OK I have I-author. I see the required extension types are *.bmp and *.mps for projects and it looks for *.VBS or *.MPV for muxing and in audio it's MP2 or MPA....
Whatever happened to the good ol *.MPG for video and *.WAV for audio. How do I create these file types from my NLE app? These are not format options only ASF, avi, mpg...

I noticed that too. I'm looking to author svcd (currently using nero's).

I guess once you test mux your mpeg files to see if they're in sync, demux?? for i-author.

Is that what everyone is doing?? Sorry, I have i-author, but haven't used it yet.

I-Author is real fussy and demands certain extensions
for certain file types. To mux, what you would do is
demux your MPEG-2 stream into separate video and audio
files with the extensions .mpv (for MPEG Video) and
.mpa (for MPEG Audio) and then feed these files into
I-Author's muxer. It will refuse to touch files
unless they end in these extensions. I don't know what
NLE is, but basically you just take MPEG-2 video
suitable for SVCD (the correct resolutions and bit
rate), demux it into files with the extensions listed
above, mux it with I-Author to produce a .mps file
and then make a project with the .mps file. I think
http://www.doom9.net has a guide on using I-Author
that's pretty good and I think there is also some
info at http://www.vcdhelp.com under the Authoring
section. I like I-Author, but here's a bit of warning.
It demands strict compliance to SVCD standards, which
means that your video can not exceed 2600 Mbps at any
time and the total bit rate of your muxed video can't
go above something like 2724 Mbps or so. If you get
an error message that your bit rate is too high, you
have to fix it. I-Author can be made to mux your
video anyway, but it will be horribly out of sync if
you do this. You have a couple of choices:
1) If your video bit rate exceeds 2600 Mpbs, you must
re-encode it to a lower bit rate that never peaks
above 2600. TMPGenc and ReMPEG2 are very good tools
to use for this purpose. Keep in mind that ReMPEG2
only handles NTSC video though.
2) If your video bit rate is within spec (never peaks
above 2600 Mbps), you can try re-encoding your audio
to a lower bit rate such as 160 Mbps or 128 Mbps and
re-muxing under I-Author.
http://www.tecoltd.com has a free bit rate viewer that
might be of some use to you in making sure that your
video bit rate is below 2600 Mbps before you start to
mux. The commercial version (roughly $29 US) has some
useful tools such as the ability to change the bit
rate in the demuxed video stream. If you re-encode
with ReMPEG2, it will not change this value, so your
video file will still show the maximum bit rate from
the original video file, which may be above 2600. The
commercial version of the bit rate viewer will allow
you to change this value to the correct new one, which
will make I-Author happy. I'm not sure what TMPGenc
does with the video stream, but I know that ReMPEG2
doesn't change the max. bit rate value after re-encoding like it should. By the way. WAV files are
no good for I-Author. That's a completely different
audio format to MPEG layer 2 audio, which is what
I-Author wants.

I can create mpv files with cce. If i encode a wav with tmpgenc to make mp2, can I rename it to mpa??

Yes, you sure can rename the audio file to .mpa if
you encode WAV to MPEG layer 2 audio with TMPGenc. If
TMPGenc doesn't let you name it to .mpa when encoding
it, just rename it after you're finished and I-Author
should be happy.

Here's another newie question:

I know ntsc svcd video spec is 480x480, but my ati aiw128 frame drops 5% @ this res., but if i record in 352x480 it seems that there is no drops. Can i still create a svcd with 352x480??

I've been using flask to resize >> framserver >> cce/lsx and it seemed ok.

I've created some test clips at 352x480, but i haven't had a chance to burn the cdr with nero.

Well, only 480x480 NTSC and 480x576 PAL are valid for
SVCD. Nero will definitely complain if you try to
burn 352x480 NTSC video as SVCD. Your options are to
encode up to 480x480, which should result in some
quality loss over having recorded at 480x480 or better
to begin with or burn it anyway at 352x480 with
unpredictable results (a standalone DVD player may or
may not play this depending on how strictly it checks
for SVCD compliance). Are you recording AVI or MPEG-2
video at 480x480 when you drop frames? How powerful
is your CPU? Frame drop is a CPU related issue with
ATI cards, especially if you are recording directly
to MPEG-2. If your CPU is less than about 660 or so,
you're going to have problems. If you're recording
AVI and dropping frames, you might try recording
directly to MPEG-2, or vice versa as the case may be.
It's real ugly to do this, but I Frames Only can often
solve frame dropping problems with MPEG-2 video and
ATI cards. Some months ago, a guy in this forum
insisted that I Frames Only video is not valid for
DVD or SVCD. I can't say whether that is correct or
not. I have not been able to find any evidence either
way. He insisted that standalone DVD players would
not play such video, but I never cared enough to test
this. It will result in larger file sizes to record
I Frames Only, but it should keep you from dropping
frames in MPEG-2 video recording. If you're dropping
frames in AVI recording, I would guess it's CPU
related. I frames have no meaning in AVI video, so
that won't help you there. Sometimes lowering the
bit rate or ME under ATI can help keep you from
dropping frames. Make sure your video bit rate is
less than 2.600 under Digital VCR.
The short answer to your question is that 352x480 is
not valid for SVCD, you will have to turn off compliance checking in Nero to burn such discs, and I
have no idea whether your DVD player will play them or
not, although they should be OK on a PC.

Thanks Jason!! I'll burn the test clips and test it on my apex1500.

I also been playing with iframes, but it too goes out of sink after awhile, maybe because the capture is too large...i dunno.

Thanks Jason. Wow just think some day soon all we'll have to do is open some application and click on one or two buttons and walla` instant dvd compliant svcd without all the mux/de-mux, bitrate compliance slash sync audio, frame serve via app1 to app2, frame size NTSC/PAL...yadayada.
FYI "NLE" is acronym for non linear editing

When muxing with I-Author mark the PS choice, you'll then get a .PS file instead of a .MPS.
PS files can be directly burned with NERO 5.5...
Nero will protest after checking yhe file, but just click on "Turn off standard comliance..." and burn.

can I make a cif image longer than 700 MB with I-Author... How do i do that?

You need the 650 MB file size crack - then only hd size is your limit ...

Where to find in the net - I don't know at the moment.
Maybe someone else.

regards
mb1