hi all,
Is there a quick way to convert several vcds to a single dvdr without losing quality?

Yes, Putting VCD on to DVD is Totally simple as long as your VCD"s are either 29.97fps NTSC or 25fps-Pal I don"t think you can put 23.97fps VCD"s on to DVD Because I don"t think Mpeg1 supports 3:2-Pulldown Flags..What you should do is Download "DVD-Lab" cuz it is Made for Putting VCD"s and SVCD"s on to DVD-R, This is what I do when Putting VCD"s and SVCD"s on to DVD-R, If my (S)VCD"s are In Parts I use a Mpeg editor to Join them into one fig movie File then you Have to De-Mux the audio and Video then Take the audio file and use a Good Quality Audio encoder Like "Headac3he" to change the sample Rate of the audio in the Vcd"s to 48,000hz (I usually use Vegas Video 4 for this and encode the audio to AC3 audio but you can keep it as Mpeg audio and use Headac3he)
After encodeing the Audio to 48,000hz load the audio and the Video files into DVD-Lab and set up your Menu"s and Chapters and titles and author it to dvd, You should be able to fit at least 3 or 4 full VCD movies on a DVD-R so you should set up a main menu with links to each movie..The is No Quality loss in the Video useing this Method and Maybe a Slight loos of Audio Quality but it probably will not be noticeable But that is why I use AC3 audio Because it is a Higher Quality Audio format....Good Luck....Cheers

Even though Luisifer's advice is correct, not all DVD players support that part of the spec. Both of mine don't; one is RCA, and the other Pioneer.

I mention that because even if it does work on your current players, at some point in the future you may run into incompatability. Of course at that point you can rip them and reencode.

mark

That is strange that your Players do not Play SIF DVD"s all the Ones I have tried work, Pluss you figure if the DVD Player can handle (S)VCD"s then it should be able to handle the 352+240/288-Pal resolution..I do a Lot of My DVD"s useing this Resolution But a Higher VBR Bitrate useing Mpeg-2 and they Look Very Good Much better than VCD and Close to SVCD Quality plus I can get a Lot of movies on a DVD-R..I have noticed that a Lot of DVD authoring Programs do not have a specific Option for authoring SIF DVD"s so they author them the same as 720+480/576 DVD"s which can cause some Players to play them But DVD-Lab has a Specific setting for authoring these Types of DVD"s even though it recomends that you not use this setting I get better compatibility useing this setting....Cheers

Very interesting Luisifer, and I wouldn't be surprised if you've hit the nail on the head.

I like DVD-Lab too, unfortunately it doesn't burn properly with my Pioneer DVD burner. However, I could try authoring with it, and burning with something else.

Now you've got me curious. I'll have to give it a try because with my MPEGPRO_EMR I just love encoding at 15Mbps and reencoding to a very nice VCD MPEG1.

Wait though: you use MPEG2 vbr with 352x480? What is your recipe??

I'll give it a shot. thx.

mark

Actually I use 352+240 the same as VCD accept I use Mpeg2 and encode with CCE SP 2.67 useing the "One Pass VBR Setting with a 12 frame GOP and use a Minimus Bitrate of 1250hbs and a Max of 2500kbs and Put the Q Level to 25 or 30 I have gotten up to 4 full Movies on a DVD useing this method With Fairly good Quality, Better than VCD and close to SVCD quality But most of the Source Files I use are Vob files from DVD rips But I have even done a Few VHS captures this way that turned out Pretty Good...See Ya...Cheers

What happens if I burn the (S)VCD straight onto a DVD-R
without encoding the audio to 48 khz? Would my DVD player be able to play the disc?

No, You Can not leave the Audio at 44100hz, you Have to convert it to 48000hz and besides your DVD authoring program wouldn"t let you use 44100hz audio in your DVD it would either convert it for you or not let you author the DVD untill you changed it to 48000hz..I actuall encode it to AC3 audio cuz I have to convert it anyways so I might as well convert it to a Format that is Fully compliant for DVD as Mpeg audio isn"t unless there is a WAV or AC3 track present also..If you use DVD-Lab it will demux the audio and convert it to 48000hz but I think It also converts it to wav which isn"t good it"s better to use AC3...Cheers

"I actuall encode it to AC3 audio cuz I have to convert it anyways so I might as well convert it to a Format that is Fully compliant for DVD as Mpeg audio isn"t"

One of the quirks of my Pioneer 333 is that it accepts MPEG audio fine, but ONLY at 224. If you encode at any other rate it gets a headache.

thanks.

i actually have several multilanguage vcds to convert and store to one dvd. will converting to ac3 audio allow me listen to to a particular language when i press the "language" button on the dvd?

is it an easier process to keep only the right audio and convert the mono to ac3?

You need a DVD autoring program that supports more than one audio track. Then you can use the same video but choose different audio tracks. I guess that you can demultiplex each of the mpg files and convert the adio tracks only.

I don't think it is necessary to use ac3 audio. You can use mpeg audio also but still have to recode them to 48 kHz. If I remember correctly at least one of the audio tracks should be ac3 or pcm when making NTSC DVD, but if you make PAL DVD then all of them can be mpeg audio as well.

