I had a movie that was in .avi format? I used TMPGenc to convert it to .mpg (i just loaded the video ntsc format). I then used the easy cd creator 5 platinum's video cd creator function to create my vcd. Whenever I opened it, it said that my file did meet white book specifications. So I burned it. To make sure it worked, I opened the .dat file with my windows media player and the movie worked fine. Well, then I put it in my pioneer dv-440 and the screen said video cd pbc and then stopped. Why is this movie not playing? Can someone help?

-- Joey Owsley (jaowsley@hotmail.com), January 22, 2002

Answers

It's hard to say for sure. Since you said that EZ CD Creator says your file was within spec, the video is probably OK. The fact that WMP played means little. WMP would play it even if it was out of spec. Pioneer typically has good support for CD-R, although I have heard of cases where models sold in Asia did not support it at all. I'm not familiar with this model, so you might check the DVD player compatibility list at www.vcdhelp.com and see what it says. I have a few suggestions. Try burning to CD-RW. If that works, maybe your player doesn't like the brand of CD-R you are using. You don't say what brand you used, but I generally advise people to avoid cheapo no name brands where you get 50 CD-Rs for 10 dollars or something like that. You could also try using Nero (www.ahead.de) to burn with and see if you have better luck. Nero is free for 30 days. It will also do a compliance check on your input video prior to burning.

-- Jason (Jason.Shumate@equant.com), January 22, 2002.

I CONVERT LOTS OF AVI FILES TO MPEG AND STRAIGHT RIP DVDS SO FROM EXPERIENCE SOME PIONEER DVD PLAYERS DONT LIKE CDRS. AS SUGGESTED BY JASON BURNING TO CDRW WILL PROBABLY WORK AS WILL SWITCHING PBC OFF WHICH IM NOT SURE U ARE ABLE TOO WITH THAT MODEL.

-- SCOTT C (SCOTTC79@HOTMAIL.COM), January 23, 2002.

Joey, I have witnessed a very similar problem with a friend of mine. To make the story short... I have no problems using TMPGenc to convert AVI format movie into MPEG-1 Video CD format (following the white books specs very carefully!) and then using Roxio VCD Creator 5.0 to burn it into a VCD that will work fine in my DVD player. However, my friend was not able to do it using the exact same steps, settings, software and CD-R brand (Fuji) that I was using (like your case, the VCD's that he burned were playing well on the computer, but his and my VCD player would not play them at all). After checking several things we found out that his machine was burning only one track with all the files in it (including the actual movie). This is not good, each movie (mpeg) file must be burned in its own track. So if you have only one movie file to burn, you should have at least 2 tracks and 5 files. The 1st track contains the VCD info/misc files (4) and the second track will contain the movie file. After many hours of investigation (and many tries and software update) on that problem, we found out that his MCI Mpeg Video Driver was an old version (ActiveMovie vers. 4) were as mine was newer (DirectShow (old ActiveMovie) vers. 6.01). That seemed to be the only difference between his configuration and mine. I have not talked to him since then, so I do not know if he updated it yet or if it would solve the problem. But surely this is something to think about and, perhaps, others might come with different ideas on how to solve this problem. I am almost certain that the problem lies in the fact that his software burns all the files in the same track. There must be a way to get his Roxio VCD creator to burn 2 tracks (1 track for all the misc files and another for the movie file).

Anyway, this was a long blurp but hopefully it will be helpful.

Mike

-- Mike (mjma@king.igs.net), January 25, 2002.

Joey, to finalize my previous answer....I just talked to my friend and he solved his burning problem (described above) by using a different software instead of Roxio VCD creator, namely NTI CD maker 2000. His problems are solved and he now burns perfectly working VCD's (with at least 2 tracks as described above). Cheers,

Mike

-- Mike (mjma@king.igs.net), January 26, 2002.

i am the coolest

-- richard sandford (rorybreaka@hotmail.com), February 21, 2002.

i am still the coolest and i rock my world

-- richard sandford (rorybreaka@hotmail.com), February 21, 2002.

I think roxio solved that problem now but u know, too late??

-- yep (13@earthling.net), March 27, 2002.