High resolution still images on VCD

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I am trying to put my photos on a VCD to play them on a DVD player attached to a large screen TV. Does anybody know how to put high-resolution 704x480 still images on VCD? I succeeded creating a VCD with standard resolution 352x240 stills using Ulead's VideoStudio 3.0 and Adaptec's EZCD Creator Deluxe. I don't think WinOnCD has this capability either, yet it is specified in the white book format. Separately, how can a DVD player display such high-resolution material? Does it somehow switch to non-interlaced mode to double default resolution? If that is so why isn't everything on a DVD player converted to progressive scan mode? Are all DVD players that support VCD capable of displaying stills at this resolution?

-- Vitaly Krivoy (vitalys@yahoo.com), August 31, 1999

Answers

You can use Darimvision's DVMPEG to convert hi-res stills to White Book compliant files. CeQuadrat's VideoPack can do the same; you simply include your bitmap in the VCD structure and it gets converted in the process of making the VCD. White Book certainly DOES include provisions for these hi-res stills and it is possible to make a ver 2.0 multi-level menu VCD in which the selections point to nothing else but stills like these; no audio/video tracks, etc. Great for storing photos and viewing them with nothing but your DVD/VCD player, no? However, from what I've gathered so far and what I've experienced, there seems to be a conspiracy to prevent hobbyists from exploiting this area of VCD creation. For example, as always, Adaptec Easy CD tickles you with possibilities for putting a hi-res still in the VCD layout with absolutely no hint as to how or where to make or get them. Other VCD authoring s/w do fare any better, with the possible exception of VideoPack. In the mad scramble to put moving video onto CD most of us amateurs in this biz overlooked the whole possibility of standard-res and hi-res stills. DVD/VCD players display such a hi-res format without difficulty; it is already a play item in the segment folder of the VCD and White Book supports it, right? They do not have to do anything else like switching to progressive scan (which ordinary TVs can't support/display anyway). It's still interlaced but now 704x480 (NTSC). WinOnCD doesn't support user-selectable menu VCD creation (ver 2.0), only straight play (ver 1.1). Please tell me if you succeed. Best wishes... :)

-- EMartinez (epmartinez@hotmail.com), September 01, 1999.

Thank you very much. I'll follow your advise as soon as I be able to find Video Pack. There is a link to it on http://crcpl.tsx.org/ site, but so far I was unable to download it.

-- Vitaly Krivoy (vitalysk@yahoo.com), September 02, 1999.

How do you know VideoPack's still mpeg is high resolution? There is no hint at all. Or worse, it could be making a mpeg video/audio file (as it gives the option to add audio); also the size of the final file is huge, shouldn't it be much smaller if it is just an image?

-- K. Song (kqsong@yahoo.com), September 05, 1999.

I know this with Video Pack because when you click on the still image to be included in the layout, it gives you choices of 288 or 576 for PAL and 240 or 480 for NTSC, with or without audio. No, the file doesn't get big because it's just one still image plus instructions to loop it as long as no other relevant selection is made. VideoPack is expensive (!!!) and Easy CD Creator not, and I wish there was something in between; it's just too bad that despite being better than Easy CD in most respects, WinOnCD doesn't support user- selectable branching ver 2.0 VCD creation.

-- EMartinez (epmartinez@hotmail.com), September 07, 1999.

I know this is from the archives but at the time I could make no comment.

I have used video pack 4 to produce still images as is discussed here. I used photoshop to produced an PAL format image size of 720 x 576 (jpeg not a bitmap) and also one from the same source material of 352 x 576 and I could not see the diiference on the TV screen.

In my view both the above were subjected to resizing, one in photoshop and one in the vcd burn software. Resizing takes the information in the full frame and "packs" it into the small frame. I think low definition relates to images from source material of the 352 x 288 (PAL) size and often that is based on single field originals which do not stretch back to the full TV screen width without loss - hence the difference.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), December 21, 1999.



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