Any suggestions which is better Adaptec or Cequadrat for VCD? I've used both Adaptec 3.5 and Cequadrat 3.0 and now wish to upgrade. It seems that Cequadrat's 3.0 had a better picture quality than Adaptec's 3.5 with the same capture hardware. Anyone know why? Which is the best route to upgrade? Any others?

-- Joe Panzarella (panzarel@ptdprolog.net), December 22, 1999

Answers

Based on my experiences : EZ Creator 4.0 (or 3.x) * Cannot detect some bad data in MPEG file * The result cannot be played in many VCD player * Not easy to create menu * I dont know how to create highres still picture

CeQuadrant 3.5 (or plus Videopack 4.0) * Give report an "MPEG ilegal packet" if found bad data in MPEG * The result can be be played well on various VCD player * Very easy to create menu (flowchart like diagram) * Just drag and drop from many format to create highres picture

-- A A Arman (aa_arman@BitSmart.com), December 27, 1999.

Based on my experiences : EZ Creator 4.0 (or 3.x) * Cannot detect some bad data in MPEG file * The result cannot be played in many VCD player * Not easy to create menu * I dont know how to create highres still picture

CeQuadrant 3.6 (or plus Videopack 4.0) * Give report an "MPEG ilegal packet" if found bad data in MPEG * The result can be be played well on various VCD player * Very easy to create menu (flowchart like diagram) * Just drag and drop from many format to create highres picture

-- A A Arman (aa_arman@BitSmart.com), December 27, 1999.

AA, Joe is asking about subjective quality as related to the actual burner program, cannot say I have noticed any difference between burns by Nero, WinonCD 3.5 or Video Pack 4 - have you?

There are quality differences from the encoders used to get the files ready for burning. I have tested LSX, Panasonic, DVmpeg5, UleadVS3, Digigami, WinonCD and a couple of others I have forgotten the names of and they are like chalk and cheese in what they produce in image quality.

In my view the Panasonic is by far the most adaptable of the stand alones as it will accept a large number of different formats - I have used avi, mpeg2, mpeg1 and dat as the sources and it will resize the image to the vcd mpeg-1 format from almost any size. It will not, like most, accept a DV codec avi of type 1.

In my view Nero is the easiest and most reliable burner program for simple VCD's and Video Pack 4 is outstanding for interactives.

Nero highlighted why I got "illegal Mpeg Packet" errors in both WinonCD and VideoPack 4 - either 2 channel sound rather than stereo sound (Panasonic encoder) and/or "over filled" cd (even though the file was a lot less than 650M in size) from LSX 2.51 and DVmpeg5 encodes.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net), December 28, 1999.