VideoCD Format - Printer Friendly version

1. Formats

In mid-1993, Philips and JVC agreed to the Video CD specifications as later defined in the 'White Book'. The current version of the Video CD standard is 2.0 and has been published not only by Philips & JVC, but also by Sony and Matsushita (with Technics, National, Pioneer, Panasonic and others).

Video CD is a Compact Disc format which can store video sequences and high quality stereo sound in up to 98 A/V tracks. An A/V track contains play items which can be video, audio, or (up to 2,000) still images with or without audio. You can read the whole specifications over here.

What is MPEG?

A Video CD is designed to store digital video sequences in the MPEG-1 format. MPEG stands for Motion Picture Expert Group, which has defined the current compression method for digital video. Due to the high compression of the video data, it is possible to record up to 70 minutes of full-screen video and high-quality audio on a CD.

What is the difference between MPEG1 and MPEG2?

MPEG2 is a superset of MPEG1. Generally, MPEG1 is used for CD-ROM or VideoCD and MPEG2 is used for broadcast or DVD. One current difference between MPEG1 and MPEG2 is that MPEG2 has implemented variable bit rate. MPEG1 variable bitrate is not excluded in the specification, and it's coming...

If I have an MPEG1 file, can I record it to CD-ROM and have it work in a VideoCD player?

No. Formatting software for CD-Recorders record prepared files to VideoCD tracks. Even if the file is in the correct bitrate and aspect ratio, it has to be authored to the VideoCD format using VideoCD 2.0 authoring software.

What is VideoCD 2.0?

AudioCDs and CD-ROMs are very different. The binary data on each type of CD is fundamentally distinct (music vs data). Now, VideoCD 2.0, a third type of CD, designed for interactive multi-media and more is here! VideoCD 2.0 is as different from CD-ROM as CD-ROM is unlike CD-Audio.VideoCD is more structurally advanced than CD-ROM or CD-Audio. It provides full-screen and full-motion video. VideoCD works in CD-ROM drives.VideoCD 2.0 also works using both TVs and computers. PAL and NTSC TV systems are also both supported using inexpensive, stand-alone players. 'Interactivity' lets you jump from anywhere to anywhere, like CD-ROM. 'Still' photos and sound in varying quality resolutions are another part of VideoCD 2.0. CD-Audio, CD-ROM and VideoCD 2.0 'tracks' can all be used together on one CD and recorded together using many existing CD-Recorders! Use VideoCD 2.0 on CD-Recordable as a new, practical, communications tool.

What is the main difference with VideoCD 1.1?

A VideoCD 1.1 CD starts and runs to the end. Or, there are selectable 'tracks'. A 'linear play' VideoCD without 'stills' is a version 1.1 VideoCD. They only work on PAL or NTSC TVs, not both. A two disc VideoCD set can contain 2 hours and 24 minutes of full-motion, full-screen video AND 144 minutes of AudioCD quality sound. Version 1.1 VideoCDs work in version 2.0 players. Software like Toast, or Adaptec CD-Creator or many others write CDs in Version 1.1, not 2.0.

Is VideoCD video full-motion and full-screen?

Yes, VideoCD plays back in full-motion, full-screen S-VHS resolution on a television. (On a computer, the motion video resolution is 352 x240, the still resolution is 704 x 480 in NTSC). It is also possible to combine 352 x 240 video, with 704 x 480 'stills' and a common audio back ground to make very effective presentations. You can time the stills so they're on the screen for only an instant, or hours.

Can you put MPEG-2, like on DVD on a CD?

Yes, it's called SuperVCD.

How many minutes of video fit on a VideoCD?

In a two disc set, you can have 2 hours and 24 minutes of video, (74 min. per disc on each CD-R) including 16 bit stereo audio. 2 minutes per disc are required for the overhead for interactive control.

How do I make a VideoCD?

First, you have to capture video and/or audio to a computer hard drive using an MPEG1 encoder board. Or convert digital assets to MPEG1. Second, convert any still images to the mpeg 'still format'. Then, you combine the audio, video and still formats (assets) you have as required. Then you register how the assets are linked (to items or timecodes within items) and assign keypad functions to the assets and/or links. Finally, you write (record) the video, stills and control data to a CD-Recordable disc.

What is the video quality like?

A genuine VCD has very good quality and when played through a TV (rather than a PC moniter) the quality is very good. It is basically the same quality picture as a VHS tape (many would argue about that, but it is). The sound quality is much better than a VHS tape as it is CD quality. There is however a huge market for bootlegged VCDs in the east, these VCDs contain the latest movies that are still playing in cinemas and are highly illegal. There are a range of quality with these and these terms are used:

CAM - This type of VCD was recorded by someone in a cinema with a camcorder and the audience can be heard! The picture quality is usually OK but the sound is mostly very bad and hard to make out speech.

Telesync - These are also recorded in a cinema but usually on an expensive camera and they should have a seperate audio source (so the audience cannot be heard), these are generally very good quality and highly watchable.

Screener - A Screener is usually recorded form a promotional video tape which is sent to censors and film critics etc.. The quality is usually as good as a commercial VCD, some times a copyright message appears on the screen.

Work-Print - Each fram of the film is copied from celluloid (or another source), these are sometimes incomplete movies. The sound is usually perfect and the visual quality can vary.

LD/DVD - VCDs with this on the cover are taken (ripped)from DVD or Laserdisc versions of the film and the quality is as good as genuine VCDs.

All bootlegged VCDs fall under one of those catergories

How Does Video CD Work?

