I have been doing "lots" of reading from the old posts on how to make Mini DVD's. I am going attempt to make my first with MMC 7.7 and I want to verify that these are the settings I use for a Half D1:

352x480 Pixels
2.3 Mbps VBR
Audio 48Khz

Does this look right?
Is 2.3 Mbps the best? or is this recommended to fit 45 min TV shows on 1 CD-R?
I have an Apex stand-alone DVD player, so it should play it....I hope

Thanks
gammer

Your frame size (for NTSC) and audio spec are correct.

The "best" bitrate quality-wise is the highest your hardware can play - my Sampo can handle 4.5 Mbps, for example. You'll need to experiment a bit with your own player.

How do I burn a Mini DVD with Nero??

Author to a "titleset" using something like SpruceUp or DVDWorkshop, so that you end up with VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders on your harddrive.

Then burn these to CD with Nero, specifying ISO9660 option. Some players (like mine) want ISO mode and a few may want UDF mode. There should be a minidvd guide at www.doom9.net...

Very very Very Few Players will actually Play a Mini DVD, Maybe not even your Apex..If Not you can allways do a XSVCD or CVD accept you will have to use MP2 audio not AC3 or PCM and at 44.100hz...

http://www.pcphotovideo.com has some info on how to burn miniDVD using Nero.

Your settings look OK, although your bit rate is so low you might want to consider whether it's really worth making miniDVD as opposed to just doing 480x480 SVCD. I make miniDVDs all the time of The Simpsons and at a bit rate of 3.6 CBR I can edit out the commercials and easily fit one episode on a CD-R disc. If you're using VBR, you might be able to use a higher maximum bit rate and improve the quality a little. The web site I listed above might have some more info on doing this as the guy who wrote the site used to post here a lot and I know that he was really into doing exactly what you propose, but I don't remember what bit rate he used.

Apex players will NOT play miniDVD unless you have a firmware hack and these hacks do not exist for all Apex players. In fact, most of the current models will NOT play them. Go to http://www.nerd-out.com/darrenk to see if your player has a hack. If you try to upgrade the firmware, please follow the instructions very carefully. I've seen several guys on an Apex forum who didn't want to go to the trouble of opening their players to identify their chips and they applied the wrong firmware, ruining their players. You should also be aware that opening your player will void the warranty. However, worst case you can always play miniDVD on your PC, so what you do is not necessarily wasted.

Thanks for the info. I have checked out Rich's page to get some details on Mini DVD's. I agree, the bitrate is too low to make it worth while. I think I will stick to SVCD's until I can afford a DVD burner. Then, I'll "crank it up a notch"
Right now my SVCD's are turning out fine and my Apex is playing them with no probs.

On a side note: I too have been capturing Simpsons, but only to VCD. Fitting 3 edited episodes on 1 700MB disk. I capture them to Mpeg-2, CBR of 3.5Mbps, 720x480. Edit with MPEG2VCR. Then I use TMPGEnc and its filters to bring it back to VCD spec. Looks very clear. Sounds like over-kill, but its much better result (quality) then using a custom setting in MMC at the exact VCD requirements. I have 90% of the episodes now. Too much fun!

I forgot to mention that if you ever do want to make miniDVD for Apex (assuming you have a model with the firmware patch to support playing it), you must keep the maximum bit rate below 5000. I aim for 4500 or less. The drive on the Apex can't spin fast enough to keep up with high bit rate miniDVDs.
Actually, I wouldn't say that what you are doing with VCD and The Simpsons is overkill. I bet it does give very good quality. VCD is actually a pretty good format for animation as there's usually not enough motion to give you many macroblocks.

One thing to think about I might add.... Before I got my DVD burner I captured all my " SVCD" as follows: 2.3Mb/s CBR, 48Khz audio. These are basically "CVD", but will burn with Nero as SVCD, and play as SVCD. It's a bit of work now, but less later on ( as I can vouch for) if you want to put them on DVD.Try one out, and see what you think.
1. Cap at 2.3Mb/s CBR with 48Khz audio.(You will have enough room for 2 episodes of the Simpsons on 1 cd-r)
2. When your editing is done, demux your file.
3. Remux your file as SVCD using BBMpeg (available with instructions at www.spawns.dk/svcd)
4. Burn with Nero as SVCD. It will complain that it is not compliant ( due to 48Khz audio) but it will burn, no problem. Every player I've tried it on that will play SVCD will play this as well.(Pioneer,Apex,Hitachi)
It does save a lot of headaches and header patching and messing around later when you want to put them on a DVD, since they are already DVD-compliant files.Just food for thought, doing it that way saved me a ton of work when I got my DVD burner.

Tim

Tim...if your "CVDs" are in SVCD 480x480 (or 480x576 PAL) format then technically speaking they arent DVD compliant, even though some programme may accept them.

Or have I misunderstood your point?

Hi Coby..... It was my mistake, I forgot to add that I cap at 352 x 480. Duh, thanks for pointing that out.Nero doesn't like the 352x480 OR the 48Khz audio, but it will still burn and play just fine, as long as you remux the file with BBmpeg first. BBmpeg basically fixes the pack size and muxingrate to SVCD spes, enabling playback as an " SVCD ". It's my belief that most players are looking for the SVCD structure ( as provided when burned with Nero as SVCD) As long as the muxing rate and pack size are correct for SVCD, the standalone will play it as SVCD regardless of the resolution it was captured in.

Tim