I have just burned a SVCD (PAL SVCD MPEG2 format created with TMPEG) on a regular 700 MB CD-R with VCDEasy. My DVD player plays the disc perfectly.

BUT neither Windows Media Player (ver. 9) nor BSPlayer can play the video, even though both players recognizes the disc as a SVCD. WMP9 just begins "connecting...". Both the CD/DVD drive and the HD works intensely but nothing happens. After 5 minutes an "unknown error" message appears. The result remains the same when I click the MPG file on the SVCD manually with both players.

Is there a SVCD plugin available for WMP9, or have I forgot to change some of the default settings in VCDEasy before I created the SVCD? Or should I simply use another player (which one?)?

I never thought that getting a SVCD to play on my DVD player would be easier than playing it on my computer (2,2 GHz P4, 512MB DDR, Win XP Home, NVidia GF4 MX 220)...

I really don"t know the Source Of your Problem accept that Installing Media Player 9 is a Very BIG Mistake..There are a Lot of Programs and Codecs that will not Work correctly with Media Player 9 installed..I think the Best thing you can do which will probably fix your Problem is to get Rid of MP9..

Installing Windows Media Player 9 is NOT a big mistake. Far from it. It's a good idea, because it is a much improved player.

As for playing SVCD's, WMP does play it OK, but it does not support menues and chapters. For this you better use a player like WinDVD.

If both WMP and BSPlayer cannot play your SVCD, maybe you don't have MPEG2 codecs in your system. Download and install the Elecard MPEG2 Video Decoder:

http://www.elecard.com/download/

Not if you are Into useing Video applications like Tmpgenc and others..I work for Tmpgenc Tech support and there is a MAJOR incompatibility between Tmpgenc and WMP9 and Older Mpeg-4 codecs and I get Many E-Mails every day about Poeple Not being able to Use There Video editing and Encodeing applications after installing WMP9...Microsoft is Well aware of these Problems with WMP9 and are working on a windows Update to rectify these problems but till then I have to advise Customers to do a System restore to before they installed WMP9 if they want to avoid these Problems..I knew his Problem was not due to WMP9 But I saw that he was useing WMP9 and Tmpgenc and was adviseing him as to aviod any Potential problems....

Thanks a lot for the information!
When I inserted any of the two SVCDs, Windows Explorer reported the disc's total size to be only 600 kb, although the actual mpeg2 file on the disc (there is only one file on each CD) is reported to be 723 Mb.
Also, the time stamp read "30-11-1979"... So I don't that think any further attempts to make the SVCDs work on a system with WMP9 installed will help me before an Win XP /WMP9 update is ready. So I'll probably do a system restoration to remove the WMP9 features.

The only question that remains is whether or not the two SVCDs are playable on systems without WMP9, or whether or not they have to be created on systems without WMP9 installed?

Do you have a DVD Player to test it on??? or even a Software DVD player like "Power DVD"?? and Try playing the Mpeg file off of the disk By navigateing to the MpegAV folder on the Disk to the "AVSEQ01.MPG" File..It would still be a Good Idea to Revert Back to WMP8 untill they Get the Problems with WMP9 worked out(Who Knows when that will be Knowing microsoft)..You can also try the Disk on another computer...