Video CD uses an international standard for video compression-MPEG-1 (ISO standard - IEC 11172). This compression technology allows you to store over 70 minutes of VHS-quality video material on a standard compact disc. The audio, although also compressed, is near the quality of Compact Disc-Digital Audio.

Where I can play VCD?

Target platforms for VideoCD discs are dedicated Video CD players, computer systems configured to support Video CD, CD-i players with Digital Video cartridges, Playstation (with an adapter), a N64 (with a Doctor V64).

Tell me more about VideoCD Players..

A dedicated Video CD player is designed to play only Video CDs and is not a general purpose multimedia machine. This kind of player might be likened to a VCR for compact discs. The play-back application for Video CD is contained in the player hardware and allows play back of the linear video material on the disc.

When you buy a VCD player, make sure it supports VCD 2.0 since some VCDs are enhanced version 2.0 and can deliver Special Playback Effect, photo quality still pictures, extra soundtracks, interactive games, as well as additional menus.

Enough..Tell me about my PC!

A computer system that features a CD-ROM/XA drive, an MPEG-1 decoder, and a host play-back application can also be used to play Video CD discs. The application can be included in the hardware (for instance, on a special board) or as a software application on the compact disc or on the host computer system's hard disk. This platform can provide more functionality than a dedicated Video CD player.

Ahh..CD-i can play VCD's ? (More info about CD-i at : www.icdia.org)

Video CD discs can also be played on any CD-i player that has the Digital Video extension. Philips players currently offer this extension via a plug-in cartridge, but this capability may be built into future CD-i players.

(In Help of Adaptec Video Cd there's "SEGMENT with a file name of ITEMxxxx.DAT where xxxx is a number. Items in this area cannot be played in a CD-I player". I have read thath Cd-i is no more supported by Philips, a Cd-i with Mpeg module can read ONLY VideoCd 1.0 standard.)

Like computer systems, CD-i players can allow the user to have more interactive control of play-back behavior through the use of features like on-screen, graphical tables of contents and supplemental material, such as behind-the-scenes interviews, commentaries, discographies, etc.versus analog factor.

2. Quality

General Guide - Page 2
( Source: www.oldskool.org/mpeg/mpegfaq.html) )

How about quality?

The quality of most MPEG encoders is directly tied to the quality of the input you give them. Remember the old adage, "Garbage in, Garbage out?" It's most evident when encoding MPEGs.

If you give an encoder a noisy signal with lots of weak broadcasting artifacts, the encoder will try to include all of that in the output, which makes for a noisy bitstream. If your source is extremely clean (or live, like the live output of a video camera), your end result will be clean. Some encoders are much better than others, but the primary factor affecting the output is the quality of your input.

Frames vs. Fields. Video is 30 (25 for PAL) frames a second, right? Wrong.

Video has a framerate of 30, but each frame consists of two interlaced fields. A field is a completely new picture. Here's another way to understand it: Each NTSC "image" is made up of 240 (288 for PAL) lines. A 480-line capture, therefore, has two "images" in it--the odd scan lines (1, 3, 5, etc.) make up the first image, and the even scantiness (2, 4, 6, etc.) make up the second image.

The second image is displayed 1/60th (1/50th for PAL) of a second after the first image, then you move onto the next frame. If you still have trouble understanding this, try playing a video with high motion in it in your VCR and then hit "pause". Notice how the freezed-frame tends to "flicker" or "jitter" quickly between two different images? That's because only one frame is being displayed, and is quickly alternating between the two fields 60 times a second.

I would recommend that you capture your video in PAL format. All the commercial VCDs I have seen from places like Hong Kong, Singapore etc. are encoded in PAL format, as this provides more lines and hence better quality. It is possible to encode in NTSC, but you would only do this if you intend to play the VCDs back on a player which only supports NTSC output.

A typical example of this type of player would be a NTSC home DVD player (if the player has been modified for multi-region playback then PAL is not a problem in this case either).

(In the case of a VideoCd there's no problem of region code or tv system output of player. If you play a Pal Videocd into a NTSC player, you will have cut about 40 lines.)

If the VCDs are only going to be played back on PCs, or with a PSX VCD adapter, then PAL works fine.

How about Software Encoding?

Software MPEG encoding takes a really, really long time unless you have a 500MHz (or faster) machine. Hardware encoders are either real-time (they encode the video as fast as it comes in) or faster than real-time (they encode off of .AVI files at about 3:1 or faster--a minute of video gets encoded in 20 seconds).

Does a hardware MPEG encoder produce better output than a software MPEG encoder?

It depends on the price, but the general answer is no. Consumer hardware encoders only encode the first field of a video frame and completely ignore the second field, so you lose motion quality. And because they have to encode in real time, there usually isn't enough processing time left over to do noise filtering, so the output can be noisier than a software encoder if your input is noisy.

Of course, software encoding takes forever and a day, so there is still a valid reason to buy hardware encoders. If you have very clean source material, the output of a hardware encoder matches (and sometimes exceeds, in special cases) the output of a software encoder.

What's the best hardware MPEG encoder in a consumer price range?

General consensus points to the Broadway being the best, with all others trailing slightly in terms of output quality. It's a bit pricy at $800, but it can deal with marginal source material much better than the others, and can also output back to TV (the Dazzle DVC can also output to TV). I am unsure if it captures and/or takes into consideration both video fields, however. (Broadway encode only video, audio is encoded by sound card of your hardware. You can have problems of audio and video synchronization. There's a lot of mpeg audiovideo encoders boards, check at :

www.bernclare.com/mpegprod.htme
www.heuris.com
www.digitalvideosolutions.com/products.htm

What's the best software MPEG encoder in a consumer price range?

