I'm trying to fill in some gaps in my knowledge here, and anyone who owns, or has used, a DVD video player may be able to help. As may anyone who has used (or even seen!) a VCD player, or a CDi player with anything other that Karaoke disks.
The basics - the VCD format was created to put 74 minutes of MPEG-1 video on a standard CD running at standard speed. VCD players were made, but never popular in the UK. If you've ever come across one I'd like to hear of the experience.
CDi is similar, but became the main medium for Karaoke (ugh!). CDi players can play VCD disks, but may need a special module. Have you ever seen this done, and how well did it work?
DVD video shows more promise of taking off, being a higher-capacity, faster medium, supporting MPEG-2. This gives it equivalent quality to broadcast digital TV. Some DVD players will accept VCD disks, though not all. If you have a DVD player, does it claim to play VCDs, and if so have you tried it? If so, I'd like to know the model of player, and what the result was like.
Why do I want to know? Because with current technology, making you own VCDs is not a difficult or expensive process. However, I wonder if there is much point, unless you have something to play them on other than the computer. I don't think many people have VCD or CDi players, but DVD players appear to be getting more popular. If you really can play VCDs on DVD players with reasonable results, the idea makes more sense. It even helps justify buying a DVD player, and increases the likelyhood of being able to give a VCD to someone else and their being able to play it (CDs are a lot easier to post than tapes!).
Any info I can gather will hopefully make it into a future issue of CV. Feel free to either post or email replies.
BTW, if you're thinking about the possibility of cutting your own DVDs, right now you can forget it, the cost is astronomic. Despite some recent announcements on MPEG-2 support, there aren't yet any products, and recordable DVD will cost you a mortgage. Don't confuse things like DVD-RAM and DVD-W, none of these will read in a DVD player.
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Richard Jones
Richard,
How is the book? Nice to see someone on this board!
I was given the Jan 98 edition of Computer Video, and as I was considering buying a computer, devoured it, not understanding much, but by the time I had read it several times, had decided that any computer I purchased should have Vid ed capabilities.
In this Issue Bob Tomalski reviews MPEG capture cards, and in a Editorial "making MPEG Video CDs" talks about playback on a Phillips CDi.
I bought one, cost me £50 with loads of software etc and in mint condition, the cd music quality is very good, and I have 5or 6 films which in my opinion are much better quality than my VHS.
So I then took the plunge and bought several computers which were ment to have Vid ed capabilities, one was Buz based and one a ATI all In Wonder pro, disaster, both went back, and as luck would have it Mesh brought out a 350 p11 with a Marvel built in. I purchased, and immediately installed a HP7100i. This threw out all the IRQ settings, and I could not (or Mesh) understand why the computer kept crashing. Finally sorted it.
I then embarked on a quest to produce Vcd's to play in my Phillips CDi.
6 months down the road I "HAVE" achieved this, but the results are sub VHS standard. I read your tutourials on MSP and made VCD MPEGs from there, then burnt them using Adaptec CD deluxe ( if you wish to know more ask) but these were awful, I tried Xing slightly better, I read everything on the net including Trixters Desktop MPEG-1 FAQ at oldschool.org/mpeg/ but being a complete novice most of this was double dutch, words like DE-INTERLACE and RESAMPLING are not in my vocabulary, and all the settings are for NTSC.
If you want to get really confused go to the Matrox Users Forum and look up a thread with the name MJPEG to MPEG.....software or hardware.?
However I have kept trying, and bought a plugin for AVID CINEMA (sorry) by LIGOS. The results were slower but better than Xing. Then I tried one last thing, and this was to take the raw video direct from the Matrox VCR remote. encode in Xing and then burn. The results are the best, and play well in the CDi.
My computer has a DVD 2nd generation and it is possible to output the same VCDi disks from here, the quality being slight less, with more artefacts (puddles in my language) visible.
One quirk with the CDi is that sometimes it will play for several miutes then freeze, another is that none of the CDi original disks will run properly in the DVD, apart from a couple of music video disks. I do not know if a stand alone DVD player will play CDi sad if it can't.
All good stuff and has kept me out of the pub, but sadly all the money I have saved has been spent on, you guessed it!!
If by any chance you do know the correct settings in MSP to make decent MPEGs.......PLEASE TELL US!!!
I know this does not help much, but it is nice to get it off one's chest. If you wish to know which settings I have used to make CDi's then I will provide.
FtF
Btw Bob Crabtree has a Phillips CDi. ; > )
I have sucessfully used my Pioneer DV-515 DVD Player to play back VCD's i've created using: avi_io / dc30+ / Prm5.1a / Xing & Easy CD Creator or Win on CDv3.6. No problems at all, i've heard that the Pioneer & Sony DVD Players work best for VCD playback.
Now all i need to achieve is "Decent" quality VCD's with the above set-up!!
I have also managed to produce VideoCD's using Premiere 5.1 / DVMPEG (demo) plug-ins and adaptec Easy CD Creator deluxe - the quality is pretty horrendous but I've only just started.
From my own experience I know that they play on the Pioneer 717 and I'm pretty sure that they don't play on the earlier Pioneer 505's although I've yet to test the theory.
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Tony Moss
Just a belated "thanks guys" for your responses. Your information is very welcome and interesting, and for the moment "filed" until I work out what to do with it!
thanks again
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Richard Jones