Will someone out there who has successfuly made a SuperVideoCD please give a step by step explanation of how to make one, and list specific software. I find it crazy that companies expect you to pay thousands of dollars for software without having any demo or any idea if it will do what you want it to.

Please, enlighten me anyone on the Super Video CD. What software do you use to convert an .avi into a S-VCD compliant mpeg2 file?

Then.. what software do you use to create the S-VCD? Is I-Author the only choice for someone running windows 98? I know there is free software available on NT but I'm not running NT as most people aren't.

Last but not least, does the encoding software BURN the S-VCD or do you need another program to burn it.

And then finally, what stand alone DVD player plays cd-r S-VCDS?

If anyone HAS the software needed to do the above who can let me see it or use it I would appeciate it. No I am not a piracy cop but I am not shelling out thousands before I know if something works or not.

Any detailed listing of how toi make a WORKING S-VCD and what player it plays on will be appreciated by many people I am sure. All that has been posted so far is fragments and things like.. I have the super secret software but I can't tell you how.

- Michael

-- Blackout (blackout@blackout.com), February 24, 2000

Answers

Wow, those are alot of questions. Hopefully what I have to say will help you and many others in your position.

Basically, i believe in the SVCD format since I am not really fond of all those forms of "miniDVD" or high bitrate VCD's since they are not standard formats that will work in all playback units (especially not miniDVDs). SVCD, although not popular in the states, is a standard. SVCD home players can be bought from asia for not that much money and even some asian DVD players which support audioCD, VCD, SVCD, MP3 for not too much more (a friend of mine picked up a player like that for under $200 bux and that is with shipping charges).

Ok, let's adress your questions without delay.

For what you want to do (and since you dont have WinNT), you want to use Enreach I-Author (prefferably delux version since it can create VCD 3.0, Karaoke VCD 3.0, SVCD, Internet VCD 3.0 and Educational VCD 3.0--i dont know too much about some of those formats I just mentioned so your guess is as good as mine). Where to download it, I don't know. Unfortunately I am on 56k so I have no time or bandwith to upload it.

I suggest that you use an avi capture card and capture to the highest resolution possible. And with at least compression as possible (although I hear that the picvideo2 codec rivals even uncompressed AVI in quality as well as HD space). It's important to understand the SVCD specs (there was a post in here somewhere explaining the specs but i forgot which one). Audio is MP3 format, video is MPEG-2 (i forgot the official bitrate but I am sure that the resolution is 480X480 which is 2/3 D-1 resolution). You will have to resize the video to 480X480. Now the audio, i dont know. I-Author imports files with the .mps extension (i dont know what that file extension means but it seems to me that that is some form of mpeg-2 video/audio), and possibly then the program converts the audio to mp3 format but dont quote me on that.

I-Author does not burn the disc. When your layout and project is done, you create a .cif image file that is useable in EZ CD creator (not sure if it is useable in other cd burning programs).

Standalone DVD players (at least not USA brands) cannot play SVCD. One, because the audio is mp3 format, and two, a DVD player is not "smart enough" to play a high bitrate mpeg2 stream from a CD-R disc. That's the same reason why the many forms of "miniDVD" wont play in standalone players.

Just in case you are wondering, I have not yet created a SuperVCD but I would like too. Even with the limitation on video length, I still believe SVCD is a good format. If I find documentation on how to better work with this I-Author Delux program, I will upload it. I am thinking of having my own VCD/SVCD site where I will share my VCD knowledge with the world. As far as you being able to obtain I- Author, I am sorry to say I can't point you in the right direction.

-- MrVCD (mrvcd@juno.com), February 25, 2000.

Correction to one of the statements above. According to the feature list of I-Author Delux for SVCD (found at http://www.aone.com.sg/Enreachsvcd.htm), Audio is MPEG-1 layer 1 or 2 ( and can be 1 to 7.1 channels!!).Sorry for the mixup!!! The bit rate is VBR (variable bitrate) and the video can be either 4:3 or 16:9 ratio!!! It also supports subtitles (delux version only), and multiple audio tracks

-- MrVCD (mrvcd@juno.com), February 25, 2000.

