Please help I've a problem with VCD!

[Schuimpje]

I've ripped a movie on a dvd to my harddisk. After that I've converted the movie with Flaskmpeg and the panasonic encoder to the mpeg-1 format. When I play the movie on my PC everything seems to work fine. I've cut the movie in two pieces with TMPGenc. Again, when I play the first or the second part on my PC there's no problem. I've put the first part of the movie on a CD-rom with Nero 5.5.4.6. When I play this CD-rom in a stand-alone dvd-player then there's a problem. The movie starts playing and after 5 seconds video and audio 'suspends' for a fraction of a second and then plays again for 5 seconds. This goes on and on and on and... Not a nice way to watch a movie. Does anybody have an idea of what I could have done wrong?

[setarip]

When you use TMPGEnc to split the file, make certain to set the mode to "MPEG1-VideoCD" (NOT "MPEG1(Automatic)" or "VBR"). Then use NERO ONLY to burn the files as VCDs.

Let us know of your success ;>}

[Schuimpje]

I've used that option (MPEG!-Video) with TMPGenc. And it was the first time I used NERO to burn a cd. Any other suggestions left?

[setarip]

"I've put the first part of the movie on a CD-rom with Nero 5.5.4.6. When I play this CD-rom in a stand-alone dvd-player then there's a problem."

Does the CD itself play properly on your PC? If it does, then the problem would appear to lay with your standalone DVD player. It might be as simple as running a DVD/CD cleaning CD in the standalone for about one minute (Maxell makes one that sells for about $10 US - make sure it's "DVD/CD" and not just "CD"). If that doesn't help, the laser may be problematic.

If the CD DOESN'T play properly on your PC, then you know you've got a problem in its creation. See if it plays properly on another PC. If it does, then you'll know that the problem lays with your player. If it doesn't, it's either a burning problem or afile creation problem.

Let us know of your success ;>}

[benderman]

Which Bitrate did you use? Maybe you selected more than 1150kbps (video) + 224kbps (audio). Many DVD-palyers can't play higher bitrates than that. Had the same problem with SVCDs with more than 2600kbps (audio+video).

[Schuimpje]

Mr Seratip,

Thanks for your practical advice. The cd plays properly on my PC.
So, it could be my dvd-player. But.. I've made another cd with a sequence of other programs and the result was a cd which could be played on my stand-alone dvd-player. So, I don't think it is a laser-problem. The only option left is using a cleaning CD. Or do you have more tips?

And mr Benderman the bitrate I'm using is 1150 CBR. TMPGenc shows the following message in a display-field:
" MPEG-1, 352*288,CBR 1150 kbps, Layer-2 44100 HZ 192 kbps"
Do you think that the 192 kbps in stead of 224 kbps could cause the problem?

[benderman]

The 192kbps works with MOST DVD-players,but a friend of mine bought a very cheap DVD-Player (from Aldi, Germany) wich seems to have problems with any other audio-bitrate than 224kbps (VCD-standard).

[setarip]

"I've made another cd with a sequence of other programs and the result was a cd which could be played on my stand-alone dvd-player"

Are both CD-rs the same brand? I ask because some standalone DVD players are "finicky" about how well, if at all, they handle different brands of CD-Rs.

[Schuimpje]

Mr Seratip

No, they were not of the same brand. As soon as I have the opportunity I will give it a try. I will let you know what the results are. Thanks again for another practical advice! By the way : is there a brand of cd's which has never any problems with any dvd-player? Or does every brand dvd-player has its own "favourite's"?

[setarip]

Unfortunately, there is no universally accepted CD-R. I've had good success with the following brands:

Prime Peripherals
ArtMedia
Princo (both the Princo brand and store brands with Prico printed around the CD's hub)

Also, MANY DVD players will recognize MANY brands of R/W CDs.

[Schuimpje]

I don't know if those brands you mentioned are available in my country. And concerning the cd r/w: Somebody else suggested me to use another method to get the wanted results. First I had to "Simple-demultiplex" the audio and video with TMPGenc and to encode it with BBMPEG again. I've done that and there were no problems till I started to burn the cd with Nero. Nero told that the file had the wrong format to burn it as a video-cdfile.Nero gave me the opportunity to decode the file to good format. So I did and used a CD R/W to burn the file onto. My dvd-player was able to play the movie "smoothly" but the quality of the video was very poor and the audio sounded 'metallic' like most robots in SF-movies use to do. So perhaps you're right, I can try it with the original method I've used before and then using a cd r/w. It seems to me that it's a matter of trial and error (over and over again) before you get what you want.

[benderman]

If nero converted both (audio and video) it seems that not only the audio had the wrong bitrate, but the video was somehow wrong, too. Standard VCD only allows one format for audio and video. For PAL it's 352x288, 25fps, 1150kbps video, 224kbps audio. If you use any other settings it may not play on our DVD-player.