so ive probably read a countless number of posts and tutorials on how to burn a vcd over the past 2(?) years. ive got a countless number of apps for burning vcds. and i havent got the slightest idea which is the best method to use or which is the best app to use.

i know quality = dvd/encoding time, but dvds are too expensive for me and i dont have time for extensive encoding. "im just short of crawling into my own oven" over this.

what is, in your opinion (anyone), the best / most definitive method for getting the best result with a vcd, and using which app?

DVD's too expensive? Not sure where you live but i get my DVD's (Fuji's) for like ?0,50 a piece. And then i'm not buying huge amounts. It's way cheaper to burn 6 movies onto that than one on a cd as VCD.

Or you're talking about using VCD instead of a DVDR for one movie?

I can not willing allow a single thread mentioning VCD without mentioning how horrendously poor quality the process is, how wasteful it is, and how inferior and antequated it is. Its ritualistic, but imo its important info about VCDs.

Firstly, about the price thing... I concur is dvdr media more expensive than 6x cdrs?
Cost wise, over here, for the equivalence of 6 x VCD vs 1x DVDr with six movies, you make a saving on price and get greater quality.
You need a burner, which are 2 a penny for many years now, so add in that overhead, if you download a lot then it soon makes up for it.

The price of xvid playback these days is very low, a modded xbox can be bought for less than a lot of cheap dvd players, and is very future proof and compatible with a lot of formats. You never have to do format conversions and can use cheaper media.

Doesn't take too long for the price to become hugely in DVDr avis favours, and the quality is tenfold.

So if you still aren't biting on the cost thing, which really is the case these days, then the next up is quality. VCD is pitiful quality in contrast to mpeg4, i mean its a really old standard, mpeg1 has been redundant for over a decade, mpeg2 is better but its size means your driving the costs up to produce the same quality results.

Both of these factors hint at the problem here, best result with a vcd is like a group of patients getting together to decide who has the best aids.

The process of ripping to vcd is so antequated, that all the guides reflect this fact and your really just splitting hairs over what crummy method your using, they are all crummy. Of course you can spend 8hrs in CCE and still get an inferior result to a much shorter mpeg4 encode, but vcd ripping is, and always will be more error prone, the software just isn't available because the motivation to use the format is very low.

Don't get me started on converting avis to vcd, you might as well just not bother, but some people can tolerate it which is completely beyond me.

So if the error rate, the inferior quality, the extra effort, the increased running costs and the constant ridicule you'll get if your use of vcd publically (:wacky:) then it really doesn't make much difference what you do.

So after all that, if your still hell bent on commiting a war crime, just go to http://www.vcdhelp.com and pick a random guide. SVCD/KVCD and all the other cancer patient siblings, offer slightly increased quality and substantially increased filesize, and i'm guess that's what you meant... but ultimately if your talking about format conversion, ie. mpeg4 to mpeg2/1, not mpeg2 -> mpeg2, then your in for a very lossy rip in the end, probably riddled with errors requiring hours of tedious work to fix.

The most definitive method, however, is not to touch vcd with a ten foot barge poll (otherwise its the standard response, CCE + avisynth, same answer its been over the umpteen years vcds been around and died)

Just in case you missed it and don't want all the why all you get are crap applications explaination:

Summary:
Doesn't make that much difference, avoid all in ones, your going to have to work to fix ar, etc. your going to have sync and audio problems for format... thats just vcd life

well, i think im stuck in noob limbo. i didnt even know it was possible to fit 6 movies onto 1 dvdr, even after everything ive read on burning movies. for some reason i was under the impression that a dvdr can only hold 120 min no matter what the compression is.

ill abandon cds altogether and go back to combing through the mounds of info on how to burn dvdrs.

You just burn the files you download here onto a dvd, if the rips are 700mb you still have some space left, not enough for another movie though. You should know that you can not play those movies on your normal dvd player, you need a standalone divx player for that. I highly recommend an xbox and mod it with PCA's guide on this board because that way you won't have trouble with different file formats, codecs, subtitles etc.

xbox is like four jesuses. I use my xbox loads, one of the best bits of hardware and most used. Certainly never use it for games.

think of discs as data, 4.38GB per DVDr That's six movies in mpeg4 with space to spare.

