WinOnCD 3.8PE - Picture & Music work together happily

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I raised a question a couple of weeks back because I couldnt get the music overlay on the pictures wt WinOnCD. A number of others also shared this problem.

Just to share my new findings - I have solved the problem now and cut VCD picture shows (up to 133 jpegs) wt up to 18 min of music in the background. The sound quality is perfect!! I will be pushing this to the limit to see what can be packed into a single VCD. It is true, you can input either mp3 or wave, it will re manipulate it to a form that perhaps is multiplexed into the video file.

I also made a mistake of indicating that there are selectable transitions. This is incorrect. I confused this wt the PictureToExe software which I frequently use for sending executable picture shows (wt music) to my friends by email. This is a good selection of transitions and I think it's another wonderful programme (great value for money).

-- Steve Lai (stevelai@magix.com.sg), May 16, 2001

Answers

I'm glad you were able to find a way to resolve the problem with audio on WinOnCD PE. However, could you be more specific in how you did it. I tried manipulating the audio properties but there's nothing much to explore there. Also, will it matter if i use a CD-RW or CD-R, the brand, color (Gold, Silver etc.).

Any tip will be highly appreciated.

Thanks

-- moses (mossenzo@canada.com), May 17, 2001.


To Steve, it would be interesting to know if full resolution 704x480 or 704x576 was used by WinOnCD for your still MPEGs. To begin with, did your SEGMENT directory indeed get filled up with itemxxxx.dat files?? Note that if the SEGMENT directory contains nothing you have made a mere White Book-compliant 352x240/288 track, which is the avseqxx.dat file(s) in the MPEGAV directory.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), May 17, 2001.

Dear Moses & Mehmet,

Here are some of the information you asked for.

Yes, the segment is filled wt item.00xx.dat (representing the individual jpeg files). Each of these file is exactly 345 KB (for all the jpeg files although the originals are much larger & vary in size). The audio file also appears as the last item wt a size of 43MB. This is equivalent to the one musical piece I attached (about 3-4 min music in wave format).

I believe that it is the full size VCD or else the quality will be too poor to be played on a 34" TV. The picture quality is the same as an earlier VCD I cut where I couldn't put in the music.

I am using a SCSI Yamaha CD writer - CRW8424S. It is written on a CD- R Samsung (CD-R 74S), silvery type.

I have also installed the service pack via internet download to my WinOnCD 3.8 PE

Also written on the photo VCD is the HTML version (this produces no sound) and a separate Roxio player version that plays using the attached Roxio player prog (this comes wt sound when played on the PC).

I tried recording an mp3 song on the WinOnCD Audio - Music Album. This is supposed to be playable on PC, VCD & DVD. Here I had the problems, the sound quality was poor, fluttered in intensity and was coming on & off.

I am having great fun wt this software. Will try more things this weekend & report back.

Steve Lai

-- Steve Lai (stevelai@magix.com.sg), May 17, 2001.


I'm happy that indeed you have made a high-res still MPEG VCD. I suppose you also have a CD-DA track in the SEGMENT directory. Few realize that CD-DA tracks are part and parcel of the White Book spec. We hope concerned parties note this before making yet again another VCD-compliant MPEG track from still pictures, tesekkur...

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

Dear Mehmet,

How do I technically check that it is indeed 704 x 576 (for Pal) ?

-- Steve Lai (stevelai@magix.com.sg), May 20, 2001.



There are s/w MPEG players intended for playing VCDs on your PC. Xing is one; it also plays the itemxxxx.dat directly, and you can find from properties exactly what the resolution is. Windows Media Player may or may not play, depending on whether or not the correct MCI driver is present in the system. It's tricky finding out which is which; Creative Labs bundle a MediaCenter program with some soundcards, but the pukey fact is they do not want ver 2.0 VCDs which means you can't see these stills and know their res. Even in Nero these itemxxxx.dat files are 345Kb apiece. I have not tried giving Nero a standard-res picture (like 360x240) to find out how big the resulting itemxxxx.dat will be. If the size is indeed different then this is another way of telling which is which.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), May 20, 2001.

Following yr answer, I managed to check out on the resolution of the dat file (345KB) made fr WinOnCD v3.8 Photoalbum using Window Media & VCD Cutter s/w.

The video size is only 352x288 !!!

Of course the question is how does one double it then. Although this resolution appears acceptable on my Panasonic TV. It will be nice to improve on this. I have made both VCDs and SVCDs - the difference is quite apparent. It will be nice to double the resolution to 704x288.

Any clues about where one should start anyone ?

-- Steve Lai (stevelai@magix.com.sg), May 20, 2001.


For some reason Windows Media Player does not always accurately reflect the true resolution of the clip being played. For example, when I preview type-2 DV AVI clips it always says the resolution is 360x240 when we all know DV has just one resolution and that is written in stone and fixed as 720x480 or 720x576. This is the case no matter what settings I tweak; there may be other ways and programs to find out. One can force the still MPEG resolution in VideoPack, for instance, and I can see indeed that 352x240 looks more wretched on playback on a TV than 704x480, despite both being declared 352x240 in Windows Media Player.

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

yes

-- a (a@a.com), July 17, 2001.

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