After experimenting with different CDRs, I discovered that the only kind my RCA DVD player would recognize is the CD-RWs; I assume because of their almost-silver surface, while all other CDRs have a coating that's either blueish or yellowish. The problem is that when my DVD plays the home-made VCD, it freezes every few seconds, and I need to press 'Pause' and the release it to make the VCD continue playing. The higher the quality of the MPEG-1 capture (using Dazzle DVC), the shorter it plays before hanging... Does anyone know how to correct this? Maybe it needs some other kind of CDRW (I'm using the Memorex brand). Thanks.

-- Gil Gutierrez (gilg@whc.net), March 22, 1999

Answers

OK, I found the answer. Turns out that recording at a slighty lower capture quality solves the problem. In short, to create a video CD that my RCA DVD Player will play, I did the following: 1. Transfer the Camcorder clips to MPEG using a Dazzle DVC. Selecting the 'Movie Quality' at 200K Data Rate. Use the 'NTI CD Creator' program and a Memorex CDRW (Regular CDRs will not be recognized by the DVD player). 3. Play the CDRW on the DVD player.

-- Gil Gutierrez (gilg@whc.net), March 26, 1999.

Your solution is not the final one. A Video CD compliant MPEG-1 video streams at a maximum rate of 1.15 MBps. Any good gold CD-R should be adequate. The streams you have created, although may/may not be within the boundaries of MPEG compression are not Video CD compliant.

If you use DVC, I think it may come with a package called iFilmEdit. Reload your MPEG file into iFilmEdit, Select Video CD and rewrite a new MPEG file. This newly re-processed MPEG file should be Video CD compliant. Now burn into CD-R and close disc. The VCD should play. If it still does not play on your DVD player, try its compatibility with another player or PC software such as Xing. For more detailed answer, please submit your specifications and requirements to us at wired@tm.net.my

-- Digital Human Multimedia (wired@tm.net.my), March 31, 1999.