[grovberg]

I just thought I'd throw this out there and see if anyone else had thought to try this...would it be possible to burn a DVD-R in the VCD format and have it play in a standard DVD/VCD player? It occurs to me that you could fit something like seven hours of standard VCD files onto a 4.7 GB DVD-R. Any thoughts? I'll be glad to post results if you guys are interested.
-Grover

[Theodour]

I do most of my DVD encoding in mpeg 1, 352x240 for that very reason. It works well, though I do bump my encoding rate up from the VCD 1.1 mbs to 2 mbs, and I've been using VBR too. Only problem is DVDstudio pro won't preview the mpeg1 stuff, so you have to burn to a DVD-rw or a miniDVD to test it.
Note. The Mpeg1 must either be an Elementary stream, or you must dmux it if you burn with the toast encoder. There is some freeware out there that does it.

Originally posted by grovberg:
<STRONG>I just thought I'd throw this out there and see if anyone else had thought to try this...would it be possible to burn a DVD-R in the VCD format and have it play in a standard DVD/VCD player? It occurs to me that you could fit something like seven hours of standard VCD files onto a 4.7 GB DVD-R. Any thoughts? I'll be glad to post results if you guys are interested.
-Grover</STRONG>

[grovberg]

That makes sense. Just to clarify, you are burning it in DVD format, and not VCD format, right? Is there a major difference?
-Grover

[jtc]

Originally posted by grovberg:
<STRONG>That makes sense. Just to clarify, you are burning it in DVD format, and not VCD format, right? Is there a major difference?
-Grover</STRONG>

No, he's talking about burning VCDs, but doing it on a DVD-R disc rather than a CD so you can get 6-7 hours of movies/tv shows etc. on one disc. VCDs use mpeg-1 audio and video at 1150 kbps. DVD uses mpeg-2 video and audio (mpeg2 AC3) at much higher bit rates.

[Theodour]

No, I really am talking about DVD. MPEG-1 fits in the DVD spec, it is just not used on commercial DVDs very often because it doesn't look as nice. This is from the DVD Studio Pro manual (p 144):
"The DVD standard supports video material encoded in either MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 format ... MPEG-1 is used when picture quality is less important...."
Of course, it also goes on to say that it must be 1.8 mbs CBR and I consistantly use 2.0 mbs VBR, so it seems pretty flexible.
Side note: I still encode the audio in AC-3, but just use two channels. It is a smaller file. Although I havn't tried it, you could probably use MP2 audio as well.

Originally posted by jtc:
<STRONG>No, he's talking about burning VCDs, but doing it on a DVD-R disc rather than a CD so you can get 6-7 hours of movies/tv shows etc. on one disc. VCDs use mpeg-1 audio and video at 1150 kbps. DVD uses mpeg-2 video and audio (mpeg2 AC3) at much higher bit rates.</STRONG>

[grovberg]

Yes, that's the actual question I was asking...the format of the disc itself, not the MPEG files. Thanks for all your help. Now I have to decide if it's worth dropping the cash for DVD Studio. I'm trying to not *cough* find *cough* software anymore, and $1000 is a lot for something that's really a hobby.

Thanks again!
-Grover