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Tools needed
Codecs to install
Source
Quite a lot of people download home movies from the internet to be made
into VCD's, the source could be anything ranging from high quality to the
lowest of low with many problems. Some people share their home made
movies, weddings, christenings, birthdays and more.
Types of recordings
Not all are
copyright free, be careful what you download
Telecine
Although this is used to describe a conversion in frame rate, Telecine
also means a method used to take directly from the reel to digital format
and then encoded into mpeg 1/2/4
Cam
Video camera used to record your home
movie. These types are usually the worse quality, which may also include
"special effects" like shouts and screams from the family, or people
bobbing up and down.
Capture card
The person used a capture card in the PC to capture the home movie. These can
range in quality from very good, to "I wont put that on a CDR-W" they are
better than nothing
Fake
There are also lots of fake home movies to download if you want
 , they are sometimes very small,
but describe themselves as "Full Home Movie" but are 50MB or so in size.
There are also very large fake movies that may have a few frames of a
purple haze, followed by black frames and no sound. Try to avoid them if
you can by testing the playback of a partially downloaded file with
TMPGEnc (Open *.* > .dat)(Copy partially download movie to another folder
first)
Jolly Roger
There are also names used,SMR,TMD these do not describe the method used,
but tell you that they are illegal movies made by a group. In the case of SMR, there is also a SMR
codec, another copy of the Mpeg 4 codec, you do not need to install the SMR
codec, in fact it causes more trouble if you did, (purple haze).
Avoid
illegal movies, and stick to legal home movies.
Copyright Material
Yes, there are some movies
out there that are illegal, you should avoid downloading
copyright material, unless the author has given you permission.
KaZaA
The download file may also describe the type of movie it is, and how many
parts there are. The size of these will also vary, with the smaller DivX
movies describes as;
My
birthday(1of2).avi
My birthday(2of2).avi
Meaning you need to download both parts, these files are around 150Mb
each.
They also come as 1 large file ;
My birthday
DVD (1of1).avi
These files are around 700Mb. Sometimes the movie is converted into
SVCD/VCD and may be described as "My
birthday CD1.avi"
meaning it will/should fit onto one CDR, these Mpeg 1/2 movies are twice
the size as the DivX AVI, if you get one with problems they are difficult
to fix.
So you downloaded a home movie as an AVI, before you do anything you need
to play it.
One of the biggest problems in playing a home movie, is not having the
correct codecs required to decompress the video and audio. Sometimes the video
can be seen but there is no audio, sometimes you will hear the sound but see no
picture.
Windows media player V6 is the only reliable way to test playback, there are
other players, but none are reliable, even if you have the latest OS and the new
Windows Media Player, your system should still have the basic Windows Media
Player V6....
If at this stage you have playback problems, and are using WMP6 then you
should get to know some information about the AVI. Find out
what codecs its using and make sure you have them
installed. Read the codec guide and the use of Gspot
to identify the codecs in use.
There is no point in continuing, if your using DivX player or some other
player that has its own filters. For encoding you should verify your system is
capable of playback with WMP6 and no other.
Once you have verified the movie is playing, you can now move on to the next
stage.
When you downloaded the AVI the original may have had
bad frames. Bad frames can also be added during
download, those frames need to be removed before any conversions can be
attempted. If you try to encode an AVI with bad frames, chances are the programs
you use will crash, or you will get lip sync problems.
Normally you can use the latest version of Virtual dub to scan and remove bad
frames, however if the original home movie has a variable bitrate for its audio,
you should not attempt to remove any bad frames. You should use Vdub MP3
instead. See the guide on deleting or
masking bad frames.
The audio stream may also be AC3, and although you are using streaming to
save out another copy of the home movie, should you wish to convert the AC3 to
WAV see this guide
No problems found
So your AVI has no problems, the source is high quality and it?s a
DivX 3.11 Alpha with MP3 audio. You may also have noticed the size of the
screen is large, and may have a black border at the top and bottom. This
type of movie was originally made in "Widescreen" so when you convert this
to VCD you need to maintain those black borders to maintain the aspect
ratio.
Load TMPGEnc, cancel any
start up wizard, then use the Browse to locate and select the home movie.avi
Aspect ratio
You need to maintain the aspect ratio so that the movie looks like the
original (As much as possible) in TMPGEnc this would be set to "Full
screen > keep aspect ratio" when viewed on a widescreen TV, you can zoom
out those black borders, and fill the screen completely.
Widescreen TV
For those people without a widescreen TV, you will have the black borders
but the correct aspect ratio. If you make the output "Full screen" then
you will fill your TV screen completely, but will cut off the sides of the
movie, and if this is done with out maintaining aspect ratio you will also
have stretched figures.
TMPGEnc
Select Setting > Advanced > Crop (Double click)
From here you can experiment with the different aspect ratios and
cropping.
Frame rate
There
can also be a variation of the number of frames per second. NTSC (USA)
will have 29.97fps where some of them can be PAL "Everywhere else :)-" to
complicate matters worse, some NTSC home movies use 23.976fps, and are
referred to as NTSC Film.
DVD Players and TV
If your DVD player and TV will except these different types, then you
could convert the output frame rate to match the source. On modern high
quality 100Hz TV's, it is not always necessary to match the source, as the
missing or added frames still playback quite nice, with only a little jerk
on fast screen pans.
When using TMPGEnc to convert a movie, it may start in its "wizard mode",
you can cancel this and the first thing you need to do is load a VCD
template.
Templates
There are 3 basic types of VCD templates available with TMPGEnc, click the
load button and browse the template folder. They are available both for
PAL and NTSC, choose the right one to match the AVI and avoid jumpy
playback.
