My Pioneer DVC-503 will play a sample VCD image I burned on my Mac with no worries -- but the mpegs I encode using Astarte M.Pack (v.3.5.1e) give me no audio through the TV, while through the stereo amp, I get audio stutter and dropout. Audio CDs and CDRs, on the other hand, play just fine.

I've tried using the converter/cleaner at www.vcdgear.com to clean up/format MPEGS I've encoded (and downloaded), and get the same result. The problem doesn't seem to be with Toast (4.1.2), but with the encoded MPEGs. I've heard that this is a common problem with the Astarte encoder and Pioneer DVD players. Is there a workaround or an *affordable* alternate solution?

(This may be unrelated, but I've noticed that the Astarte encoder encodes MPEG-1 files at ~1.72 Mbps total throughput, while the files on the demo disk image are encoded at ~1.82 Mbps. Anybody know how to get that extra throughput AND a Toast-able file?)

-- rob hartzell (robert.hartzell@ua.edu), February 06, 2001