RM to VCD

[mattward2k]

I wanna burn some VCD's - but the vids are currently in RM format and I want to get them out of it and into, maybe not MPEG straight away, but a more usable format so that they can be easily converted into MPEG (such as AVI, MOV, DV etc).

Also - I'm using Nero 5.5 to make my VCD's - anyone use a program that they could say is better? Nero also has a menu creation feature that just basically lists all the video tracks that you're gonna burn (heh - Bombtrack anyone?) but do these actually work on PC-DVD players or normal tele DVD-Players?

And another thing, I'm currently using the following formats to encode my VCD files: MPEG1 352x288 25fps PAL 800kbps Video & MPEG1 LayerII 192kbps Audio - is it possible to drop that audio bitrate and will it still play alright on DVD players as well as VCD ones?

Thanks to anyone that replies

[jshumate9]

Do a web search and look for tinra (This Is Not
Real Anymore). Tinra can convert RM to AVI and
you can then convert the AVI to MPEG-1 if you
want. You may be disappointed with the results.
Real Media is probably the worst video encoder
there is. It drops frames and has ridiculously
small resolution to save disk space. Tinra will
not make your RM videos look any better than they
are. You may not fully appreciate how bad RM is
until you convert it to AVI.
In theory, Nero menus work with standalone DVD
players. I've never made menus with Nero as I
have no use for it. I assume they work on PCs
too, but again, I have no personal experience.
Nero menus seem to usually work, but there may
be the oddball standalone DVD player that refuses
to play them. Nothing in VCD or SVCD works 100%
of the time on 100% of the players.
Uh, do you realize that your video bit rate is
REALLY small? VCD requires a constant video bit
rate of 1.115 Mbps. While you can go below it or
above it, you are no longer making VCDs. You
are making XVCDs, which are not compliant with
VCD standards and may or may not work. I don't
know of any reason why they wouldn't work with
a lower bit rate, but I just warn you that when
you deviate from the standards, all bets are off.
I make SVCDs because I think VCD quality is poor
at 1.115 Mbps. I can't imagine doing it at .8 Mpbs. Isn't your quality awful? Yes, you can
drop the audio bit rate below 192 kbps. I don't
remember what the lowest acceptible value is,
probably either 128 or 164. Your video bit
rate is so low that I can't imagine why you would
want to drop the audio even further as it won't
save you that much space. Are you trying to do
something like get 2 hours of VCD video on a
single CD-R? Yikes! I've seen VCD compatible
video made at bit rates around .6 Mpbs and it
was unwatchable. Of course the only person you
have to please is you, so if you don't mind the
loss in quality you can certainly record at bit
rates that low if you want to as long as you
realize that standalone DVD players may or may
not have a problem with it.

[mattward2k]

Actually, the source MPEG file that I had had a bitrate of 512kbps, so if anything I was just increasing it to see if it cleaned it up a bit with the extra space, which it did. I'm extremely happy with the quality, sitting watching it on my TV, it looks fine. I've tried this on a few DVD Players now, new and old, as well as my PC DVD player and they all seem to play it fine, so I guess they're not that fussed, which is what I presumed really. Whether it's now classed as a "VCD" or "XVCD" I don't really care, I'm not exactly a business selling these things on the market, as long as I can watch them I'm not fussed really.

[UncasMS]

check out vcdhelper (http://www.vcdhelper.com)

[mattward2k]

Er, thanks. why?....

If you're talking about the change from VCD->XVCD because I changed the bitrate the compatability issues with standalone players are more to do with increasing the bitrate rather than decreasing it because you have to have a fast enough DVD-Player to read the increase in bitrate, although DVD, although using VBR generally has an average bit rate of about 6Mbps, and XVCD generally goes up to 3.5Mbps, so increasing the bitrate on a VCD file to be played on a DVD Player should be ok as it has to read DVD's faster anyway.

[Suraj]

Hi
i downloaded the Tinra and TinraGUI along with the VirtualDub softwares and tried to convert a Real media video to avi but nothing happened.
When i click on convert, a small window named "Set Compression for encode(TINRA.EXE)" popped in and asked for the Compressor and key frame Every..... and when i clicked on OK, it just gives an avi file with 0 bytes which cann't be played in any player. I tried so many times.
i even downloaded the previous versions of the TINRA and tried, still the same thing.
don't know what is wrong.
Please help me out
Thanks
Suraj

[setarip]

You do understand that you have to have an .AVI codec installed on your system...