Video-CD NTSC Film
MPEG-1
352x240
23.976fps
CBR 1150kbps, Layer-2 44100Hz 224kbps
Video-CD NTSC
MPEG-1
352x240
29.97fps
CBR 1150kbps, Layer-2 44100Hz 224kbps
Video-CD PAL
MPEG-1
352x288
25fps
CBR 1150kbps, Layer-2 44100Hz 224kbps
As you can see, converting from NTSC(Normal) to PAL means frames are going
to be chopped out, but converting from PAL to NTSC(Normal) means some will
be added.
Too big to fit 80 Min CDR
When the mpeg 1 has been produced, you may now find it has doubled in
size, and wont fit onto one 80 min CDR for VCD. You need to split the
movie into half before you burn to disk.
Cutting mpeg 1 in half (See guide)
TMPGEnc
Merge&Cut
File > Mpeg tools
Merge&Cut (TAB)
Select "MPEG 1 Video CD" from drop down list
Click Add
Browse and select your large file > Open
Now highlight you file in the white box and click edit
Move the slider bar to the end of the movie to get the total playing time,
then move to half of that time and mark this as the end.
Click OK, the type a location and the name into the outbox "Movie1.mpg"
and click run, when finished click edit again and mark the middle and end,
click OK and type a location and the name of the movie into the outbox
"Movie2.mpg" and click run.
You now have the movie split into 2 parts, ready to burn to CDR.
Now that you have a fully compliant Mpeg 1 its time to put it on a CD.
You should see if the programs you got with your writer can make VCD's.
Below are some brief details on using 3 of the top programs, although
there are many more and the one that came with your writer may also be
something different, I am sure you will be able to work out the difference
from the brief instructions I have given below.
Burning the disk
Writing the movie to the disk is mostly called burning for CD-R, this term
is used because the cd writer users a lazar beam to burn the disk. Unlike
CDR-W which uses a different method to write, you will want to make sure
you get things right, or you could end up what people now describe as
"Coasters" (Scrap disks)
Media
There are many people using unbranded disks with much success, and they
are available in drums of 100+ costing much less than those sold in boxes
of 10. However it is advisable that when you first start out, you should
use high quality disks, once you have made a few VCD's you may wish to try
the more cheaper brands.
TDK or Maxell CDR
These have always been good for me, they are sold in different
sizes/speeds, Get the 80 Min ones and a speed that matches or exceeds your
writers speed.
Authoring programs
Nero
Load Nero, and select Video CD from its left hand list of CD types,
now click New.
You should now see 3 window panes, the top pane shows the structure of the
VCD, while the second pane is where you would add your movie.mpg, and the
third pane is a view of your hard drive.
Using the bottom window find your movie, click drag&drop into the
middle pane.
You are now ready to start making your first VCD, Click the Icon for
burning the disk.
The window shown has several TAB's, click the first TAB (Video CD)
Make sure the "Create standard compliant CD" is selected, but remove "Use
CDi application" (You don't need it.)
All the other TAB's have default settings, and you don't need to change
anything.
Now click the "Burn" and select "Write" and "Finalize CD" Select your
burning speed, and finally click the "write" button
Test your CD in your DVD player.
Easy Cd Creator's Deluxe, VCD creator
http://www.roxio.com/
Run Video CD Creator, and follow the wizard > Next
Select "Simple video Sequence" > Next
Click the Add button > select your movie.mpg from your hard drive and
click open.
A screen will show the details of your mpeg, if there was anything wrong
this screen would show it.
Click "Add" to continue, the next screen shows 2 TAB's select the "Video"
tab and choose NTSC or PAL from its list and click OK
Click Next, you will now have a screen with two boxes, the left hand box
shows the movie you selected, click it and click the Add> to get the movie
across into the right-hand box, click Next
Click Next again and select "Create the CD Now" > Finish
The final screen shows your writers make, the speed to burn at etc, select
"Record CD" and start recording
Test your CD in your DVD player.
Video pack 5.1
http://www.roxio.com/
Run Video Pack 5, and select VCD from the 3 choices.
This program has 2 windows, the top windows is used to navigate your hard
drive, while the bottom window is used to construct your layout. Select
your movie from the hard drive and pick it up and drop it in the bottom
window.
You don't need to worry about menu's or anything fancy, click the routing
button and it will show you its default setting.
Next click the "Record" button to show the recording menu.
From this menu, select "Record cd" and "Write immediately" and finally
click "Record" to make the CD.
Test your CD in your DVD player.
Using any of these three authoring programs, is usually easy enough, I
have only give very brief details. Each of these programs come with help
files, you should read them and get to know how the program works. Later
on you may want to experiment with adding menu's or screens that pop up at
the end of a disk that says "Insert disk 2" :) for now get a simple one to
work.
What could go wrong
1, Download AVI
2, Check for bad frames
3, Convert to Mpeg 1
4, Split movie into 2 parts
5, Burn to 2 disks
6, Sit back and watch your masterpiece.
Well its not always as simple as that, there are many problems you
could encounter, there are sometimes a need to use other programs, and
some people would prefer to use a particular program instead of Vdub and
TMPGEnc. What ever way you found "Best for you" might not be of any use at
all for the next person.
Virtual Dub and TMPGEnc are the most used programs, and work very well,
TMPGEnc will convert AVI with all types of audio, VBR, AC3 it converts
very well. TMPGEnc will also convert bad frames sometimes, and other times
it just stops.
TMPGEnc also produces good quality movies, when placed on VCD they are
almost as good as the source, The vast majority of people use these
program each day without problems, and are more than happy with the
results.
Please note this guide is for people who have never done this work before,
there will always be someone who don?t use these programs, or find some
other program "Better for them"
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