Hi to All. For last two weeks I have been struggling with Win On CD 3.7 PE in order to create Audio only VCD. I have prepared couple of MP2 files (MPEG 1 layer II) with different bit rates (44.1kHz 224 b/sB this one is VCD approved standard as well as 44.1kHz 384b/s and 48kHz 384 b/s). I did it by ripping the same CD track using Qdesign, which supposed to be the best quality. You may also try Iomega RecordIt but you can not manipulate the bitrates. The files' sizes were for the 3 min song - 5Meg with 224 b/s and 9 Meg with 382b/s. Quality was rather exceeding MP3 but this is very subjective. Then using this VCD Extended icon I went successfully throughout menu creation by adding audio track to the still B otherwise it did not allowed to proceed (with no picture I mean). It seems that VideoPack 4.0 allows doing that but no experience so far. Anyway my question is: after Win On CD processed the whole thing and created VCD it turn out that files in Segment directory (the directory where all additional tracks are placed) were around 34 Meg each. This obviously screwed whole idea of having 100 songs on the disc and play it on DVD set top box B BUT those which were recorded on the VCD played more or less fine on my Pioneer 737 (more or less because Pioneer played only those coded 44.1kHz and 224b/s Bwhile my Panasonic portable P-10 played all of them except 46kHz one which was sounding slower but still was playing). Then I ripped wav file and let Win On CD to code it but the size was at the end the same - 34 Meg. So does anyone of you know how to make this bloody audio dat file small? The picture I was attaching to the file was around 70k so not so big to make 5 Meg audio to 34Meg dat. Please let me know if you have any idea. Regards. Marek

-- Marek Malinowski (marek.malinowski@skanska.pl), November 14, 2000

Answers

Putting pure audio files into the formats for VCD you are talking about will always put them to the original wav file, like 30-40 mb, so in this format, you can't put more than about 15 songs on one.

You can do what you want to do (i.e. put 4 hours of music on a vcd), but you have to do it in a different way. Use Xing encoder, encode audio file with no video. It will create a blank screen with audio behind it into movie formats, so basically and mpg file with 224 bit audio. The resulting file will be under 10 mb, therefore you might get 50 songs on a VCD. Drop those into WOCD and burn it.

Tygrus

-- Tygrus (tygrus2000@hotmail.com), November 14, 2000.

the tmpeg encoder can create a "audio only mpeg SYSTEM file".its different from an *.mpa or *mp2 file. a system file should have both audio and video, so i guess its a header issue. i dont know about wocd37pe, but NTI cd maker will accept this file to burn a vcd. i had been using this method http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003Stf

but that was before i knew about tmpeg. the only problem is whether my player will choke since the file probably contains no video.

-- ndumu (ndumu@hotmail.com), November 14, 2000.

Tygrus, how did you get this to work with Xing? Which settings did you use? I ended up with *.mpg files roughly the same size as the *.wav files, and it didn't play on my Pioneer DV-525 DVD anyway. Kevin

-- kevin (kevin@kevcat.com), November 16, 2000.

I only experimented with making these, I have yet to burn one up and see if will play, but turn down your video bit rate and leave audio up and you will get a smaller file, like under 10 mb. It will never be as small as a pure mp3 file. Thinking about this a little further, the VCD specs may prohibit that low of a bit rate so this may not be a solution people are looking for. An alternate idea is to look at some of these extended play cds coming down the line. There are 80 min. now, but I have heard rumours of 99 minute. I know thats not going to be the same as an mp3 disk, but its a start.

Tygrus

-- Tygrus (tygrus2000@hotmail.com), November 16, 2000.

Okay, I have found some things that work as well as some things that do work for me. Note that I have a Pioneer DV-525 and I don't assume that the following applies to all DVD players:

- DV-525 requires a video component in the VCD files. As a result, burning audio only in Xing as Tygrus suggested does not work for me. DVD recognizes the format as VCD but cannot play the tracks. Encoding with Xing does not create a blank video component. - Here's what does work for me: I used TMPGEnc to create a system file with both video+audio (not audio only). I encoded the .wav files at 300 kbps for video and 224 kbps for audio (without specifying a video source file). Unlike Xing, TMPGEnc automatically creates a black screen video component when no video input is specified (and video+audio system file is selected). I was able to play this VCD on my DVD player with no discernable audio degradation relative to the original .wav file. Note that I tried lower video bit-rates: I tried 100 kbps and 200 kbps. In both cases, the DVD player still played the tracks, but the audio stuttered. Using 300 kbps worked fine. I am going to see if some other value between 200-300 kbps will work as well. I also tried higher audio bit rates (256, 384) with the 300 kbps video rate, and the DVD player played it fine. Sound quality may be marginally better - hard to tell, but files are bigger and VCD capacity will be lower. - Using the 300 kbps (video) and 224 kbps (audio) bit rates should theoetically allow me to squeeze aboutr 175 minutes of audio onto an 80 minute CDR, and 162 minutes onto a 74 minute CDR. - Next I need to find out if burning my VCD with Nero in DAO mode while setting the intra-track pause length to zero will enable the tracks to played without any interruption between tracks. I will investigate this tonite, time permitting. Anyone have experience in this area? - Also, anyone know how set up a batch mode in TMPGEnc such that you can specify a wildcard? (e.g. tell TMPGEnc to encode all *.wav files to *.mpg with the 300/224 kbps settings)? It's a pain to specify each file and add it to the batch job one by one...

Thanks, Kevin

-- kevin (kevin@kevcat.com), November 16, 2000.

Followup question to my previous post: Once I have the audio-only VCD burned, how can I rip the mp2 audio from the .dat files and convert them to .wav or .mp3? Curious as I intend to make a huge compilation for friends so that they can choose what they want to burn to regular audio CD...

Kevin

-- kevin (kevin@kevcat.com), November 16, 2000.

Sorry for the multiple posts. I solved the "converting VCD DAT to WAV files" problem. You need to convert the DAT to MPG with VCDGear 2.0 (and make sure "Fix MPEG Errors" option is NOT checked - If this box is checked, VirtualDub will barf on the MPG file). Then open the MPG file with VirtualDub and do a "Save WAV". That's it.

Kevin

-- kevin (kevin@kevcat.com), November 16, 2000.

Last Update: Using 275 kbps for video and 224 kbps for audio, I was able to create an "audio" video CD that fit 3.5 hours of CD-quality music onto a standard 80 minute CDR. Very cool indeed.

I found that 275 kbps for the video the minimum rate I could use without the audio stuttering.

Kevin

-- kevin (kevin@kevcat.com), November 20, 2000.

success! i used TMPEGENC to create System(audio only) mpegs, with bitrates from 96 up to 384 and burned them with NTI CD-Maker Pro. my Sony dvp-c600d plays them perfectly. i made a "mixed" disk with regular vcd tracks(1150,224,29.97fps) along with the audio only tracks and it also plays. but be warned - neither disk, the audio only or the mixed, can be read in windows. now, the regular VCDs made with NTI work just fine in windows, i guess the *.DATs are somehow corrupted if they dont contain video. oh well, id make more sense to just play mp3s if u were gonna use a pc for playback, right? may those of us without APEX, RAITE, etc even the score! hehehe

-- ndumu (ndumu@hotmail.com), November 23, 2000.