- Latest Panasonic Mpeg1 encoder seems to have the best quality around. It comes stand alone and with Premiere plug-in. Others encoders are:
- Ligos' LSX-MPEG encoder. It's one of the fastest of the bunch, has a ton of options, and even has support for MPEG-2 if you want to experiment with DVD bitstream creation.
- Xing's encoder is just as fast, but doesn't handle low bitrate or high-motion clips quite as well as Ligos' encoder does. Also comes with a free Premiere plug-in.
- Darim's DVMPEG is another very good encoder. It has support for Mpeg2 streams and in general has good quality and speed.

How can I avoid the Windows 2gig .AVI file size limitation when encoding MPEGs?

Two ways: You can either generate many MPEG files from different clips and later join the MPEGs together, or you can generate the entire thing from your editing program.

Joining clips together is the cheap method; you can find several programs to do this at www.mpeg.org, but one popular program that does this under Windows is Camel's MPEG Joiner. (Note: If you are creating a Video CD, you might not have to join video clips together at all). Most VCD authoring programs allow you to create a "simple video sequence" that plays the MPEGs one right after the other.

There are a couple of ways to do a long, unbroken sequence. The method I use is to put together my entire project in Premiere, then use Xing's Premiere plug-in to export the entire timeline to a single MPEG file. You can also use Darim's DVMPEG to output an entire timeline to a single MPEG.

How can I avoid the Windows 2gig .AVI file size limitation when outputting to tape?

If you have a "prosumer" package, such as the Miro DC30+, you probably already have a special version of Premiere that can either work with files larger than 2gig, or can play multiple files from the timeline seamlessly after rendering transitions. In the Miro product, this appears as a plug-in called "Miro InstantVideo".

For those of us without the budget for such a product, there is an excellent shareware program that, in addition to being a powerful real-time NLE program, can string multiple pre-rendered clips together on a timeline and play them in sequence without dropping a single frame. Some of these programs are: DDClip, AVI/IO , RealCap.

I've used it to string together multiple Iomega BUZ-captured clips with the same resolution and audio parameters, and it played them one right after the other without any dropped frames. I was able to output 10 2gig clips to tape (about 24 minutes of video) using DDClip without having to touch the VCR.

3. Software

Software for VCD's - Page 3

After general guide you might want to know what software you will need in order to produce VCDs..Check Below to see which software makes the job

What software I will need?

The most useful software for VCD authoring is :

- Media Studio Pro (capture/editing)
- Adobe Premiere (capture/editing)
- WebFlix Pro (for converting VCD back into MPEG)
- Panasonic Mpeg1 Encoder (encoding)
- XingMPEG Encoder (encoding)
- DVMPEG Encoder (encoding)
- MPEG Producer Pro (encoding)
- QuickTime 4.0 Pro (import/export)

What about CDR Software?

From all the available CDR Software these are which support VideoCD :

1) Adaptec Ez CD Creator
2) Bs Recorder
3) CeQuadrat WinOnCD
4) CeQuadrat Video Pack 4
5) Nero
6) NTI CD MAker Pro

Best recording solution is CeQuadrat products. Both support VCD correctly. Video Pack, can be used for both authoring and recording a Video CD.

Video Pack 4 works both as a stand-alone software package and as an extension of WinOnCD on Win with all up-to-date CD Recorders. The software supports MPEG hardware - and software-encoding, and Video Pack now contains an internal AVI to MPEG conversion tool.

Only for recording I would suggest WinOnCD.

As for Ez CD Creator it never worked ok for me , either crashes or produces wrong VCDs. You should definantly avoid it.

Nero at last in his latest version added support for VideoCD. As it seems it supports it very good and you should test it..

NTI CD Maker Pro (standard package) seems also to support VideoCD. But it lucks on supporting CD-I devices (needs plug-in ,more $). So in other words you cannot play the produced VideoCDs on CD-I players. (Remember before buying it..)

Last haven't use B's Recorder to criticize it.

4. Making a VCD

Making VCD - Page 4

What i need for making an VideoCD? (Source)

1. An MPEG-1 capture device

Capturing directly to MPEG-1 has the advantage of taking up much, much less disk space than AVI and also doesn't require a long encoding time either. However, editing an MPEG-1 video stream is not as strainght forward as editing AVI's. I use Dazzle's paralell port DVC device for my MPEG-1 capture.

2. A Video Capture Board

For people using AVI capture boards and not MPEG capture boards I would recommend a capture board that is capable of MJPEG compression. The will greatly recude the amount of available hard disk space you will require while maintaining excellent video quality. I use the Matrox Rainbow Runner G-series which is connected to my G200 and a friend of mine uses a Matrox Marvel G-200 TV.

3. Something To Capture From

This can be anything from a simple monitor top video camera, VCR, Camcorder, TV tuner or DVD.

4. A Big Hard Disk

I have a dedicated 16.4GB disk for capturing. When defragmented I can get about 7mb/sec transfer rate. The faster the better but 3mb/sec should be OK for most people capturing MJPEG compressed AVI's. If your have an MPEG-1 capture device then a much smaller hard disk will be fine.

1 hour of MJPEG compressed AVI 352x240 : 4GB Approx
1 hour of MPEG-1 352x240 : 650MB Approx

5. A CD Writer

So long as your CDR/CDRW is supported by one of the CD writing applications listed below then you should be fine.

You will definantly look for the following specs :..

1. A Fast Processor

Encoding AVI to MPEG-1 in software is a time consuming task. The faster your processor the better. I use a single PII 400mhz which can encode half an hour a MJPEG compressed AVI to MPEG-1 in just over an hour using Xing MPEG Encoder 2.20. As such I tend to run batch encoding jobs overnight.

