Compressing DV to CD?

[harpoonface]

Hi all. I am a newcomer to the world of digital video, so please forgive meif this question is silly.
I wanted to know if anyone could tell me how can i compress some Camcorder fooage onto CD, and what compression methods should i use? I am using a Mac G4 with OSX.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

H

[gary172]

I am assuming you really mean (V)CD and not DVD.
I am not familiar with Mac or OSX, but the method you would use should transcend differences between platforms.
1. you need to 'capture' the camcorder footage as .AVI and transcode to MPEG1 (VCD) or MPEG2 (SVCD) or capture/transcode on the fly to MPEG1 or MPEG2.
2. Edit if required and burn to CD using software capable of encoding the captured file to VCD or SVCD format.

The compression settings (quality) are mainly a function of MPEG1 (352 x 240, video data rate 1150kbps, audio data rate 224kbps, mpeg audio layer 2, 44.1 KHz, Stereo) or MPEG2 (480x480, video data rate of around 2300kbps, audio data rate around 224kbps, mpeg audio layer 2, 44.1Khz Stereo). You can vary these slightly.

I don't know what software comes built in with Mac OSX, there maybe stuff you already have.
You will need a firewire port for the camcorder (you don't say what your camcorder is, if it is an older VHS type or if it has a firewire output. You will need some type of capture software and capture device/capture card).

Here are some links to get you started:

http://forum.digital-digest.com/

scroll down to the 'VCD/SVCD' section.

You might want to start here first: A very very comprehensive link that a lot of folks often refer to:

http://www.videohelp.com/

Look at the 'What is" and "How to" sections in the left pane.

http://www.videohelp.com/vcd

http://www.videohelp.com/svcd

I did a quick MSN search (Mac OSX video capture software) and got a bunch (>7800) of hits, so there should be no issue from the software front.

By the way: I have converted VHS and BETA tapes to VCD, SVCD and DVD. The amount of effort is pretty much the same regardless of format. I have had some difficulty in getting VCD's and SVCD's to play on standalone DVD players. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. It all depends on the player. They all play OK on my PC.
As an experiment, I have captured/encoded the same VHS tapes to VCD, SVCD and DVD. The DVD quality is far and away better than VCD and SVCD (obviously it's not better than the original), and there is not an issue in playing the DVD anywhere.

VCD and SVCD are heavily compressed files, and a mediocre camcorder tape gets pretty marginal after conversion to VCD.

If you don't have a DVD burner, get one. they are real cheap now, and so is the media (< $.40 US). Plus you will have a lot of other uses for it.

Best Regards