I'm new to VCD and Mpgs. Recently my friend sent me some mpg files which i can view them in quicktime(Macintosh), but when I tried to burn as an VCD in Toast 5 Titanium, I've got an error message about the mpeg track. There are few questions I'd like to ask: 1. Is this caused by different layer of mpeg? 2. what kind of software i can use to verify mpeg-1 or mpeg-2? 3. do I need any kind of encoder/decoder to covert these mpg files?

I would very much appreciate if someone can help me thru this.

-- Fred Hill (fredh@mifx3.ipoh.org), June 26, 2001

Answers

Go to www.tecoltd.com and get the free Bitrate Viewer program. It can be used to identify whether your video is MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 and it will also tell you the bit rate of the video. VCD only supports MPEG-1 video at video bit rates under something like 1.115 Mbps. If you have MPEG-2 video or too high a bit rate, that might be causing you some problems. Also, often MPEG video is not correctly formatted for burning and must be demultiplexed (also known as "demuxed") and multiplexed using a VCD (or SVCD for MPEG-2) template before you can burn it. TMPGenc (www.tmpgenc.com) is free and can help with this. BBTools also can be used to demux and multiplex video. As you just discovered, the fact that a MPEG file can be played on a PC has no meaning as far as determining if it's VCD (or SVCD) compliant. If your video is within VCD or SVCD specs for bit rate, a simple demux/remux job should stop your problems. Good luck.

-- Jason (Jason.Shumate@sita.int), June 29, 2001.