This website is unbelievable. Everyting I wanted to know (and didn't want to know about VCDs). What a great resource. I've made 2 VCDs so far using EZ 4.0. First one went fine. Burned on CD-RW and plays on my Sony DVP-S530. The second one (which happens to be the second half of the first one) plays fine on my PC, but hangs about 3 minutes in on my DVD player. At first I thought it was a bad disk, so I re-recorded it, but it hangs in the same spot. I figure it's an error in the encoding, but why wouldn't I have a problem on my PC? Drives me nuts. I got it from an image of a VCD using Win on CDR, which I converted using VCDgear. Do you think I'll have better success converting the image back to the VCD using the original software, or do you think the file is corrupt and my DVD play will never be able to handle. Please Help!!! Thank you for any help you can give! Reginald

-- Reginald Crenshall (rgc101@hotmail.com), April 22, 2000

Answers

Did you close the disc? I beleive I saw somewhere.... that if you do not close the disc and leave the session open... it will cause problems for standalone players.

-- Flancer (huongch@bigfoot.com), April 22, 2000.

Well, I used the wizard to create the disk. I don't know it that closes it or not. I'll check into it. Thanks for the tip. Reg

-- Reg (RGC101@hotmail.com), April 22, 2000.

I had the same problems with 4.0. 3.0 works fine. I didn't take the time to figure out what's wrong with 4.0. I just use 3.0 because it works.

Good luck.

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), April 23, 2000.

Well I never did use the wizard..and my VCDs work just fine.

-- Flancer (huongch@bigfoot.com), April 23, 2000.

Been there .. done that... I once went crazy trying to burn a VCD just like you. Always hung up at the same spot. Or would burn okay but hang up when trying to play it with a DVD box. Found it simply to be a bad source file. Did you do any editing (cut and paste etc.) with the source before you authored it? Some editors have trouble with joining mpegs. Also this is a common result of using that "copy a: + b" etc technique of joining mpeg files. The "copy" file technique will work mostly with playback with PC players but will have trouble most of the time in some DVD set top players. You have to use a GOP accurate Mpeg editor to join and cut mpeg files or you may run into this.

However this could also just be a bad source file in which case you'll have to "re-encode" it. If you used the "copy" type joining method, you'll still have to re-encode and then join them properly with an Mpeg editor.

-- Rich (richa@home.com), April 23, 2000.

Definitely sounds like a bad mpg file. Tabletop players don't handle errors as well as the PC does and they tend to hang up when they encounter one. Some are better than others at handling them.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), April 24, 2000.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try getting the file again. Rob.

-- Reg (rgc101@hotmail.com), April 24, 2000.

It's also a good idea to use the best media you can find. Audio only blank CD's don't have to meet the same standards as ones needed for video. Since you are saying it happens at the same spot everytime that does suggest a problem witht the mpg file. Another thing I noticed is that you are playing it on a Sony. Unless Sony has changed recently most of them won't even play homemeade cd's at all and some of them will only play them on CD-RW disks. The Pioneer 525 is the one most popular on this site and it plays everything you throw at it.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), April 24, 2000.

The following could be the reasons: 1. Check the media. 2.Encoding error. Sometimes before duplication \recording playeback the selection on the system. I hv faced this problem in audio, getting stuck for no real reason. And then playing back once sorted it out.3 Your question on not getting stuck on the PC is coz of the Error Correction Codes. There is alot of difference between those in the commercial players and PCs.

-- Ramprasad (anirudha@eth.net), April 26, 2000.