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If you really want a good review of products or technologies before making any decisions, I recommend checking out the posts on vcdhelp. Should be very impartial.

I recommend checking out www.vcdhelp.com. They have tons of links and guides and howtos on various tools. Here is a link to their authoring page.

I use DVDLab to author dvd's myself, which you can find here. It works in most cases, but sometimes I use ifoedit to do really advanced things. However, Ifoedit is not for the feint of heart.

RareWares is a good place to find some of the more obscure codecs.

Another resource for codec info (in addition to the codecs themselves) is VCDHelp (aka DVDrHelp).

That site is a reference I've gone back to many times. There's lots of good info there on things like backing up your DVDs, burning them back onto CDs as VCDs, and finding out what your component DVD player is capable of.

It saves the repeat visits to the store returning devices that will only do 1/2 of what they lead you to believe they do.

Unfortunately I have a very old DVD player that will only play VCD's.

I think you got robbed. ;-)

Seriously, -R is the most compatible for current DVD players and +RW is the least (excepting, of course, DVD-RAM). But your best bet is to visit vcdhelp and see what your DVD player (and those of your family and friends) supports.

That web site also has a ton of tutorials on the authoring and burning process.

• Speed: You can convert a two hour long DVD movie into a high quality DIVX movie within 5 hours.
• Space: Two hours long of DVD quality fit on a 750MB CD-(R)W
• Ease of use : Every try to copy a DVD? One-click DVD to DIVX ripping is a lot easier
  than having to make VCDs. (Even newbie guides can be a little cumbersome)
• Cost : Ever price out DVDRs? They're hella expensive. Compare that to, say, a 100 pack of CDRs after rebate.

This brings up an interesting point

VCDHelp has a really good set of resources and forums for these types of questions.

...Samsung isn't as suit happy as you claim. 'Hacker friendly' has nothing to do with a given companie's attitude...it has everything to do with engineering, however. Look on the net for Samsung DVD player hacks...you'll find several.

As for the capacity...maybe some of the space is for storing movies and some is for camera operation...you really have no idea what 'size' drive it is. You're just guessing, all around.

Give Samsung a bit of time to get another rev. of this camera to market (and for the price to soften)...or give me a couple of days to talk to the boys over in the DV camera division, and I'll let you know all about it...

Does anyone know why the Memorex mvd-2028 is no longer listed on the list of players that support divx files? When I looked a week ago, it was listed.

Does anyone know why the Memorex mvd-2028 is no longer listed on the list of players that support divx files? When I looked a week ago, it was listed.

This page has a huge database of players and tells you how well they play VCD, SVCD, XSVCD, DVD-R, etc. I used it recently to make sure my new Panasonic could player SVCD's.

Actually that search is now showing the Memorex MVD-2028 DVD player as supporting DivX as well as almost everything everything else, for as little as $60!

Memorex MVD-2028

You're right, apart from the DivX. Vcdhelp.com lists 4 players that can handle DivX and they are not cheap. This is important - I can download a whole movie in MPEG4 in a single CD-sized chunk. Equivalent quality for SVCD would require twice or three times that. On a 512kbps cable that matters. I currently have a Tivo, a DVD player, a PC and a VCR, all for watching video. If they could all be squished into one box, I'd buy it. They could, but they aren't yet, so I can't buy one. If I can knock it together myself for the cost of one of the above units, I'll do it.

While you might like to wait for industry to sell you what you want, many people prefer to get there a year or two sooner under their own steam.

Hell, some people (no names :-) have been ripping DVDs to DVDR and CDR disks for ages using freely available shareware.

There are even some bloody excellent websites like VCDHelp.com and Doom9.net which explain the whole process in simple to follow steps and provide discussion forms for those who have questions or problems.

What's the MPAA going to do now? Force these sites to charge a subscription and demand that all the revenues be handed over to them?

Hey, maybe the MPAA *have* found a new business model -- let people help others make backup copies of your wares and then sue them for huge sums.

Probably sounds pretty damned good from a movie exec's perspective -- let others do all the work then just raid their wallets at your leisure.

Visit VCDHelp.com where they have a Linux forum.

I use it constantly to help friends & family to choose what DVD player (standalone) to buy, so they don't buy something that *only* does DVD and pay through the nose for it.

Actually, SVCD is just a lighter form of MPEG-2 (thats the DVD format for those of us playing...). And there are some great quality SVCD rips that I know of, but there is a lack of quality when launch times concern the distributing groups and of course hd-space. But i do agree that most VCDs if not all are of terrible of quality and are only good for me to poop on.

in case you need some facts.. here you are.

