Recently I just brought a new product from Creative. I would like to share my view to all of ou.

The price of this product is Best for value. It just cause me US199

Now I can create my own VCD directly from my SHARP PD6E camcorder. The product bundle with Ulead Video Studio, a video editor software. (Friendly ,eZ to use but if I need to do rendering I need to spend a lot of WAITING Time on it.

THE VBMM have 1 disadvantage is the VCD format is slight out of standard range 1150Kbps. Using Virtual Dub to check the file info that created from VBMM, I found that the video bitrate is 194Kbps.

Due to this problem sometime the VCD that i created have problem playback on some VCD/DVD player. Jerky ,checker & dissonant sound.

By overall I feed the product is Value fore money.....cause I able to direct capture into MPEG2 format from my camcorder or VCD player.

Think about it !!!!!

-- Bryan (bryan8@usa.net), March 24, 2001

Answers

I've found that the Creative Moviemaker burns VCDs that play perfectly on the DVD-ROM drive on my Dell PC, but will not play at all on my Pioneer standalone DVD Player (the c503 5 disk changer). The Pioneer DVD player will play VCDs burned on cheap CD-Rs that a friend made through a different capture card (I'm still trying to get the name of it). The Pioneer specs say it will play CD-Rs and CD- RWs, and VCDhelp.com says the same. I just can't get it to play the VCDs burned through Creative's Moviemaker USB.

I have tried different CD-Rs (CompUsa brand, TDK, Memorex, Circuit City, and a couple of other miscellaneous brands), with no success. I have also tried moving the captured mpeg-1 file from the Creative's bundled software to Nero Burning Rom 5.0, but still no success playing on my standalone DVD player.

Does anyone have any thoughts regarding how to get these VCDs to play on a standalone VCD player?

Thanks

Jo

-- Jo (FanOfAres@aol.com), March 29, 2001.

The Pioneer 503 can play CD-Rs and play them well and having said this it is your created VCDs which are at fault. Creative MovieMaker is most likely creating (no pun intended) files, which though they may be MPEG-1, are NOT VCD-compliant. If the files ARE VCD-compliant, maybe you are not authoring these VCDs correctly. In Nero there is an option to create compliant VCDs by ticking the appropriate box. When this is unchecked, Nero may proceed with authoring non-compliant VCDs which may play on your DVD-ROM drive, but not on your Pioneer. If this is checked, you are immediately alerted if the MPEG-1 files you are trying to include in the layout are NOT VCD-compliant.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), March 31, 2001.

Thanks, at least I know the DVD player is not the problem! But is there any way to make the mpeg-1s compliant for DVD playing -- i.e., Will checking the "make a compliant VCD" in Nero automatically make it compliant or is there an intervening step I should take to make them compliant? Or should I just ditch the Creative and perhaps buy the Terapin? (Does anyone know if the Terapin will make compliant VCDs for playing on a DVD player -- and whether the Terapin honors Macrovision?)

Thanks in advance

Jo

-- Jo (fanofares@aol.com), April 03, 2001.

Never mind, I went and bought the Terapin -- and it solved my problem. Terapin CD-Rs (all kinds so far -- TDK, Memorex, Verbatim all work) play beautifully on the Pioneer c503, as well as on my PC -- much clearer than the Creative did. Problem was at $521 including tax, it was a bit pricey ($499 base price).

Creative sent me an email in response to my inquiry as to why I can't play VCDs made from the Creative -- they are aware of the problem and are preparing new drivers.

Jo

-- Jo (fanofares@aol.com), April 10, 2001.