2. RAM

I don't know how important the amount of RAM is to the capturing and encoding process. But I have 128MB PC-100 SDRAM in my system and this seems to be fine.

3. PCI Sound Card

When capturing to AVI most boards recommend you have a PCI sound card. The reason for this is that sometimes when using an ISA based sound card there is latency in starting the audio capture. This results in a capture where the audio is slightly out of sync with the video. I have an AWE32 (which is ISA) and have never had this problem, but this is probably due to the excellent capturing software I use.

Ok. I read those..Give me more specific points of what I must do:

1) Capture full-frame video, i.e. both fields. (480 lines for NTSC, 576 for PAL).
2) De-interlace the video frames. This properly combines the two captured fields into a single frame.
3) Smoothly resize the de-interlaced frames down to your output size, typically 352x240 for NTSC, or 352x288 for PAL. (The "smooth resize" process is sometimes called "resampling".)
4) Encode the resized frames with a software encoder.

How I make Video CDs using Buz?

1) Digitize the source footage. I'm using the Iomega Buz, and I grabbed the material using 720x480 resolution (NTSC), 60 fields/30 frames per second, 100K/frame. Why didn't I just use 352x240 resolution, since that's what a VideoCD is anyway? Because capturing at the lower resolution grabs only 30 fields/30 frames a second, and can produce jerky video.

2) Using Adobe Premiere, trim the clips down to where they needed to be (since some scenes would have exceeded the 1GB MCI file size threshold, I had to go through in some instances with over- lapping captures and do a frame-accurate splice).

3) Right-click each clip in the timeline and select Field Options -> Always Deinterlace. (This takes the 60 fields/second of my 720x480 source footage and creates the 30 fields/second of the 352x240 destination clip).

4) Using Xing's MPEG Encoder and the Premiere 4.2 plug-in, I did a "Make Xing Movie" for each of the 'scenes' (since TNT airs the series with commercial breaks, and since I wasn't too inclined to put those in, I rendered each bit between commercials). I did each 'scene' separately to avoid Premiere 4.2's problem with drifting audio/video sync; again, I could be totally confused on this, but it all seemed to work, so I don't know.

This might be an unnecessary step. Note that this is the most time-consuming step; on my system (P166MMX, 128MB SDRAM, 5.1 GB UDMA Western Digital dedicated to video, 2GB UDMA Maxtor for the OS and apps) it took roughly 1 hour per finished minute to build the MPEG files. Note also that if the Xing MPEG encoder price is a bit steep, the free AVI2MPG1 program is said to create VideoCD-compliant files. I don't have any first-hand experience with this, however.

5) Using a DOS command prompt from within Windows, I went into the directory where the MPEG files created in Step 5 resided, and combined them into one: COPY /B FILE1.MPG+FILE2.MPG+FILE3.MPG+FILE4.MPG FINISHED.MPG (Yes, this works, at least on my system using my software.)

6) Used the NTI CD-Maker Pro 95 v3.0 software that came with my Memorex CRW-1622 CD-ROM burner to burn the FINISHED.MPG file onto a CD-R blank (Verbatim Datalife Plus) The most popular burners out now seem to all come with the Adaptec EZ CD software. Note that you will need the Deluxe version to create Whitebook VideoCD compliant discs; you can buy it for around $99.

7) Playback your VideoCD on a VCd or DVD player. Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn game consoles can playback Video CDs, but whether or not they can read CD-R media (almost nothing save a CD-ROM drive specifically designed to do so can read CD-RW, so don't even try).

The results look absolutely incredible when played back on a Sony DVD deck. In my limited experience (taking sample Video CDs shopping with me), I found that at the local Best Buy, only the Sony and Pioneer model DVD players will read burned (CD-R) Video CDs; the Panasonic, Toshiba, and RCA decks refused to initialize the disc.

How I make VCDs from VHS?

You need a capture card (such as a TV Tuner or a card with video-in), big HD space, fast computer and a software MPEG encoder. Also need approximately 250 MB / minute (15 GB for one hour). If that looks quite enormous you can capture 20 min files encode them and add them together into end. A hardware MPEG encoder could be used to reduce the need for that big HD space.

1. Connect your VHS to the the video-in on your card.

2. Start your graphic-card/tv-card capture application. Put Audio into 44 kHz 16 bit Stereo. Video should be at least in 352 x 288 (for pal) or 352 x 240 (for NTSC). If you live in America you probably have NTSC then select 29,97 frames/second. If you live in Europe select 25 frames/second. Select Full Frames (no compression).

3. Hit CAPTURE and Play on your VHS. If get messages that you loose frames then consider buying new (faster) computer or HD.

4. After you make the avi file use the software MPEG1 encoder (Panasonic or DV Mpeg). Launch the encoder and open your avi file. Select VCD-PAL (352x288 25 fps/s) if you captured in that or VCD-NTSC (352x240 29,97 fps/s). Hit Encode and wait several (h) until it ends..

If your mpeg's files are splitted use iFilmEdit to add the them together to one MPEG.

5. ASF to VCD

ASF to VCD - Page 5

The quality of a ASF movie is almost always worse than a good VCD and the conversion to MPEG will make the movie even worser. But if you want to play it on standalone DVD Player or trough a mpeg card you have to convert it.

You will need:
DVMPEG v5.0+
Virtual Dub

How I make it?