The time is misleading on discs, 80min cds refers normally to audio encoded at a constant bitrate, which happens to be 700mb DVDr is much higher than that.

In terms of fitting video on disc, it depends on bitrate allocation and a whole host of things, generally your best off ignoring time and ignoring it.

VCD is antequated so is best abandoned altogether.

I gotta agree with spud on this one. I was encoding avi to vcd for months.

Then i bought an avi player and never looked back (avi players are another issue, eh spud? )

Instead of using 2 or 3 discs per film i burn 3 films onto a dvdr, usually 2 AC3 files per film, and watch it on my widescreen with superb sound.

Sorted

[controversy]Avi players are ALL shit, if they aren't now, they will be in 6 months time[/controversy]

Modded Xbox is all you need and now you can pick them up s/h for ~?50 there really is no excuse

errmm ok......my excuse for not buying an xbox is twofold....

1) I like to own as few Micrs*ft Products as possible!!!!!

2) It`s not exactly astheticaly pleasing is it!

I just convert to dvd...and cant spot any quality loss on my 38" WS tv

dvdr`s arent an issue.....i get 100 for ?20....and could get 500 for ?60...so.......

BUT ON THE VCD THING.......IT SUCKS AN DEFINETLY ISNT WORTH THE TIME AND HEARTACHE IT WILL CAUSE.....SERIOUSLY!

Fair enough

Fair enough
Fair enough, but my comments were about avi players not about VCD, DVD or about AVI formats / containers

Couldn't agree more

I couldn't care less what formats or what machine people use, as long as they don't moan when it doesn't work on their crappy standalone divx player .

I always like to give my 2 cents.

xbox is my most used bit of electronics i actively use (barring my server, obviously), testiment to how good it is for reasons beyond its purpose... i don't even know where my pad is...

my xbox is on now actually.

anyway, some points to mull over.
1. even when it costs microsoft money?
2. crystal doesn't look as crappy, and even then, that's why cupboards were invented.
Does look butt ugly though, luckily i'm a guy so i don't care too much

I'm really against format conversion, particularly downgrading codec. AVI to mpeg2 I hate, even with 6 passes in CCE I can still see it looks worse than the avi.

Whilst avi to DVD is far better than avi to vcd, exactly the same arguments hold.

However, I hold the line with pca on this, as long as people don't moan about the quality degradation or divx/xvid not working on their standalone it doesn't matter if you encode it to rm or something hideous. You wave your rights to complain when you wasted your money on a crappy standalone

For all its faults, the fact that as a console the xbox is crappy (ie. a cobbled together pc) means that in fact as a piece of hardware its essential.

I'd still recommend people look into it, i've yet to meet an unsatisfied xbox owner. The ironic thing is most of the people were bitterly "oh but its microsoft" before i made them buy one.

Seems like I should buy an Xbox then rather than a standalone dvd player... Hmmm but do you mean 360 or the old one? And if anyone could give me a few hints if I should look for a particular version, would be very happy

The old one any version

Thanks

np

There's a softmodding guide here too

yes the old one, get one from ebay 2nd hand or something. Then its just acquiring mechassault, etc and an official memory card and softmodding.

Guys, what you think about this one that I can get here in Croatia, it's cheap with these specs written out:

10GB Hard Disk Drive
Direct play all region DVD Movies
Direct play all games
Support for CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW medias
Evolution X dashboard
Additional software uploaded
MP3 & DViX player
GBA/GBC, C64, Atari, SNES, N64 emulator

I wouldn't bother buying one pre-chipped unless it's a good price.

How much is this xbox and how much are they available for (second hand and / or new)?

Well it's about 290 dollars but there ain't any cheaper stuff cause I do live in Croatia and it's completely new straight from the shop.