DEAR FRIENDS, MOST OFTEN YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN THAT A MOVIE IS DISTRIBUTED IN TWIN-CD PACKS. THE FIRST DISK CONTAINS THE MAJOR PORTION OF THE MOVIE, FOR EXAMPLE OF 50 MINUTE DURATION & THE SECOND DISK CONTAINS THE REST PORTION OF THE MOVIE, FOR EXAMPLE OF 35 OR 40 MINUTES DURATION. IN ADDITION TO THE REST PORTION OF THE MOVIE, THE SECOND DISK ALSO CONTAINS TRAILERS OF VARIOUS OTHER MOVIES WHICH ARE OF NO INTEREST TO ME.

MY POINT OF INTEREST IS HERE THAT I WANT TO COMBINE BOTH THE PORTIONS OF THE MOVIE FROM THE TWO DISKS & LIMIT IT IN A SINGLE DISK. TO DO SO I HAVE TO CUT THE UNWANTED PORTIONS OF THE MOVIE & LIMIT THE PLAY-TIME TO 80 MINUTES AS THAT THE MAX. TIME A CD CAN PLAY. HERE I AM FACING A DIFFICULTY THAT THOUGH I AM ABLE TO CUT THE UNWANTED PORTION OF A MOVIE IN .DAT FORMAT, BUT I AM NOT ABLE TO SAVE THE SAME IN .DAT FORMAT. WHILE SAVING THE SHORTENED .DAT FILE, A CONVERSION OF FORMAT TO AVI OR MPEG TAKES PLACE & AGAIN WHILE WRITING THE SAME TO A DISK ENCODING OF THE FILE INTO .DAT FORMAT TAKES PLACE. THIS PROCESS CONSUMES A LOT OF TIME.

NOW I REQUEST ALL THE VIEWERS OF THIS QUERY TO KINDLY TELL ME WHETHER ANY VCD CUTTER IS AVAILABLE TO CUT A .DAT MOVIE FILE & SAVE THE SHORTENED .DAT FILE IN A .DAT FORMAT WITHOUT ANY COMPRESSION OR DECOMPRESSION. OR ELSE, IF ANY OTHER METHOD IS AVAILABLE TO ACHIEVE THE ABOVE PURPOSE.

-- B.M.BARAL (rkl_baralbm@sancharnet.in), February 07, 2004

Answers

Please don't type in ALL CAPS in the future. I had mercy on you and decided to respond anyway - this time. You can't really do what you want. However, perhaps I can suggest a better way to accomplish the same thing. Download a copy of VCDgear (do a web search) and use it to convert your DAT files to MPEG. Use an editor of some kind to put them together in MPEG-1 format and the final result should be OK for VCD burning. I use the editor MPEG2VCR (http://www.womble.com). They have a cheaper version, MPEGVCR, that only works on MPEG-1 video, which is what you need. MPEGVCR will need about 5-10 minutes to put your edited video together, but that's all.

-- Root (root@yahoo.moc), February 09, 2004.

you can use any file cutter designed for spanning floppies or CD's. It is not important that it cuts cleanly between frames.

-- (foo@bar.com), March 27, 2004.