Don't want to waste your time, but I'm very capable and a well experienced professional midi/audio programmer/developer, having trouble with VCD. I'll understand what you say...

I'm using ATI with latest recorder, used IFILM EDIT and converted files. Even tried downloading what was told was a strictly compliant VCD ready MPG file. Burned files using ADAPTEC VIDEO CD DELUXE 4.02

All files are very scrambled when played back on PC VCD player, but at least are recognized. But On DVD/VCD player.. disk is not recognized at all.

I'm using ADAPTEC EZ-CD CREATOR DELUXE 4.02 to burn with TEAC CDW54 Internal IDE Drive Running Win 98. I've used GOLD and SILVER disks and CLOSED THE DISKS. I looked at the files on the VDC disk after it was burned. There are 6 directories.... CDDA - CDI KARAOKE - MPEGAV SEGMENT VCD There is a large .dat file in the MPEGAV directory and a series of .vcd files in the VCD firectory

Okay quiz kids... whats up... is this a hoax? Or am I doing something wrong?

-Jim

-- jim cara (jim@caramedia.com), August 29, 2000

Answers

1. Try CD-RW media. Some DVD players (well, in fact, most) play better with CD-RW. 2. Try Nero (www.ahead.de) trial version to burn them. I found problems with Adaptec as well. It won't do menus but does burn a good VCD from a good .MPG 3. Try dropping that .DAT file on top of Windows Media Player and see if it does better - which VCD player are you using?

-- Frankie G (frankG74@hotmail.com), August 29, 2000.

What is the make and model of your stand alone DVD player? Also what is the software VCD player you are using?

If EZCD accepted your source file and the burn was reported as successfull, you have a valid VCD. It should work with "anything" that is capable of playing VCDs. It sounds like you have a problem in the "playback" area.

Check my website (the new one in progress at pcphotovideo.com) for detailed explanation of VCD and player issues.

-- Rich (rich@pcphotovideo.com), August 29, 2000.

I drug the .dat file to Media Player, and it played fine.

ATI CDVIDEO Player lets it play, but it's very scrambled.

I have a Fisher DVD player, and tonight I am going to try with some CDRW disks. I'll post what happened.

-- Jim Cara (jim@caramedia.com), August 29, 2000.

Sorry but I'm pretty sure your Fisher DVD player is not CDR VCD capable. My friend has one and they just can't do it. Of course I don't know if you have a later model. Try looking at:

http://www.redrobe.demon.co.uk/dvd/vcd.html

where you can get a list of which DVD players can read CDR and CDRW. I'm afraid though, the "Fisher" is not going to work. I hope I'm wrong .. but you may be beating a dead horse.

-- Rich (richa@home.com), August 29, 2000.

There are quite a few things required to get a quality video cd but unfortumately quality is limited to to the fact that you are limited to a certain amount of bits per second of video. If you have a lot of motion in your video there's a good chance you are going to have a lot of artifacts in your end result. You can increase you bits/second but this makes it a non-compiant mpg file. There are a couple of software programs that will allow this, Adaptec is not one of them. If you are copying from VHS tape then you aren't going to get the greatest amount of quality either. A lot of the memory needed for encoding video is wasted on trying to encode noise. I started out with a Dazzle video capture and returned and ended up buying the Broadway 4.0. Although there was a great amount of improvement I was never really able to get the quality I was looking for. I wanted something as near the original source tape as possible. The Broadway does a real good job and it encodes inreal time. It is a hardware assisted encoder rather than a software only encoder. When I was beating my head against the wall trying to figure out how to do all of this(back around February) I found that at the time the Pioneer DVD player wa the only one on the market that will play or even recognize a CDR disk. I did find that most of the players would play a CD-RW though. I received an email from the makers of Broadway a few wekks ago telling me they have come out with a card that encodes to mpg-2 and DVD so I hope to try and see if I can't get one of them. I think that will be the answer I am looking for. Oh Yeah...The file on your disk with the .dat extension is your encoded mpg file that the DVD player reads. he rest are for other formats and such

-- Al (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), August 29, 2000.

Thanks for all the answers. I dud up some info on the Fisher S1000 and it seems it is the problem, along wit the ATI VIDEO CD player being messed up.

I can play the disk using other players, but the Fisher just won't read anyng burned at home.. be it CDR or CDRW.

I even noticed a few sites that show the specs for the Fisher S1000 and they claim it can play CDRW. On a few of these sites. vistors have commented that the specs are wrong and disks have played on other players but not the Fisher S1000.

So... it's out to test the disk if I can find a Friendly store..

Thanks for all the answers.... anyone want to buy a Fisher S1000

Hopefully people searching for info can find this thread.

-- Jim Cara (jim@caramedia.com), August 29, 2000.