- Launch VirtualDub.
- Select File->Open video file and open your ASF.
- Select File->File Information to check the fps and size of your ASF file. If the movie is in 25 fps and size 320x240 you have to select Video->filter and add a resize filter and type in 352x288 and if the movie is in 29,97 / 30 fps you have to resize it to 352x240. If the movie isn't in either 25 fps or 29.97/30 fps you cant make a vcd. The sound will get desynched.....
- Select Audio->Compresion and select DVMPEG under format and Stereo under Attributes
- Select Audio->Conversion and select these : Sampling Rate 44100, Precision 16 Bit, Channels Stereo
- Select Video->Compression. Select DVMPEG and press Configure. (Probably you have to press CTRL-TAB to find the DVMPEG setup) Select Video CD under Stream Type and PAL 25 if the ASF movie is in 25 fps or NTSC of the is in 29,97/30 fps Under MPEG Adv. and under Global->Quality factor select 0 for best quality. Hit OK and then hit OK in the Select video compression window.
- Now just Select File->Save AVI and save your AVI anywhere. And the DVMPEG will auto save it to MPG. Now you can burn the mpg with any VCD Authoring program.

6. DVD to VCD

DVD to VCD - Page 6

How I make VCD from DVD?

This is the best and easiest wat to convert DVD to VCD. Since the info is similar read our DivX guide and just select as output (avi)! After that use your favorite Mpeg1 Encoder to get the proper encoded video file :)

7. Extended VCD (XVCD)

Extended VCD (XVCD) - Page 7

Source (Raite FAQ)

What is a XVCD video CD, or, one " extended video CD "?
That is actually a VideoCD according to the VideoCD 2.0 standard, however with MPEG videos (MPEG-1) encoded into higher resolution (up to 3.5mb/s). Currently we have VCD(1.0, 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0), VideoPerfect (2xVCD), CVD (by CCube), HQVCD (by VideoCD Forums) and SVCD. The SVCD specification covers both CVD and HQVCD. The XVCD actually confirms to both VCD and SVCD specifications. Therefore XVCD is valid. Any SVCD player will play XVCDs up to 2.6mb. The same goes for DVD players that support SVCD.

Advantages:
- Higher picture resolution
- Higher bit rate = fewer compression-artifact/better picture

Disadvantage:
- Plays only on SVCD capable (external) DVD Player ("only " VCD capable DVD Player do not play those CD)
- Goes at the moment only with MPEG-1 video
- Produces big files

Which resolutions are supported?
- 352 x 288 (PAL, 25 fps)
- 352 x 576 (PAL)
- 480 x 576 (PAL)
- 352 x 240 (NTSC, 29,97 fps)
- 352 x 480 (NTSC)
- 480 x 480 (NTSC)

(all formats, which supports also the SVCD format)

Data rate:
MPEGs can do with a data rate of 1150 up to 3500kBit/s to be adjusted. As everyone can imagine: Over so higher bit rate, the fewer fits on the CD (with 3500kBit/s will fit fewer than 30 min. into CD). The audio data rate must be 224 kBit/s as VideoCD specification indicate.

How I can make an XVCD ?

Software:
1. AVI_IO
2. VirtualDub 1.2
3. Adobe Premiere 5.x
4. Panasonic MPEG-1 Encoder Plugin 2.01/2.03/2.1
5. Nero 4.0.5.6

1. I have a BT848 TV Tuner Card. I use AVI_IO to capture into multiple AVI files.
2. Use VirtualDub "direct stream copy" to remove unwanted AV segments (beginning, TV commercial breaks and ending).
3. Import all AVI files into Adobe Premiere 5.x and insert them into the timeline.
4. Export using Panasonic MPEG-1 Encoder Plugin. Set the settings to "MPEG-1 system" and the bit rate to anything you like (1150, 2300, etc.). Audio to 224k Stereo.
5. Run Nero 4.0.5.6 and select VideoCD. Make sure the "Create Video CD V2.0 (CDI player) compliant CD" is selected. Nero will accept the MPG file and says "Video CD V2.0 compliant : Yes".
6. It plays perfectly in Raite 715 DVD player (352x288 2.2mb).

Warning: Do not edit the MPG file with an MPEG editor. The edited file is no longer Nero 4.0.5.6 VCD 2.0 compliant.

8. Rip & Duplicate VCD's

Rip & Duplicate VCD's - Page 8

A lot of people are having trouble writing proper VCD's that will work in everything, including VCD Players/PSX VCD Mods/DVD Players and more. Read below for more information you will need.

Do not copy the .DAT straight off the CD, in some circumstances it will work, but in most it won't so it's a good idea to get used to ripping a CD properly. A .DAT is not the same as mpeg, it's a slightly different format used for writing VCD's, so in most cases this .dat will not write a proper VCD.

What is wrong with just making a VCD from a .dat file?

A .dat file is NOT a .mpg file, it is simply a storage file. You can't just rename .dat to .mpg and expect any VCD creator to produce a Video CD correctly. Why not?

Because a .dat file doesn't have the same kbit/sec as a .mpg file. i.e. The Video stream bitrate is not correct. If the .dat is simply copied from one Video CD, and used to create another, the .dat will be place the SEGMENT dir, when a true Video CD has all of its .dat file in the MPEGAV directory. As a result the new Video CD created will not work in stand alone Video CD players.

In order for the .dat file to be placed in the correct directory by a VCD creator it must have the following bitrates:
Video:- 1152 Kbits/sec
Audio:- 224 Kbits/sec.

If this is not the case, then you cannot make a proper VCD from what you have. At this time I know no way of fixing the .dat file so that you can make a proper VCD. There is talk of using mpegsplit to split the .dat into Video and Audio, and then recombing.