Have you tried this software?
http://www.svcd2dvdmpg.com

I ave Tried SVCD2DVDMpg and it is more tedius that DVD Lab Plus it isn"t a DVD authoring Program it Basicly just Patches headers and resamples the Audio which DVD Lab can do Plus it authors them and DVD-Lab SVCD DVD"s are More compatible with more players than SVCD2DVD-Mpg....Cheers

I have been trying to author vcd's to dvdr using dvdlab with no success so far. I demux, convert the audio to 48, but DVDlab is incapable of seeing the scenes in the MPEG1, and when I burn, the result won't function at all.

My players don't seem to like the menu function in DVDlab, but I can't figure out how to get rid of menus. It says you don't need them, but the interface (to this extent) is counterintuitive, since it won't let you delete the default menu. You can redraw connections, but there's no guide to "no menus".

The FAQ/HELP is written in broken english, and I can almost hear the author speaking in a "Boris Badanov" accent... "is bad news for Moose and Squirrel!"

I'm going to try MPEG2 at 352x240 next and see if that is more compatible.

Your Right DVD-Lab doesn"t seem to accept Mpeg1 Files Just Mpeg2 files...I guess I should Have mentioned it that I had tried it once with mpeg1 and Just got a Green screen, That is why I was useing Mpeg2 and allmost all of the VCD"s I ever made were non-Standard VCD"s as they used Mpeg2 instead of Mpeg1..You will Probably notice a Better Quality image with mpeg2....Let us Know how it works out....cheers

Yes, DVD Lab is a total bust at putting MPEG1 onto DVD-R. It would be interesting to know if any such solution existed, but DVD Lab isn't it...not in its beta form anyway.

OTOH, I did experiement with low bitrate MPEG2 at 352x240 using DVD Lab's SIF setting, and that worked like a charm.

Bottom line: Its an excellent method to pack a lot of watcheable video onto a single DVD-R...nearly 7 hours using the average bitrate of 1250, but I doubt that MPEG 1 VCD files would survive the conversion with watcheability.

Yes useing the SIF setting you can get Quite Good Results and get a Lot of Video on a DVD, I actually use a Little Higher bitrate than that usually about 1500-1750kbs but either way you get a Lot of Better than VCD Quality Video on a DVD....Cheers

"I actually use a Little Higher bitrate than that usually about 1500-1750kbs"

Earlier you had mentioned a 1250Mbps min, and that is why I started with that, and its worked out quite well. I set the max to 3000, but using two pass, I suppose I should actually set it higher.

The results are quite nice.

mark

Actually I do set the Minimum to 1250 and the Max to about 3000 but the average bitrate ends up around 1500-1750kbs, This is useing the One Pass VBR setting in CCE 2.67...Another reason why I like useing this Resolution is the encodeing is Much Faster..In CCE encodeing from Mpeg2/Vob files with AVISynth and Mpeg2Dec.dll I get up to 3-4 times Real time encodeing so a 2 hour movie takes a little over half an hour to encode to 352+240 Mpeg2, which is nice when you have other stuff to do and Can"t wait 2 hours to encode a Movie at 720+480....Have a Good One....Cheers

If you have problems to create mpeg1 DVD's with DVDlab then you migth want to try TMPGENC DVD Author which supports mpeg1 as well as mpeg2 at vcd resolution. There is a 30 day free trial version. I have also made mpeg1 DVD with spruceup without problems.

My standalone player seems to only support MPEG1 at VCD resolution on DVD, it does not play mpeg2 at this resolution. Is that normal? According to mpeg1 specifications it can only be CBR, not VBR, at least when making VCD. Is that true also when making DVD? I prefer to stick to specifications to avoid future problems.

Even though the SIF DVD Standard seems to call for Mpeg1, I have never see a Authoring program that didn"t accept mpeg2 in SIF Format..Most DVD authoring Programs will author SIF DVD"s the same way they do Full D1 DVD"s and this can cause DVD Players not to Play them But if Authored Properly any DVD Player should be able to Play them, Like Mark said his DVD player wouldn"t play SIF DVD"s untill he used DVD-Lab useing the SIF project setting and then they would play on his DVD Player..All of My SIF DVD"s Play Perfectly on all of the DVD Players I have Tried....Cheers

i am answering my own question - the program to use is tmpgenc dvd author. it has four simple buttons:
1. start
2. source setup
3. create menu
4. output

"source setup" stage has an option to assume input is bilingual and will presumably reencode to dual language.
"output" stage writes the video_ts, audio_ts. simple!

finally just burn with nero i think.

however, as i am writing this, the remaining time for output is approx 30mins for 1 vcd. is it reencoding the video? i hope not...

Tmpgenc DVD author Doesn"t have an encoder, But I hope you are Putting More than One VCD on a DVD-R, as it would be a waste of space to just put one VCD on a DVD-R as you can fit at least 3 movies on a DVD-R in VCD format, And I hope you re-sampled the Audio to 48000hz?.....Cheers