VCD with .mpg, not .dat

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I know that when NERO burns a VCD it takes the MPEG and converts it to a .dat file. Is there any way to avoid this so it stays an .mpg file after burning? I know this seems trivial but it is very important that I find out how to do this. Also, if I convert the .dat to mpg using VCDgear, when I burn it Nero will simply convert it back to .dat, correct. Any info is GREATLY appreciated

-- derek sider (dereksider@home.com), February 16, 2001

Answers

I wanted to copy a standard VCD movie on 2 CDs to play in Microsoft 'Windows Media Player 7'.

So I just copied the .DAT file from each of the 2 VCD discs onto my hard disk (no other files were copied).

I renamed them both it to "Moviename Part 1.mpg" and "Moviename Part 2.mpg" and burned each of them using Nero onto blank CD-R 74min discs.

They then played fine in Windows Media Player.

-- William Ziz (gbwdwwz@ibmmail.com), February 17, 2001.


If you specifically want *.MPG files on the CD then you can't create White Book compliant Video CDs. Nero is only implementing the standards that there are, as other VCD authoring apps do, when it converts *.MPGs to *.dat. This is to ensure playability on standard VCD players h/w and s/w. If that isn't what you need, you are best served creating plain CD-ROMs instead, where you can plonk down on the CD your *.MPG files. Of course these CD-ROMs won't then be playable on VCD players. Even if you include autorun s/w VCD players on them, it probably still won't work, since these players are designed to emulate their h/w set-top counterparts, and seek out the *.dat files.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), February 18, 2001.

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