Appending stills to MPEG

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Video CD : One Thread

I know this is a pretty basic question, but I have just started experimenting with VCD(just got my new CD-RW drive and capture card). How can I take images and place them at the end of my captured video either before compression or after compression but before I burn them to CD-R. I want to backup all of my home movies and since most of them take up two cds I want to put a nice "Insert Disc Two" message at the end of the first part. Any help is appreciated.

-- Joey A (sbx@japan.crosswinds.net), June 02, 1999

Answers

I haven't been able to find any program that allows you to edit mpeg files directly (and I have been looking, believe me.) Most video editing packages will convert the mpeg movie to another, more maneagable format, and then allow you to edit it. Ulead Video studio, for example, will allow you to open your mpeg file, edit it by adding titles, special effects, music soundtrack, etc., and then save it back into mpeg format. Of course the drawback is that it takes an obscene amount of time to render it back into mpeg format. I have a 400 Mhz, 64 Mb machine, and it still takes about 15 minutes of rendering per each minute of final movie... a 1-hour movie, would take about 15 hours of rendering; I can only imagine how bad it would be with a slower machine... If anyone knows of a faster way of editing mpeg files, please let us know.

-- Gil (gilg@whc.net), June 04, 1999.

There are a few MPEG editing software titles out there. I've used Cinax iFilmEdit and it works great. It doesn't take long to edit and save an MPEG file. The address is www.cinax.com, you can get a demo there. And for the other one who answered you, it takes about 15 minutes for every minute to compress AVI to MPEG on a Pentium MMX 200Mhz, so I don't think your 400 is too different from mine. I only have 32MB RAM and can still compress a one minute MPEG file from AVI in 15 minutes.

-- Mr.Ian Roswell (cyberlien51@hotmail.com), June 04, 1999.

Joey, The VCD specification allows for any number of pages and menus to be made, they allow you to navigate interactively through the disk, there's no reason to stop you to set a last page with a menu that say insert disk two.

-- Alex (fatkatz@hotmail.com), August 19, 1999.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