VCD Holy Grail

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As I understand it the holy grail of VCD recording is to play a source in and have it recorded on a CD in real time. It would have menus that you have created previously and also have chapters that play through without pauses that you had pre-determined

I was wondering how close you guys reckon we are to that and what is the best solution so far.

I know the terrapin standalone is pretty close, can make chapters on the fly and produces a VCD ready to go moments after the media is finished but is this great quality? What advantage does a PC based solution have?

-- jonathan fawkner (jonathan-f@moving-picture.co.uk), February 18, 2001

Answers

Editing. Freedom.

-- me (snake_mountain@hotmail.com), February 19, 2001.

I didn't know the Terapin can make chapters on the fly. Does it? How can it? Anyway, I was given a Terapin-produced VCD copy from a VHS tape. There were no menus/chapters, but the bothersome thing is the video quality, which just about sucks: very blocky, noisy, drop-outy. I would have expected this; it is already difficult and involving enough realtime capture of MPEG-1, and now CD-authoring has to be performed alongside it on the fly as well. (One gaze at this monstrous-looking machine makes you feel it's not up to any good.) VCD MPEG-1 stream bitrates are so low it is very easy to create terrible-looking video. The VCD Holy Grail, in my opinion, isn't as much as capturing MPEG-1 for VCD in realtime, as it is trying to squeeze as much as one can from the severe limitations of the format and meager resources to squeeze it with and still come out with very good if not acceptable-looking video and ausio quality on the created VCD. If realtime capture is your thing you're best off with MPEG-2, which is much more amenable to things realtime.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), February 19, 2001.

Apparently on the terapin you just hit 'mark' as the the source plays in and it produces a chapter, but WITH the two second delay. I want to transfer VHS to disc as time effectively as possible, but without a dramatic loss in quality. ie I don't want to be sitting watching my VCD saying, "Eugh, I'd rather be watching my VHS". Maybe I'll just wait for a DVD recorder.

-- Jonathan Fawkner (jonathan-f@moving-picture.co.uk), February 19, 2001.

I for one don't reccomend a Terapin Recorder or one of those VDR products from Asia.

PC VCD creation is well worth the time. Because of the flexibility you can have and much better quality.

-- MrVCD (not@vailible.com), February 19, 2001.


Well all i can say is how easy i find converting Vhs tapes to Vcd, [WYW]= While You Watch. I got just a cheap tv capture card with a Brooktree chip on board, and use the wonderful WinVcr software to capture to Mpeg1 vcd, nero burns it no problem, pop it into any Dvd Tv player perfect every time 750 megs = 75 mins

-- guy (steve.jones42@virgin.net), February 20, 2001.


to Guy: either your PC is super-duper (1GHz, 1GB RAM, etc.) such that WinVCR produces acceptable quality as it converts on the fly or the quality that you get is okay to you. We're curious: have you compared those VCDs WinVCR created with a typical original pressed movie VCD??

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), February 21, 2001.

For what it's worth...

I get very acceptable sound/image quality copying tapes on the fly to CDRs using the Terapin. Amazingly good, when the original image is stable. I use a very high quality prosumer deck and the s-video connections for playing the VHS and SVHS tapes to the recorder. I suspect that those who aren't pleased with the Terapin made VCD picture quality are using composite connections.

Certain types of images tend to produce an effect that looks a bit like moire patterning and I avoid those images whereever possible.

Creating chapters with the Terapin is a breeze. There are three methods for doing this (NEXT, PAUSE or STOP SESSION) the delay in the recording resumption is a few seconds so it takes a bit practice before you get the seamless result you'd have if you were not working on the fly, but with a remote in each hand you can master the timing pretty easily.

-- Will Taylor (w_taylor@earthlink.net), March 26, 2001.


I bought a terrapin vcd recorder and am v happy with the recording. The input source is my Canon DV camcorder and the picture quality for what I use is good. So far I havent seen any glitches. I havent tried converting my VHS yet though , so can't comment on the quality of VHS to VCD yet.

-- booji vempati (vempatib@yahoo.com), May 16, 2003.

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