What do you mean ? I take the DAT file, and write proper VCD's all the time

This may be the case, but is your VCD really proper ? Adaptec VCD Creator will ALWAYS write a cd that is compatible with the computer, but just because it runs with software VCD players doesn't mean it's properly written. Software players are just more forgiving than Real Stand-alone DVD/VCD players. There is a way to check to see if your VCD is properly written or not. If you VCD has one of the following symptoms it is a badly written CD and will not work in all players :

CD has only 1 Track total - On a real VCD the first track is simply a pointer to the raw data on the subsequent tracks. For every properly written VCD, there must be at least 1 track for every mpg file used to create the cd. So a VCD made with 4 mpg's will contain 5 tracks.

The main .DAT file is sitting in the Segment Directory, instead of the MpegAV Directory. Mpegav Directory is where all the movie information is stored. The Segment directory is where menu items, slideshows etc. reside. If you main dat is here, it's not good.

Yeah well, I only play my VCD's on the computer so who cares if it's not properly written?

When the standard for proper VCD's becomes accepted, your collection will become untradable. As well, as DVD players are creeping into the market, a lot of people prefer to watch their vcd's on the home theaters or big screens instead of the computer. Some day you will probably own a DVD player, wouldn't you like your collection to be playable?

Okay - I want a perfect VCD, how do I do it?

The best way to rip a cd is by using a complete disc image, most preferably BIN/CUE images. The reason is, this is the only way to preserve any of the 2.0 enhanced features on a VCD, many VCD's are starting to come with menu's, slideshows and more. If you just copy the mpeg data off the cd's, you will miss all of these enhancements.

But some people want to view their vcd's before writing to cd, you can't watch a .bin/cue.

All they need to do use use BinChunker or Bin-X or WinImage which can extract the mpg from the bin/cue/iso/raw.

How i can copy VCDs with CDRWin and DiscJuggler ?

Full Rip - CDRWin
1. Open CDRWin
2. Click on the 2nd Icon (picture of a cd) - Copy Disc
3. Select "Copy Disc" in the top radio buttons
4. Change your DATA Reading Speed to 2x (ripping VCD's at anymore than 2X can cause glitches or audio pop's clicks in the resulting file)
5. Take a look in the bottom left corner - it will display a track list, if your cd does not display at least 2 tracks, the CD you are trying to rip is NOT a properly written VCD. So you should forget about ripping this cd
6. If your cd is 2 or more tracks, Leave everything else alone and click Next
7. Choose the Copy to Image file radio button
8. Type a name for your image file, you can give it a path here as well ie. d:\aliencd1
9. Under Reading Error options change the retry count to 4, and set the On error to "ignore"
10. Click Finish and you are done. * note if you get an error reading your cd in CDRWin, try using a different reader, or try setting "On Error to Repair"

Full Rip - Padus DiscJuggler
1. Open Disc Juggler
2. Click on the File Menu and Select "New"
3. Choose from the wizard "CD Player to CD Image"
4. Click the Browse Button beside Destination
5. Type a filename. Then click on the pull down menu "Save As" and choose ISO 9660
6. Click Start and you are done. (Note if you create a .CDI image that is fine also, but you can only write a .CDI image within Disc Juggler, If you save as ISO you can use adaptec to write it.)

Someone sent me an MPG/DAT file - how can I test to see if it will write properly?

1. Open Adaptec Video CD Creator.
2. Drag the Mpg/dat in question into the data window.
3. A new window pops up with a preview of the mpg.
4. Click on the "Video" Tab of the Add New Item window.
5. If this says MPEG Segment item - it will not write properly. Video CD Mpeg Audio/Video track, or Mpeg System Stream are ok.
6. Once you create your cd, and go to make the image, when you get the screen which says CD Creation Setup click on the Summary Tab
7. If it says number of tracks is 1 - then it will not write properly.
8. If everything checks out so far, go ahead and create the cd. (Note : This test will always write a proper 2 or more track, MPEGAV VCD but - if the image wasn't ripped properly then it's possible you will get audio jittering, when playing on a dvd/vcd etc. There is no audio jittering test, so once again I encourage you to rip your CD's properly.)

How I convert DAT to MPG?

I recommend that you first try WebFlix Pro to convert your .DAT file. Install it, open it and select "File" -> "Convert VCD file to mpg". Other tool is DAT2MPG program. You can also use VCD Gear but the results might be different than the expected..

9. FAQ

FAQ - Page 9

Why VCDs apear to have 750mb of DATA?

When you are creating a DATA CDROM, you will note that there is a limit how much data you can store on a CD. The CD File System must divide the blank space up into clusters that are exactly 2048 bytes long. For a standard 640MB (or 74 minute) there are 335023 clusters on the blank CD-R. Therefore, the maximum amount of DATA that I can store on a standard CD-R is 686,127,104 bytes. If I copy the .DAT file of a VCD onto my hard disk, it will often be well over 700 MB! Note this is not using the special TDK extended capacity CD-Rs (www.tdk.com/n_80mincd.html)

It is because standard VCD format is dual-mastered: Like a Music CD, there are tracks that are NON-FileSystem tracks (a movie on VCD usually has only one track.) This "track" is not segmented into clusters. Because this track exists outside of a file system, a standalone VCD player does not need an "Operating system" to translate the CD File System into another file system (Like Microsoft's MSCDEX file translates the CDFS into a DOS File System). The VCD player would start reading track 1 like an Music CD player reads track one to play the first song.

"Dual Mastered" means that the file you see in the SEGMENT directory is just a "pointer" to the first track. What looks like a file on your computer is not really a normal DATA file at all. This is why it takes SO LONG to copy the file to your hard drive and also why you can get errors at the very end of the file copy.

