Hi guys & girls!

I am new to this business of Video CD's.

My experience of the last 5 years is pure NLE using regretably an old DC20 (PAL) capture card, premiere 5.1, Ricoh 6200a burner adaptec software including 3.5?ezy creator LSX mpeg encoder. I produce avi's as the end product and would like to get into actual video cd's.

I have made mpeg-1 files which play full screen on my computer (17" 1024 wide) based on a frame size of 384 x 288 and I am impressed.

I have trouble understanding what frame sizes are required for video CD's because those quoted elsewhere and in the LSX help are not 4:3 ratio and cannot be produced directly from my card - I have to re render, does it mean I need to crop off the sides of my captures to get the correct format to get into VCD. And what do you need in the way of a player when DVD players seem to contain the note "do not use CDR disks"? Where do .dat files come into the equation? I thought from reading that mpeg-1 was the base. HELP!

Some simple instruction would be appreciated from someone out there that is full bottle on the subject. I have not been able to find anything simple that explains what I should do next - even on this site. Dumb bell that I am!

-- Ross McLennan (rmclennan@esc.net.au), May 14, 1999

Answers

Without getting into too many techincal details. You will get a headache plus this answer would be a book. I have decided to tell you to get a hardware encoder board. The cost of a hardware encoder board is cheaper than a software encoder. Currently my favorite is the Snazzi. It is internal PCI, has connectors for everything including stereo sound. Can capture a *.dat file(VideoCD Movie file...*.mpg is an MPEG-1 Movie File) on the fly in real time. That means if a movie is tne minutes long...the encoding takes ten minutes(done at the same time something is captured). Snazzi will also relieve the stress of having to figure out Resolutions(not ratios 'cause the output would look ugly). Also the Snazzi can do your frames per second for you(PAL systems are 320x288 @ 24 frames per second(fps) and NTSC is 320x280 @ 30 fps). Before you go into why not 640 x 480 or 800 x 600, etc. Video CD was designed for movies(duh!) but also designed for television...TV resolution is 640X400 or less depends on age and brand. Computers can scale back the resolution to fit the picture (although you may want to drop to 640x480 16 bit color just so some Hollywood films look good). This is why DVD does not quite yet look as sharp as promised(DVD res. 780x480)...TV is not that high yet. Getting back to my point. The Snazzi will capture the movie at the right resolution and FPS and it cost only $250.00 compared to the XingMPEG Encoder at $230.00...for $20.00 more you get something that will make capturing easier and less of a headache. Some DVD players can play CDR discs but those would be dual laser machines. You can also get some silver on silver CDRs...email me for the web address of the store. The Silver On Silver discs make producing for a DVD player easier and will work on many more computers. If you still need some help you can email me at the address above.

-- Will Shakes (soldier0081@hotmail.com), May 14, 1999.