Can anyone point me to a tutorial on how to convert quicktime movies to the Video CD format, and then onto CD? I have a CD burner and I'd like to convert some of my iMovie projects to VCD format to send them to friends and family so they can watch the movies with their DVD players (which can play VCDs).
Thanks!

[lehman]

You could always record a quicktime on to CD and send that along. It wouldn't take up that much space. You could even include quicktime software (Mac and PC) for them to use if they don't have it.

It just so happens that the January and February issues of Videomaker - I mean Computer Videomaker - have good articles on creating video CD's and even a bit about DVD's. The February issue is the one with the iMac DV review.

Writing a video CD is really about compressing the video enough to make it fit on a CD. QuickTime Movie is a perfect format. The best thing is that iMac makes it easy. Just select how much you want to compress your video (you'll probably want to try the various settings to see what it looks like), and then render it. The rendering is going to take a good amount of time, so be patient for big files. After you have the file rendered, you can burn your cd.

Happy Shooting


[This message has been edited by PolarWave (edited 02-16-2000).]

but I think QT (pro) does not export movie as MPEG. QT native format just won't do. Toast even refuses to use that. I have as tried sparkle to convert QT into MPEG but Toast spitted it out also....um......any thoughts?

No, QT does not write mpg as far as I know, but it does write out in movie format. As long as you have the player, and since QT is free for playback, it is a great way to go. I imagine that is why there are two CD-ROM settings in iMovie. The only real drawback to using mov versus mpeg1 would be you can't playback in a standard dvd player. But at these resolutions, why would you want to? You'd be better off writing the video back to tape. (Don't tell my brother I said that, CD-V is popular where he lives.)

You shouldn't have any problem writing the data using toast. What kind of problem did you have?

[This message has been edited by PolarWave (edited 02-16-2000).]

[This message has been edited by PolarWave (edited 02-16-2000).]

Thank you Polarware. My problem is that I want to output my movie to VCDs for my friends to share also. You know, VCD players are cheap here in Hong Kong (about US45-50 for a made in China one). Thus, VCD is more versatile. You can play it on a VCD player or on a computer. With QT on CD-rom, you can't have that flexibility. Also, the media is much cheaper.

So, my problem WAS (yes, I gave up) QT doesn't do MPEG, the MPEG that sparkle converts is not recognized by TOAST as suitable data stream for VCD.....Unless I get a commerical product, no luck. But I do think spending hundreds of $ just for a not so often use is not very wise. So, do you have any idea about what shareware is good for the job?

Right, I'd like to do the same thing as davechiu. I know I can output from imovie to VHS, but I'm wondering how to go to VCD. From what I can tell even Premier (I have v.5.0) can't save movies as mpeg. A related question; what is the difference between mpeg (suitable for VCD) and Motion jpeg A, and B?

Does anyone have suggestions on a shareware program that can open QT movie files and save them as mpeg streams for use in VCDs?
Thanks!

[GORDYmac]

After browsing the Tech Infor Library for about am hour, I found this:


Response
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The movie needs to be encoded as an MPEG Layer 1 stream... I don't know if a DVD player will recognize a VCD encoded with MPEG Layer 2. It also depends on the CD mastering software you are using. I'm assuming you've already got software which will burn VCDs. Apparently Astarte M. Pack is the encoder of choice for such projects. You may download a demo from somewhere on their website:
http://www.astarte.de

You may also download the demo here:
http://www.download.com

Toast prefers(or rather insists) that you use M. Pack with the Toast Ready option(which is built into M.Pack).

------------------------------------------

I got this from the Company's site:
ASTARTE Software News
Press Release - Friday, January 7, 2000

ASTARTE Optimizes M.Pack 3.5.1 for G4 & OS9
Version 3.5.1 doubles performance!

MacWorld Expo, San Francisco - ASTARTE GmbH today announced version 3.5.1 of their MPEG encoding software, M.Pack. Specially optimized for the new Velocity Engine in the Macintosh G4, M.Pack 3.5.1 offers encoding speeds over twice as fast as the prior version. In addition, M.Pack now supports the creation of files larger than 2 GB under OS9, and will accept source movies larger than 2 GB.

With its dramatically increased performance and low price , M.Pack is the most affordable way to get high quality MPEG encoding on the Macintosh. It accepts any QuickTime movie as its source, and converts it to industry standard MPEG format. It can also be used in conjunction with Adaptec Toast to create Video-CDs.

M.Pack offers convenient batch processing, and the ability to save your preferred settings as a unit which can be easily applied to any source movie. The program encodes in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 formats, and even offers variable bit rate encoding for MPEG-2.

M.Pack is available separately for $399, and is also bundled with all of ASTARTE's authoring tools, including DVDelight, DVDExport, and DVDirector.

---------------------

Doesn't look like there's a cheap alternative. Hope this helps.

[This message has been edited by GORDYmac (edited 02-17-2000).]

[Ca$h68]

I found a cheap alternative. Its called pirate the Mpack. If anyone wants a BUNCHA VCD stuff, email me at "[email protected]". I have a VCD kit for the mac that includes TONS of programs and encoders, burners, all sorts of stuff for VCDs. Its all pirated though. Oh well.
Cya
Ca$h

[penginkun]

Ummm...don't think it's a good idea to offer pirated software in a public forum like this one... remember, IPs are logged here.

[chicken_tastes_good]

If your looking at converting from .mov to .mpeg -1 or -2 (and many other formats) the end all program of choice is Media Cleaner Pro. Though its not one of those programs you'd buy to use just once.

It will convert nearly anything to anything and you should be able to burn to toast.

Davechiu, my brother and I had this discussion just a couple of weeks ago. He lives in the Pacific Rim and was touting how great it was to have CD-V. If you have a player, yeah, it's a fine thing. I am not a fan of CD-V because of the lower resolution than DVD (and DV as we shoot with our cameras) and the need for multiple disks, not to mention it is not readily available in the US. If you are going to play on a computer, there is no advantage.

The media for CD-ROM and CD-V are the same, so the cost is the same.

Toast is capable of burning a CD-V, but it sure doesn't sound straight forward and you still need the mpeg1 data.

MPEG1 is used on CD-V's. Most current DVD players should play this format. DVD's use a form of MPEG2. miniDV cameras record in a different form of MPEG2. Even though CD-V resolution is less than DVD - and you can't do the sound you can do on DVD- I can see that it might still be cool to pop a CD-V into a DVD player. Then again, I can always just pop in in my PB and plug that into the TV .

In addition to Astarte, Digigami at http://www.digigami.com has a plug in for Premere, not cheap. (of course, pirated software jacks up the price for the rest of us.)

I am going to check out a couple of informational links and if anything looks helpful, I will post it here.

[chicken_tastes_good]

I was *not* inferring that one should pirate software for occasional uses. If you want to be able to perform a specific function on your machine, _buy_ the software required.

[Feathers]

MediaCleanerPro will rip an MPEG1 stream for you. For a DVD/VCD domestic player to recognise the data it MUST be named music01.dat - don't ask me why, but you can then write them to a normal CD-R.