. If your made an Image file, load it into Daemon Tools CD Image and run the MPG file from there. 18. You have now made your first SVCD files and all thats left is to burn them. Step 4: Burning. 1. Run VCDEasy and we need to set it up for your burner. Click on Settings icon then CDRDAO tab. Locate your CD writer, then select the Write Speed to be 4x maximum for older 8x or 12x burners. Select 8x or 12x for late model 24x or faster burners. For Force Driver, if your burner is not in the short list, select generic-mmc. Change the other settings if you wish. This only needs to be done the first time you run VCDEasy. 2. a) If you made MPG files, run VCDEasy and in Main tab, set VideoCD Type to SVCD 1.0. Select your CD Writer if it is not selected and then enter a Volume Label. Spaces are automatically entered as an "_" underscore. Now click on Add Files button and load in the bbMPEG_Muxed_File00.mpg file for your first CD. It will check through the file for SVCD compliance. b) While you can make Chapters, etc automatically in DVD2SVCD if you make images, you can also make them manually here if you wish. If not, just jump to section 2.e) c) To add chapters, click Chapters tab and select Create 10 equidistant chapters and click the OK button next to it. All done. Change the 10 to a number that suits your needs but 10 makes a chapter about every 3 to 5 min. apart. d) If you want to include Change CD pics, etc. the one that comes with DVD2SVCD is excellent (DefaultChangeCD.bmp). Click on Tools icon and goto MPEG Stills tab. Load in the Pic file, select MPEG Still type as SVCD and select PAL or NTSC depending on what your burning, and set to High. Then click the Generate button. Again, you only need to do this once and the resultant MPG file you can now save somewhere on your HD for future use. Back in the Main tab where you loaded the MPG file in, do the same now for the Change CD pic (move to be after the main MPG movie file) and any initial pic file, like the DVD cover your downloaded from _www.imdb.com, (move to be before the main MPG movie file). In the Interactivity tab, set the Change CD pic to Wait Infinite. e) If all is now set up, make sure the small Burn box at top of Main tab page is ticked, then hit the GO button. Sit back and watch your first SVCD disk being burnt. 3. If you made BIN & CUE files, run VCDEasy and select Tools Icon, then CDRDAO Tools tab. In the Burn a CUE or TOC CD Image window, locate your CUE file, un-tick Simulate (if you don't want to do a test run first - be daring!), put a blank CDR into your burner and hit the Burn button, sit back and watch your first SVCD disk being burnt. 4. The excitement builds! When the burning is finished, shut down VCDEasy, label the CD with a felt pen and rush to your DVD player to check it out. If all is okay, repeat this for the second or third disks. 5. You can now safely delete all the files created by DVD2SVCD and delete the DVD VOB files as well. 6. Use only good quality scratch resistant CDR's. Some DVD stand alone players will only read from CDRW's, then burn to CDRW's instead. Burning at greater then 4x or 8x speed can also make them unreadable by many players, particularly the latter part of the CD. Many DVD stand alone units have problems playing SVCD movies altogether, even though the book indicates it can and many will jump and stutter if the bitrate is to high or to low. These problems are not with the SVCD you just made, they are all related to the brand and model of your DVD Player. The SVCD's will play fine on a PC however. ------------------------------------------- NOTE 1. DVD2SVCD does NOT directly support Batch mode processing of movies. This is handy if you wish to process a few small TV Episodes or cartoons in the one evening. But it can be done, run DVD2SVCD, load in movie, set everything up to your liking and particular the folder you will be saving/encoding to. Hit Go and start the conversion. Let it run for 2-3 seconds until you see the long line about DVD2AVI come up. Then close DVD2SVCD by clicking the small X top right of its window. Go immediately to the task bar and right click on the DVD2AVI button and select Close. Repeat this for all the movies/episodes you wish to convert but be careful to select a different Default Output Folder for each movie. I use MOVIE1, MOVIE2, etc folders. Now go to the folder where you installed DVD2SVCD and you will see a file called dvd2svcd batch.bat. Open this in Notepad and add the following lines so it will look similar to: @ECHO OFF REM DVD2SVCD Batch Control "E:\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"H:\MOVIE1\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit "E:\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"H:\MOVIE2\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit where E:\DVD2SVCD\ is the folder where you have DVD2SVCD installed and H:\MOVIE1\ is the folder where you have selected all will be encoded to. These will probably be different on every computer. Now Save the file, create a shortcut on your desktop to this file and when you are ready, run it. The above example will now process the 2 movies set up and info saved in Movie1 and Movie2 folders. If you wish to shut the computer down after encoding, change the -exit to -shutdown in the last line. I have sucessfully done up to 7 episodes this way without a problem. ------------------------------------------- NOTE 2. DVD2SVCD does not directly support cropping or re-sizing of the picture. There is a way! If you are like me and hate those real wide 2.3:1 movies, then these can be converted to 16:9 by chopping off a small part of the left and right sides of the picture. This results in full screen playback on a wide-screen TV with no black bars top and bottom. Start DVD2SVCD, load in file and set it up as usual, as above. Click on Frameserver tab and select Edit when DVD2AVI is done. Then start the conversion as normal. After DVD2AVI has finished (only a few minutes), a small window with some script will pop-up. Insert, edit and delete the bottom lines to look like this: SVCD PAL .... Crop(90,0,540,576) <-- insert this line here BiCubicResize(480,576,0,0.6) <-- edit this line AddBorders(0,72,0,72) <-- delete this line SVCD NTSC .... Crop(90,0,540,480) <-- insert this line here BiCubicResize(480,480,0,0.6) <-- edit this line AddBorders(0,60,0,60) <-- delete this line Hit the Save button and then the OK button. The encoding will now continue as usual and result in a normal 16:9 movie. ChickenMan (c) 2002 --- Updated 13th Sept 02 ChickanMan is a moderator at many forums and is also the author of the great program Eazy VCD. Eazy VCD:http://members.eezi.net.au/~phatjeff/ Shoey