SVCDs actually use MPEG-1, not MPEG-2. They're quite different beasts!

sorry, you're wrong. VCDs are mpeg1, at a specific constant bitrate (somewhere from 1-2mbps) and mpeg1 layer2 audio at 224kbps. the resolution is 352x240, I believe. haven't done them in a while, and I don't have time to look it up. SVCDs are mpeg2 with variable or constant bitrate video (standard doesn't limit what bitrate, in a certain range) and constant bitrate audio. ntsc is at 480x480 I think. much, much, much higher quality. hence the name, S(uper)VCDs.

Why would super video cds be mpeg1? that would be pretty dumb...

ok so I took the time to look up and prove my point, vcdhelp says the following for ntsc svcds (pal changes the resolution):

Video:
max ~2524 kbit/sec MPEG-2 (if the audio is in 224 kbit/s), audio + video bitrate max bitrate is ~2748 kbit/s.
480 x 480 pixels (CVD 352x480)
29,97 frames/second
23,976 frames/second (NTSC Film)
with up to 4 Subtitles

Audio:
from 32 - 384 kbit/sec MPEG-1 Layer2
with up to 2 Audio Tracks

Extra :
Menus and chapters.
Still pictures 704x480,352x240

If you would like to see a nice comparison of VCD, DVD, and DivX recordings, take a look at the grid table at http://www.vcdhelp.com/comparison. This site has lots of good info, a definite bookmark!

• vcdimager - writes (S)VCDs
• mplayer (and, more specifically, mencoder) for playing (and recording) video
• mjpegtools - for doing some conversions (including creating (s)VCD streams and stills)

• ffmpeg
• nvrec
• freevo
• zapping (or, more specifically, the mp1e portion of zapping)

Lots of users here are complaining that VCD format discs don't meet the quality of the still-standard VHS tape for personal recording. I agree. SVCD, however, is a tremendous step forward in quality.

Even though it is more expensive, if you're a geek looking for GOOD quality and compatibility in a recording device, without spending gobs of money on DVD-R's every time you want to record "Smallville", try one of these set-tops that supports SVCD:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvr.php

Although, personally, I'm waiting for a DVD-Recorder that supports SVCD format on DVD-R's. Four hours of record time would rock. That, and the ability to record at DVD quality on a DVD...

A good place to learn how to convert various media to burnable (S)VCD format can be found at http://www.vcdhelp.com

If you want to store video on a CD-R, what about VCD, or for that matter, MiniDVD? These are at least digital formats!

If you want to store video on a CD-R, what about VCD, or for that matter, MiniDVD? These are at least digital formats!

This means that people who likes the film will buy a good quality film on DVD since there are only bad quality films around.

They are called Mini-DVDs, do a search for them on google.

http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/odedi a_ minidvd.html

Doom9's guide to MiniDVDs

There is a DVD-Player compatibility list around someplace. . . .

Oh fuuuck man, even Ulead's consumer software now days makes MiniDVDs!!!! cruddoooo!

VCDhelp.com of course has the compatibility information, as per usual.

Here

Yeesh.

SVCD is 480x480, and DVD (though it supports a few others) is generally 720x480.

Some players are happy to play 480x480 MPEG-2 video in DVD format. Others will show the video on 3/4 of the screen.

I've authored quite a few DVDs with 480x480 video from SVCD or DirecTivo, and they play fine in my Philips DVD711 standalone.

The only authoring software that I've used for this is SpruceUp - not available for purchase anymore but easily found on the net.

You'll need DVDPatcher to patch the first header of the MPEG to 720x480 before importing the videos - Spruce will crash at the end, just re-patch the header to 480x480 and import again.

More info on this trick is available at the DirecTivo Hacking forums or VCDhelp.

Hit VCD Help and learn the true power of the dark side.

It's a great little website that has FAQ's and help files on everything from Authoring your digital video with menus, Capturing video from cameras, Converting video from all these formats to all those formats, Ripping a DVD for archival, Editing your video and playing your video on your computer.

Supporting both is just going to delay the inevitable unifying standard. I bought a HP DVD 200e, just because it is external and lets me use firewire. I can't fit a 5 ¼ bay in my notebook so I had to pass on the less expensive IDE drives. When I bought the 200e I had no idea what + or - was. I leaped before investigating. Sony is just creating another piece of hardware that will be the novelty of proprietary standards.

