Topic: vcd > dvd opinions/options

[caymanreview]

i just found a stash of some really nice vcd's that i had had packed away for several years...

these were in the days before dvd burners, and as far as im aware of there wasnt anything but vcd's circulated ever

preferable programs to do such a conversion?

[Ed.]

i'd check out www.videohelp.com - i bet you'd find lots of guides and programs on there.

[caymanreview]

right on, thats had slipped my mind

these vcd's are great, ive checked out about half of them so far

[Ed.]

i have a huge cd case full of vcds and svcds.  probably at least 200 movies.  i was thinking about doing the same thing, but i'm too lazy.  way too much time involved.

[caymanreview]

ive got a couple extra pc's layin around, im thinking il fire em up and use them in this process

[Ed.]

haha, thats a good idea.  it'll definitely speed up the process.

[hyperplane]

you do  know that no matter what program you use, if you convert VCD (MPEG-1 video) to DVD (MPEG-2 video), you will actually lose quality... it's the exact same thing as taking a 128 kbps MP3 and upsampling it to 320 kbps - the 320 kbps file will actually sound worse because it's been encoded twice using a lossy compression scheme.

having said that, i believe DVD-Lab will allow you to burn multiple VCDs or SVCDs to DVD discs that are playable in a normal settop DVD player, without doing any converting of the files. it's worth checking out, as this would also save you a lot of processing time.

[caymanreview]

wow, cool. thanks!

[Chad817]

yeah, dvd-lab should let you put vcd/svcd on without re-encoding the video.  The benefit of this is that you can fit a lot of material on one dvd.  You will need to transcode the audio to 48k though (it will prompt you to do this).  This method should work for most, but there will still be a small amount of standalones that won't play these types of discs, or struggle to play them.  Best bet is to use a -rw and test.