Why do some VideoCD's look so lousy?

Bad MPEG encoding hardware, poor video sources, unskilled encoder operators, old technology, etc. are some of the reasons. As with any technology, there are always improvements as time goes on. A major problem is encoding that is done using 'preset' parameters only with no tweaking being done. Unfortunately, you just can't dump video through an MPEG1 encoder and expect to get a great picture out of it. As with anything, you get what you pay for. If you use good encoding hardware, from Beta Cam or better source and operate the encoding hardware properly, your clients will be amazed by VideoCD.

How to play a VCD movie?

You can use it with a VCD player connect with you TV, a computer with MPEG feature and a Pentium Base PC with Power VCD Player, Xing Mpeg Player, or Windows 95/98's Active movie player.

Where can I get a VCD Player software?

You can go to www.cyberlink.com.tw to download the PowerVCD, or www.xingtech.com to download XingMPEG Player. Note that Windows Media Player can also play VCDs..

Why my PC Hang when using a computer to see the VCD movie?

It sometime happened when the quality of the CD is not so good or your cd-rom is dirty.

Can I use my DVD player to play the VCD?

You can play VCD only in DVD that have dual lens (or comparable system). The point is: a DVD drive cannot read a cdr, so you need another (or a combo/modified/dual lens) pickup. In the specific case, Panasonic cannot read cdr. Sony and Pioneer yes. The more simple way is try with a cdr VideoCD before buy.

Is VideoCD CD-i?

VideoCD 2.0 is a type of CD-ROM X/A Bridge Disc using audio and video formats from CD-i. VideoCD is a sister technology to CD-i, without the complex OS/9 authoring requirements. VideoCDs will generally play in CD-i players with a FMV (Full-motion Video cartridge). High-resolution stills do not display properly in CD-i players. Interactive CD-i CDs will not play in a Video1.1 or 2.0 CD player although CD-i movies will.

10. Techical Specification: Tracks on VCD

Techical Specification: Tracks on VCD - Page 10

Source ( VideoPack 4 Manual)

It seems i forgot some important info. Remind me!

The structure of CDs is defined by a lead-in area followed by the program area containing user data, and CDs are finished by the lead-out area. Lead-in and lead-out area of Video CDs contain series of empty of CD-ROM/XA Mode 2 Form 2 sectors. Although the Lead-in area contains empty sectors there are so called subchannels (P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W) in addition to every sector containing information about the disc.

The main subchannels are P and Q containing control information, the disc's time code and a Table of Contents (TOC) giving the starting time of the tracks on the CD and allowing direct access by this way. In the program area of the Video CD there can be different kinds of tracks. Tracks are data units built from one unique sector format defined by the specification books. An Audio CD for example contains sectors conforming to the specification of the Red Book. On an Audio CD each track contains the data of one song, and track-jumping enables the access to the songs.

Data tracks of CD-ROMs conform to the Yellow Book. Access to the disc's data is done by a file system conforming to ISO 9660 standard. Green Book (CD-i) sectors, Form 1 and Form 2, have the same physical structure as CD-ROM/XA tracks. Form 1 sectors size is 2048 Bytes user data and used to store computer data. An additional error correction scheme increases data integrity. Form 2 sectors size is 2324 Bytes and used to store video and audio sequences, where only the mandatory CD error correction scheme and no additional one is sufficient. Bridge Discs combine green tracks with red or yellow ones.

How are tracks organized into VCD?

Video CD conforms to the Bridge Disc concept. The first track is a data track containing an ISO 9660 file structure and special information for CD-i players. The next tracks are MPEG-Audio-Video-Tracks each containing sequences with MPEG video and audio data.Behind the MPEG-Audio-Video-Tracks Red-Book-Tracks can follow. The maximum track number of a video CD is 99 including the Video CD data track (track 1). If the last tracks of the discs are Red-Book-Tracks, the Lead-out area may as well be encoded as an audio track.

11. Structure of VCD

Techical Specification: Structure of VCD - Page 11

Source ( VideoPack 4 Manual)

The logical structure of the Video CD is destined to allow access by track playing mechanisms of low-priced consumer players, by computer systems and CD-i players too. The first track on the disc is the Video CD Data track. File structure conforms to ISO 9660 allowing access for computer-based platforms. To support access to information of this data track by simple consumer players too, information areas for track playing mechanisms have to be at a fixed absolute location on the CD. The track starts with a two second pregap and 16 empty sectors at time code position 00:02:16 (MM:SS:FF).

At this point the PVD (Primary Volume Descriptor) begins that contains basic information about the disc such as the address of the root directory, the path table and the CD-i directory (the path table is an index to the file structure containing the addresses of the subdirectories. The purpose is to improve the performance of file access). At a fixed time code address optionally a Karaoke Basic Information Area (00:03:00)is positioned followed by the Video CD Information Area (00:04:00). The Karaoke Basic Information Area is used to store fonts, texts and access information for Karaoke CDs only.

The Video CD Information Area contains the mandatory files 'INFO.VCD' and 'ENTRIES.VCD'. INFO.VCD gives general information about the system, for example to what specification version the disc conforms, what picture size - PAL (352x288) and NTSC (352x240) - is used, if there is a special file for Karaoke, if there is special area, called Segment Play item Area (see below) on the disc, etc. ENTRIES. VCD contains a list of starting positions in the MPEG-Audio-Video tracks. On one disc there can be up to 500 entry points of addresses allowing direct access to parts of video sequences.