I bought an HP... long live +R.

A good site that outlines the differences is vcdhelp.com

try vcdhelp.com

The above is lies. DVD-R has superior compatibility with regular DVD player (as well as computer DVD-ROM drives). Need proof? (I bet the lier above will ask for some, even though he didn't suppport any of his claims with proof.) Looks no further than the VCDhelp.com DVD player compatibility list. It features 1,100+ DVD player compatibility reports from around the world. Do a search on DVD-R (510 Hits). Do a search on DVD+R (167 Hits). So while half of today's DVD players support DVD-R, less than one-fifth can handle DVD+R. Pretty sad. That DVD+R industry operatives have to lie about this.

The above is lies. DVD-R has superior compatibility with regular DVD player (as well as computer DVD-ROM drives). Need proof? (I bet the lier above will ask for some, even though he didn't suppport any of his claims with proof.) Looks no further than the VCDhelp.com DVD player compatibility list. It features 1,100+ DVD player compatibility reports from around the world. Do a search on DVD-R (510 Hits). Do a search on DVD+R (167 Hits). So while half of today's DVD players support DVD-R, less than one-fifth can handle DVD+R. Pretty sad. That DVD+R industry operatives have to lie about this.

The above is lies. DVD-R has superior compatibility with regular DVD player (as well as computer DVD-ROM drives). Need proof? (I bet the lier above will ask for some, even though he didn't suppport any of his claims with proof.) Looks no further than the VCDhelp.com DVD player compatibility list. It features 1,100+ DVD player compatibility reports from around the world. Do a search on DVD-R (510 Hits). Do a search on DVD+R (167 Hits). So while half of today's DVD players support DVD-R, less than one-fifth can handle DVD+R. Pretty sad. That DVD+R industry operatives have to lie about this.

Just remember that so far Toshibas are the number 1 brand on the "won't play DVD-R, DVD-RW or DVD+RW" list, so as long as you don't plan on ever burning your own DVD movies (legal or otherwise - I just took my family to the zoo last night, captured 60 minutes on my mini-DV camcorder, got home and fire-wired the video to my PC and burned a DVD of the video) go with the Toshiba.

If, however, you think you think you might want to someday play a burned DVD, consider a different brand. Check here for more information on compatible DVD playes.

It is well known you can copy your dvd to vcd disks and play them.

Want to know how to do this?

here it is described.

Since the mpeg2 format needs to be licenced ther are no 100% free tools to do this, and it takes a bit of processing power on your pc. But is is doalble. The tools remove Macrovision and i never a "region" thingy in this software.

Expect VHS quality, no more.

VCDs work in most DVD players. They do not work in all DVD players. For a list of which players work and which don't, go to VCD Help.

Unfortunately that's not always the case. I have an Onkyo that won't play any recorded media. Also many manufacturers have been removing VCD capability from their players. I found this really strange since all the ones I tried still supported MPEG1 when burned to a DVD-R. They still support the data stream, but intentionally (or so it seems) remove VCD playback.

I would recommend checking www.vcdhelp.com for capatability info. Don't trust the info about mp3 playback unless someone specifically talks about it in their review. Of all the players they say support mp3 id tags only the Daewoo 5800 really does... (didn't test them all though)

I'm afraid to say you don't know what the hell you're talking about, let me elaborate:
Weren't those magnetic?
No they're CDs. You're thinking of those huge video disks from the mid 90's, they were optical as well.

Hardly anyone uses them anymore
They're very popular.

Most people do not have hardware that can read them
Any PC and most modern DVD players. See compatibility list here.

Most people alive today have probably never even heard of them let alone seen them
I've heard of them, so have you.

The recording hardware is NOT nor was it ever cheap and ubiquitious as CDR has become.
Again, they are CDs and can be burned on all CDRs.

VCDs are just mpeg2/mpeg1 movies burned using a specific directory structure with a few simple config files that tell the player what to do, where the scenes are, etc.

Super VCD has much better quality and is user far more than the aging VCD format (at least for movie rips and so-forth). There is a bit of info about SVCD here, but you can search google for more info.

A good place to learn how to convert various media to burnable (S)VCD format can be found at http://www.vcdhelp.com

I've always found the idea that Sony also makes regionless DVD players. (Fine links to them here ironic. It would appear that Sony has a music/movie side that is evil and a hardware side that is cool. I 've always wondered how often the two sides talk.

