Need help, want to convert miniDV to VCD

[JSFord]

I have a minidv camcorder with a firewire port. I would like to convert my
tapes to a VCD that could be shown on a DVD player on someone TV.
I can capture the video and Movie maker makes it a windows media
audio video file. So now what? Can anyone point me to a tutorial
that shows exactly how to do this? WIth free software if possible.

Thanks

 

[oldfart]

VCDHelp You want to make an SVCD if you want decent video quality. TMPGEnc 2 pass VBR works well.

 

[Tired of the Bull]

oldfart hit it on the head. If VCD is your goal TMPGenc is the only way to go. If you decide to do SVCD (which is a little less compatable with some DVD players) then the software choice gets a little muddled and finding free software is much more difficult.

 

[tart666]

I don't know if VCDHelp posted it, but Nero has a cool little tool to encode VCD's

It's free for all current Nero owners, with MPEG2 plugin available for $16 or smth.

It probably does not have as many options as TMPGEnc, but if you are looking for something easy and streamlined ...

 

[JSFord]

Thanks for help guys, I found this site:

http://furiousg.com/articles/2002.03.16_video_process/

That helped. I made it work, I did a VCD and Svcd but the
quality on both sucked. Just putting it on VHS would be better.

 

[oldfart]

To get good quality you need SVCD encoded with 2 pass VBR (variable bit rate). What length video are you trying to fit on a CD?

I can get 1 Hr of good quality video on a 700 Meg CD. I used TMPGEnc with my own tweaked settings. How did you encode the SVCD? What bitrate? CBR? VBR?

 

[JSFord]

I left everything at defaults. I used TMPGEnc to encode to Mpeg-2 and VCD easy to burn.
Can ou give me a detailed list of tweaked settings? Email me please.

 

[oldfart]

I emailed you a file. Put this file in your TMPGEnc/templates directory. This file is set up to encode 2 pass VBR, high quality. I did sacrifice some audio bitrate (96K) to increase video bitrate. This file came from TMPGEnc Plus version 2.57. I dont think you can use 2 pass VBR with the free version, but I'm not sure. To enable these settings, click on the "Load" at the bottom right.

Depending on how powerful your PC is, this may take a LONG time to encode. It takes ~ 3.25 Hrs on my P4 @ 2.4 GHz PC.

Assuming you have 1 Hr of video, the file at the end should be ~ 800 Meg, which is the maxium that will fit on a 700 Meg CDR. Dont use 650 Meg CDR. When you burn, use 1X. VCD Imager is fine.

 

[JSFord]

Thanks, Im going to try it tonight.

 

[oldfart]

Any luck?

 

[JSFord]

Havent had a chance yet. This weekends pretty full. I will lwt you know though.