Hi Michel.

At this moment, I am learning how to author SVCDs. And learning to play with the only program I know will Author SVCDs under Windows 95/98. Enreach I-Author Deluxe 1.0 http://www.enreach.com/Products/consumer/iauthor/iauthsvcd.htm

< Please give a step by step explanation of how to make one, and list specific software. >

Well, you need a Video Capture Device, an MPEG Encoder which supports Variable Bit Rate for MPEG2, and a demuxer program in order to extract the audio portion of the video. After that, the CD-Recordin / SVCD Authoring program will do the rest. Menus, tracks and the muxing of the video and audio.

I have to say the I-Author if software made in China. The creators of the SVCD format. So, is the right tool for the job.

< What software do you use to convert an .avi into a S-VCD compliant mpeg2 file? >

You can use Ligos LSX-Encoder 3.0 for that. But you need the extra profiles for SVCD ( Pal or NTSC ). They are hard to get.

< Then.. what software do you use to create the S-VCD? Is I-Author the only choice for someone running windows 98? >

As far as I know, yes it is the only one. Philips has it's own, but for Windows NT.

< Last but not least, does the encoding software BURN the S-VCD or do you need another program to burn it. >

I-Author does not burned the disc. It only creates a CD Image on a CIF file wich can be read from Adaptec Easy CD Creator Deluxe or Cequadrat WinOnCD.

< And then finally, what stand alone DVD player plays cd-r S-VCDS? >

Do not know, I do not have one yet.

< If anyone HAS the software needed to do the above who can let me see it or use it I would appeciate it. >

Wow, that's too much to ask. Are you serious ?

Well, in the net is a good page tutorials with that software for EVALUATION ONLY. You do not want to make mad all those chineese people, Are not you ?

http://video.boys.free.fr/assemblage/svcd_iauthor.htm

Hope it's still there.

< Any detailed listing of how toi make a WORKING S-VCD and what player it plays on will be appreciated by many people I am sure. >

I guess that is right.

ARE THERE MORE USERS OF I-AUTHOR ON THE FORUM ? Please let me know.

Gracias amigos.

-- Roberto Gomez Torres (robertogt@bigfoot.com), February 25, 2000.

To the last poster (not you Blackout), I pretty much answered all of his questions already.

Hopefully when more documentation is availible, i will post my findings. Maybe then we will get more people in here (or on the net) that will start some more interesting posts on SVCD creation.

-- MrVCD (mrvcd@juno.com), February 25, 2000.

Ok... I am still a little confused. WHy do you need a demuxer? I have a hi res .avi with sound and I need to turn it into a mpeg2 file at 480 x 480 resolution but still no one has told me the proper bit rate for S-VCD. I am going to try at around 2200 video and 224 audio.

Then.. when I get this encoded mpeg2 file, I can just go into I-author and make a cd image, and burn it with easy cd creator?

Am I missing anything here. I am going to try this tonight and see if I can make a s-vcd that will actually play in a DVD player that supports s-vcd.

I wish you guys could be a little clearer on how to create the proper s-vcd compliant mpeg2 file... why do I feel I am going to fail miserably and trash several cd-rs?

-- Blackout (blackout@blackout.com), February 26, 2000.