Copying a DVD with a DVD-R/+R/-RW/+RW burner is ok if you want to lose (or completely redo) the menus, extra features, etc. If all you want to copy is the film track itself, ok, but because all the DVD (re)writeable formats are single layer, many DVDs require a 2:1 burned DVD to original DVD ratio. So, your menus will not work unless you redo them.

And if all you want is the film itself, get yourself a decent DVD player and rip the DVD to SVCD on a CD-R. Much cheaper than burning DVDs and (imho) just as good quality.

On another note, I d/l-ed a DVD to SVCD rip of LoTR/FoTR that took 4 CD-Rs to burn, but is excellent quality. I will buy this DVD. Call me what you will for supporting the companies that try to thwart fair use, etc. but it's good and I expect additional features on the DVD would hook me if the movie itself hadn't already.

I agree. DVD+RW may not use the DVD standard, but it's being supported by a whole slew of big manufacturers. Since you're using it for special purpose data storage, maximum compatibility isn't important.

Many modern DVD players already support DVD+RW, and I'm sure support will only grow.

Unless you want to make video DVDs, don't buy one (at least not yet). Not only are the drives quite expensive, but the disks are also more expensive (per MB) than CD-Rs. Buy a good CDRW drive (DVD recorders are not very good at recording CDs).

And 4.3 GB really aren't a lot. It's not even enough to store one hour of DV video (13 GB).

In a few months or a year you will have a) much cheaper DVD-Rs and b) new optical discs, likely to be over 10 times bigger than DVD-Rs.

On the other hand, if you do want to make video DVDs, make sure you buy a drive that will record in a format compatible with most readers. Mine is a Pioneer (DVR-A03) and so far all discs have worked fine in all set-top players I have tried. From what I've heard, DVD-RW and DVD+RW have problems with a lot of players (especially old ones, but also some recent models). There is a nice list of formats and players here:

VCD Help DVD players compatibility list

Also, most "consumer" DVD authoring programs are crap. Be ready to pay at least an extra 1000 dollars / euros on software if you want to be able to do any interesting stuff like multiple audio tracks, animated menus, etc..

To do the MPEG-2 encoding, I use TMPGEnc (slow but has the best quality, IMO). I wrote a small guide that you can find here.

RMN
~~~

The Sony 550D listing is here.

Personally, I've had the best luck using the Circuit City "Digital Media" brand CD-Rs. But I've got a different model of Sony.

VCD Helper has had a list of DVD Player hacks available for quite a while. From everything to modifying your brightness to reconfiguring country codes through methods put in by the manufacturer for testing. It's really interesting to see the hidden features of your otherwise normal DVD player :)

VCD Helper has had a list of DVD Player hacks available for quite a while. From everything to modifying your brightness to reconfiguring country codes through methods put in by the manufacturer for testing. It's really interesting to see the hidden features of your otherwise normal DVD player :)

actually, the reason for these file sizes is that they're meant to be burnt as VCD -- video CD -- (or sometimes SVCD (the S is for super)).. said movie is most likely a VCD-compliant (happens to fit the bitrate and resolution requirements) MPEG-1. (S)VCDs are in mode II, which allows for about 740 meg on a 74-minute CD, and 800 meg on an 80 minute one. This is all spec-happy, and just about any recent burning software will be happy to burn said mpegs to VCD (I know Roxio EasyCD creator does (starting with version 5) and Nero, of course). The added space comes from less error-correction in the data tracks, so it's slightly less robust.. but it allows for more data to be burned.

as a side note: almost all regular DVD players (you know, the ones for your TV) will play VCDs, some will play SVCDs (which are VCDs but with MPEG2 instead of MPEG1, and a bit more advanced menus possible). Some will play them off of CDRs, some not so much. visit http://www.vcdhelp.com for more information on players and how to make VCDs.

And for the record, centropy tends to release pretty damn fine quality screeners. It's true that many suck, and they do make me want to wait for theater (or just until the DVD comes out, and then get a DVD rip :) ), and I won't discount the possibility that the studios play games with bad released from time to time.

That is all, thank you for your time.

This is not exactly the case of someone sneaking a Sony HandyCam into a theater and taping among the audience. According to VCD Quality, the FTF release of AToC is a TELESYNC, which basically means that it's a high-end camera pointed at a screen, with audio recorded from the source (to eliminate audience noise). So it's better than most Cam recordings that you're alluding to. Check here for definitions of how movies are bootlegged.

That said, it's still a pretty crappy release in terms of quality. I'm sure that within a week, they'll have at least SVCD screeners or workprints available for downloads.