This area may optionally contain two more files called 'LOT.VCD' and 'PSD.VCD'; PSD stands for 'Play Sequence Descriptor', LOT for 'List ID Offset Table'. Both files contain control elements for preprogrammed interactive applications. These basic elements are a play list and a selection list, one giving a list of sequences or parts of sequences that have to be interpreted, the other describing the links and the ways to access audio or video sequences and still pictures.

The information of these files is interpreted by consumer players, the appropriate files for CD-i and computer platform contain extended selection lists. These files are called PSD_X.VCD and LOT_X.VCD. There have to be more information for these platforms to support direct access with a pointing device via buttons and highlighted areas. These files are in a folder named EXT. Additional information for the CD-i player is stored in a folder named CDI.

A folder named MPEGAV contains files with the MPEG-Audio-Video tracks. If there are any Red-Book-Tracks on the discs there has to be a folder named CDDA containing the audio files. Following Video CD specification version 2.0 not only MPEG-tracks may contain MPEG video and audio, the standard allows to store additional video, audio and still videos in a special segment of the Video CD data track (track #1).

This area is called Segment Play item Area, because the Pplay items are stored in fixed segments, accessible for players with track playing mechanisms. The length of each segment measures 150 sectors. A maximum of 1980 segments is allowed on one CD, each segment has a number starting with 1. If there is such an area on the disc there has to be an folder called SEGMENT with the files of the Segment Play items.

The file system on a Video CD 2.0 conforms to ISO 9660 standard. ISO 9660 standard specifies an hierarchical file system similar to the file system of DOS. The standard has 3 interchange levels, but in general when talking about ISO-9960 discs interchange level 1 is focused. This means that not more than 8 directory levels are allowed for depth, and only capital letters 'A' to 'Z', numerical '0' to '9' and the underscore character '_' its allowed to name files and directories.

Files names consist of at least 1 up to 8 characters and an optional extension of up 3 characters added behind a dot '.'. Directory names cannot have an extension. ISO 9660 Interchange level 2 and level 3 are allowing more freedom in naming files, but level 1 is an industrial standard supported by software drivers and many computer systems. This standard stands for interchangeability between different platforms. Non-ISO disc conform to proprietary standards of operating systems, for example Apples Hierarchical File System (HFS).

12. VideoCD Encoding

Techical Specification: VideoCD Encoding - Page 12

Source ( VideoPack 4 Manual)

The encoded video of the play items conforms to the MPEG-1 standard using the standard input format (SIF). The technical specifications for picture size and picture rate are:

352 x 240 pixel, 29.97 Hz picture rate for NTSC
352 x 240 pixel, 23.976 Hz for movies
352 x 288 pixel, 25 Hz for PAL.

The location of text within videos encoded for PAL format should be in a Text Area in the middle of the screen (352 x 240) not using 24 lines at the upper and lower border of the screen.

MPEG-1 video uses interframe compression. A sophisticated system of different kind of pictures eliminates not only redundant information within a frame but also between frames. To assist random access to the video sequences groups of pictures (GOP) are built, beginning with a so called intra-coded picture (I-picture) that uses information only form itself without any reference to another picture. I-pictures are reference pictures and access points to the video sequence.

Predictive-coded and bidirectionally predictive-coded pictures are both coded using information (motion compensated prediction) from reference pictures. P-Pictures are reference pictures too based on information from past reference pictures (I- or P-Pictures). B-Pictures are located between reference pictures using information from both, past and future reference pictures.

For example, a group of pictures (GOP) may have a structure like IBBPBBPBBPBB etc. or IBBBPBBBPBBB (see also figure XX). The selection of the appropriate GOP-structure depends on the content of the video source material, if there are many changes in the picture, many details etc. The selection of appropriate GOPs affects the quality of MPEG video. In general it is recommended to have at least one or two I-Pictures every second, the Video CD standard allows a maximum distance of 2 seconds between two I-Pictures.

Associated audio must be encoded conforming to MPEG-1 standard, Layer II with a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz, in dual channel mode for a dual language program or Karaoke, intensity stereo mode, or (joint) stereo, that considers interchannel dependencies of the two stereo channels for compression.

To maintain synchronization of video and audio both data streams are interleaved in MPEG Video and MPEG audio sectors. The data rate of Form 2 sectors (single speed) is about 1,4 Mbit/s, the video stream must be encoded at 1,15 Mbit/s, audio stream at 224 kbit/s, information that tells an MPEG decoding system how to handle the interleaved data streams is added by a multiplexer software. Optional Audio tracks are coded conforming to the Red Book with a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz, 16 Bit, stereo mode.

AV-MPEG-Sequences in the Segment Play item in track #1 may be encoded in the same way as those in MPEG-tracks. But different from that the data rate may increase up to 1,37 MBit/s depending on the rate of associated audio that may range from 0 to 384 kbit/s. There are three data rates for single channel mode (64, 96, and 192 kbit/s) and four rates for stereo, intensity stereo and dual channel mode (128, 192, 224, and 384 kbit/s). A segment can contain pure MPEG audio without video.

Still Videos in track #1 must be encoded as an MPEG Intra picture. Normal resolution is 352 x 240 pixel for NTSC and 352 x 288 Pixel for PAL. High Resolution Pictures are encoded in the same way, but the horizontal and vertical size is doubled. So NTSC size is 704 x 480 pixel, PAL size 704 x 576. There may also be sequences of still pictures filled up with padding packets to get convenient time intervals - even a mix of normal and high resolution pictures is allowed. Each Segment play item starts at the beginning of a new segment. According to the maximum number of segment 1980 Segment P play items may be defined.