THE ADAPTEC DOES NOT LIKE THE .CIF FILE!!!! first (thanks Roberto for the svcd info pr0gram address you posted). Ok. i did everything i was suppossed to but in the end, the adaptec 4.0 will not accpet the .cif image. it says alomst everything shows as unavailable and it will not let you burn it properly. I did a test however, before this though and that did make the proper .cif image adaptec did like. i used the dvmpeg program to demux, and used it to remux it back together (as an mpeg 2), but in the actual file name i made it lets say friday.cif. i then went to adaptec and it did accpet it (however for this i had a bitrate of 3000). So i went the next time with the i-author program and did this to an mpeg clip i made at 2500bitrate. I did use the dvmpeg program to demux, then i-author for the rest. i remuxed it using i-author (makes it an mps file), from there converted it to a cif file and it was all set to go. However wheni tried it that time the adaptec refused it highly as most of it showed it was unavailable (ex, bit rate, pack suze, system clock, etc). So i am going to try it again the way i did it the first time but with this mpeg 2500bit clip instead. i will post the results here. ALso it seems no one has posted really a response as to how much time on a cdr i can get. Becasue if its the same thing since the bitrate is higher (34mins at 2500bit roughly takes 75mins on a cdr) then im not going to bother with supervcd and just keep making my regular vcds at this higher rate.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), February 26, 2000.

i screwed up my last post. the first test i did with the dvmpeg and calling the file the .cif when it remuxed did make a file the adaptec liked but wouldnt accpet because of the 3000bit rate. So when i tired it again using the i-author for svcd it didnt accpet it this time at all (the clip used was 2500). i just tired my first method again, but with a clip at 2500. it still said the bit rate was too high, so if any of you know the adaptec it will let you add anyway, but once done your vd will have all the files but the damn mpeg/data file itself. this leaves me with nothing. So i figured i will just stick to my lder method of making a higher bitrate vcd. i think supervcd is the samething time wise on a cdr and if it is i have no reason for a svcd

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), February 26, 2000.

Well, the whole reason for doing an s-vcd is to get better quality and also INTERLACED video, so you can actually see a higher res video od a cd-r! Of course... it seems to be a mystical thing that nobody knows how to do. I am very confused as to the whole muxing demuxing thing.. never had to do that to make a normal Vcd, what the heck is muxing demuxing for and when/why do you have to do it. I just made an mpeg2 combined audio/video steam at 480 x 480 with dvmpeg at 2500 bit rate total, but I-author wouldn't let me even create the cis file, it said my mpeg2s were no good. I'm lost... do you create an mpeg2, then demux it, then have two seperate files for I-author? DVmpeg calls it's mpeg2 files .m2v or something like that where as I-author wants a video file name mpv or mps....

Please someone who has more knowledge help me out on this mysterious and archaic muxing and demuxing.. I don't understand the point.

Is there a program that has a correct template or setting to specificaly encode an .avi into a COMPLIANT s-vcd mpeg2 file?

- Michael

see my post on failed attemp one above

-- Blackout (blackout@blackout.com), February 26, 2000.

NO!! You use the dvmpeg program to demux whatever the hell it is you want to make as an mpeg 2. Once the video and audio are separate you will have this the video will be a .mpv the audio will be .mp2 NOW open the i-author and using their remux option put these two files in it and it will put them together as a .mps once the .mps is done, using the i-author start a new project and it will elt you use the mps file and when your done loading and everything is set, go to tools and select "create .cif image" it will make a cif image for you that you can use in the adaptec program to burn

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), February 27, 2000.

anybody know of a program that can ACCURATELY extract the video from a *.vob file? i have used MPEGVCR and DVMPEG, but both of them misrepresent the lenth of the file.what i mean is, i have a *.vob that is 2 minutes long. the 2 programs mentioned above extract about 1:21 of video then stop. they stop early on other files too. i have already used vobsnoopy, vobtool,etc to split the *.vob as much as possible, so thats not the problem. can the panasonic encoder do it? i found some filters for panasonic, but its just a zip with files and no instructions

-- ndumu (ndumu@hotmail.com), February 27, 2000.

dv mpeg is a very poor encoder. use tmpenc its the best around and free!. basically the way vcd and svcd work is to use a seperate track for vid and audio so the demux is nec... tmpend encodes yor avi to the correct res ect for svcd pal and ntsc and then demux the two so the files are ready for i author. i have created perfect svcds that play fine in my mico dvd a980 dvd player.

mike

-- mikey (mjeyre@visualfx.fsnet.co.uk), April 05, 2001.