.Dat file??? mpg??help!

[Smokeater]

hey guys, quick question, if i have a vcd and the file is in .dat format what do i do with it? how do i burn it to a disk or how do i play it on a pc?? if i load it into gspot it tells me its an mpg or mpeg, so i tried renaming it to a .mpg or .mpeg , and it still wont play. any ideas guys?

-Smoke

[ormonde]

"i load it into gspot it tells me its an mpg or mpeg, so i tried renaming it to a .mpg or .mpeg , and it still wont play. any ideas guys?"

Try to see if it will open in VirtualDubMod, then preview it. If it plays, save it as an AVI and re-encode it back to mpeg format with TMPGEnc.

[Smokeater]

ok ormonde it loads into virtualdubmob and i can preview it but how do i save it?? when i try to sav as an avi it saves it at like 27745mb, thats waaaayyy too big for one file... what next??

-Smoke

[ormonde]

"when i try to sav as an avi it saves it at like 27745mb, thats waaaayyy too big for one file... what next??"

You could "compress" the AVI by going to "Video" > "Compression" and choose a divx codec to compress before you save as AVI. If you have the hard disk space, save as "Uncompressed" (I know the file size is quite large). When you convert it back to mpeg format, the file size should be much more manageable, and you can delete the AVI file when you are done.

[Smokeater]

in the video compression screen it doesnt show divx?? it only has cinepak, intel and a few microsoft codecs....maybe i have to put the divx codec in the virtualdubmod folder???

[rsquirell]

I just had VirtualDub convert a 450MB .mpg to a 3.8GB .avi...gad...but I loaded that AVI into TMPGenc, selected the DVD template (and trimmed the edges) and wound up with a 280MB MPEG2...go figure. BTW...I couldn't wait to delete that 3.8GB monstrocity.

[ormonde]

"maybe i have to put the divx codec in the virtualdubmod folder???"

If you don't have a divx codec installed, download the 3.11 codec (older but pretty stable). It should be free. If you want the latest, divx 5.11, you will have to pay for that one.

[Smokeater]

i do have a divx codec, that came with the k-lite codec pack, i assume its the one for encoding b cuz thats what the install said,,, so if i h ave it why wont it show up in virtualdubmod?

[ormonde]

"i do have a divx codec, that came with the k-lite codec pack, i assume its the one for encoding b cuz thats what the install said,,, so if i h ave it why wont it show up in virtualdubmod?"

I'm not sure why that is, but since the divx 3.1.1 codec is free, I would download that and install it. VDM should recognize that one.

[megamachine]

Smoke, if you want to keep the .dat file as an .mpg file, you can also try converting the .dat file using TMPGEnc. In the File menu, open MPEG Tools, then go to Cut and Merge. Load the .dat file there, set the format to MPEG-1 (not VCD), select a new name to save as, then hit Run. If you have two .dat files, as VCD movies are often split onto two CDs, you can do this to both, and then load them back into Cut and Merge and join them into one MPG.

[Smokeater]

thanks for your help so far guys!!
il try that tonite for sure! but i also got a hold of a program called vcdgear which im told is supposed to convert all movie file types, but everything ive tried with it so far doesnt seem to work so ill try what you said , ill post my results tomorrow thanks again for all the help..

-Smoke

[Smokeater]

thanks mega and ormonde for all your help, mega that method DID work for me, bu tnot only that but i had to get the mpeg layer 1 decoder codec b cuz thats why i couldnt play mpegs, so now when i try to play a .dat file it acually plays. only question i hav eleft is if i have a vcd or svcd, how do i burn it? they have a few different folders, EXT, Mpeg2, Segment and SVCD, what do these folders mean and do i just burn them all to a cd?? or if i use nero to make a svcd does it automatically make those folders???

thanks again,

-Smoke

[ormonde]

"thanks mega and ormonde for all your help"

Glad (We) could be of help

"only question i hav eleft is if i have a vcd or svcd, how do i burn it?"

Use a program such as "Nero" to burn. Nero has a VCD and SVCD template where the folder structure is already there so all you have to do is drag the files on top of the folder and burn. I'm sure other similar burning programs would work well also.

[rsquirell]

Before you start making a VCD or SVCD you may want to check your stand-alone DVD player's documentation to see if it will play them. If it does, TMPGenc Plus should be able to create one for you. If all you want to do is store the vid on a CD for playback on your computer...you can simply make a "data disc" using Nero with no further processing.