Can someone tell me exactly what steps I need to take inorder to make a VCD with an mpeg that is in the wrong format? Also, if conversion is needed does it bring down the quality of the MPEG?

-- Ethan Solomon (esolomon@uci.edu), February 14, 2000

Answers

Ethan, I am assuming your mpeg files are mpeg1 format with higher bitrates. Yes and no to your question as to the vid quality if you re- encode to VCD format, it depends on the quality of your original mpeg file. If your high bitrate mpeg1 file has good quality then the VCD format will also have good quality (of course it will slightly lower the quality due to the reduce bitrate). Software you'll be needing are either Panasonic or Xing. Both of these software products will take mpeg format files as input. LSX will only take AVI file. If you want to use LSX then you'll need to convert your mpeg to AVI, which will be a pain and no guarantee that the quality will be good. VirtualDub or Mpeg2AVI are the software(s) you'll need for the mpeg to AVI conversion. They are freewarez. Panasonic, Xing, and LSX are not; They must be purchased. Panasonic and Xing : select your input file = *.mpg,mpeg,mpv,dat,etc... select your output file = newname.mpg set your template = VCD NTSC 352x240 or VCD PAL 352x288 (this will lock you into the correct vid, audio, frame, etc bitrates for VCD ) play with the encoding settings(noise & video filter options etc..) push the encode button and wait for 4 to 11 hours depend on your vid time and CPU speed.

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), February 14, 2000.