I have seen several posts about the Adaptec's Easy CD Creator 4.0 or earlier versions not performing as well as expected. My setup is this: PIII-450 with 64MB Ram with a HP CDRW and an ATI All In Wonder 128 (16MB version). All this was just recently purchased and I would like to get some inputs from all of you gurus out their concerning video capture. I can capture just fine with no problems but I don't want to be like 50% of the unsatisfied customers of Adaptec's Easy CD Creator. Please suggest a product that you think would work for creating VCD's with the most options and also being user friendly.

Hope I'm not asking too much here!!!

-- Michael Joyner (ukjoyner@aol.com), November 05, 1999

Answers

Stay away from EZ CD Creator for burning your vcds. Use Nero. I used to use Adaptec but I got tired of turning out coaster ever other try. Nero does just fine.

HazyMind

-- HazyMind (hayzmind@earthlink.net), November 05, 1999.

I don't know about Nero, but I can confirm you that the 3.0 version of Adaptec's burner is annoying. You will achieve good results in the end, but you'll have to do a whole special configuration of your PC around Adaptec's needs in order to do Ok, most of'em implicating a downgrade of your CPU's capabilities.

-- Matias (petrellm@telefonica.com.ar), November 05, 1999.

Hi Guys - take a look at my posting "NERO THE GREAT", problems with adaptec may well be non compliant files.

Cheers

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), November 07, 1999.

It turns out that Easy CD Creator tends to like VideoCD 1.1 compliant files, and Nero likes VideoCD 2.0 compliant files. I don't know the specifics between what makes one file 1.1 vs 2.0, but I do know that many capture boards which specifically capture in NTSC of PAL format are 1.1.

A lot of MPEG software outputs VideoCD 2.0 compliant formats, which are supposed to be easier to convert on-the-fly to view on both PAL and NTSC formats.

I have a capture board (Snazzi) which produces great 1.1 compliant files. Adaptec Easy CD Creator 3.5c burns beautiful VideoCDs for me, but Nero just garbles them. When I re-process same said files through a software encoder into 2.0, Adaptec munges them and then Nero does a good job.

So it really depends upon what your input device (or software encoder) ends up producing.

-- Jim B (jimbo987@my-deja.com), November 08, 1999.

Based on my experiences, the MPG white book file that burned by Adaptec can only played on several VCD player. Usualy, the new one can play well, but not on the old one.

I use WinOnCD, the result can be played on any player.

-- A A Arman (aa@lss.ee.itb.ac.id), November 11, 1999.

Completely agree with Armand. My own experience shows the same. Just by switching to WinOnCD I can play my VCD in many more players, which is very important to me.

-- Rusman Priyana (priyana@eudoramail.com), November 12, 1999.