DVD Formats

Hi,



Can anybody please advise, if I wanted to play DIVX, DIVX-Rip, DVD-SVCD,
XVID, AVI and MPEG formats, as DVD's on my DVD player, what would I require?



I have a PC which has a CD-RW, would I be right is thinking I would need the
following items; some conversion software to change the format into DVD, and
Some CD-RW or CD-R's



Also if the movie is more than 700 or 800mb's will the conversion software
span the disks for me.



As a matter of interest can you use DVD CD's in a standard CD-RW, (brand new
out of the box, without anything on them) to copy data onto?



I would appreciate any advice on the above.



Regards,



Belinda

Belinda

"Belinda" <> wrote in message
news:bsmdj2$k6k$...
> Hi,
>
>
>
> Can anybody please advise, if I wanted to play DIVX, DIVX-Rip, DVD-SVCD,
> XVID, AVI and MPEG formats, as DVD's on my DVD player, what would I
require?
>
>
>
> I have a PC which has a CD-RW, would I be right is thinking I would need
the
> following items; some conversion software to change the format into DVD,
and
> Some CD-RW or CD-R's
>
>
>
> Also if the movie is more than 700 or 800mb's will the conversion software
> span the disks for me.
>
>
>
> As a matter of interest can you use DVD CD's in a standard CD-RW, (brand
new
> out of the box, without anything on them) to copy data onto?
>
>
>
> I would appreciate any advice on the above.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Belinda
>
>

Hi Belinda, it would be too long and complex to try and answer your
questions, but try this site, it will explain everything you need to know.
You will also need a DVD Writer.

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

Dave

Funkyman

"Belinda" <> wrote in message
news:bsmdj2$k6k$...
> Hi,
>
> Can anybody please advise, if I wanted to play DIVX, DIVX-Rip, DVD-SVCD,
> XVID, AVI and MPEG formats, as DVD's on my DVD player, what would I
require?
>
> I have a PC which has a CD-RW, would I be right is thinking I would need
the
> following items; some conversion software to change the format into DVD,
and
> Some CD-RW or CD-R's
>
> Also if the movie is more than 700 or 800mb's will the conversion software
> span the disks for me.
>
> As a matter of interest can you use DVD CD's in a standard CD-RW, (brand
new
> out of the box, without anything on them) to copy data onto?
>
> I would appreciate any advice on the above.
>
> Regards,
> Belinda

Oh, you poor thing, you've been led far far astray, it appears as if you are
miles from the road, miles and miles with forest in between....

OK, enough of that

Here's something that is VERY IMPORTANT to remember:

DVD IS A COMPLETLY DIFFERENT THING THAN CD
***THE ONLY THING IN COMMON IS THE FACT THEY ARE A CIRCLE***

That's it, they are nothing at all alike [ok, those of you who are
technical, yes, they are read by red laser and recorded with a circular
track path, but the size of the path and spacing is different].

DVD discs hold 4.7GB of data, if they are recordable, sometimes called
DVD-5. Pressed ones (ie, the $20 ones) are usually dual layered, something
CD cannot do, and it holds 9.4GB, sometimes called DVD-9. Theres also a
DVD-18, which is a double sided disc with dual layers, these are the ones
you buy and are shiny on both sides, and the label is just in the very
center, that small plastic ring about 1cm wide. You have to get up and flip
the disc over to play the other half of the movie (Goodfellas is released
like that, other ones like Austin Powers [1] has a widescreen copy on 1
side, and a fullscreen copy on the other [least mine does]).

There are very few DVD players which can playback DiVX, or XVID. There is a
player by KISS that can, and another one from LiteOn which is pretty cheap
($100-$200 range) which can also. There is also no such thing as a
"DIVX-RIP," that is simply a DVD which has been ripped (ie, protection
removed, and copied to a hard drive), and then encoded into DiVX, and left
out everything except the movie. This is clearly something used in Internet
piracy.

Also, I think it is worth noting that the "AVI format" is not really a
format at all. The AVI files you have downloaded have DiVX or XVID video in
them. DiVX and XVID are formats, video formats, they do not have any audio.
But, the audio is typically an MP3 or AC3 format, they have no video. So,
the solution to combine the DiVX or XVID video file with the MP3 or AC3
audio file is to put them together in an AVI file. So, you see, AVI is not
a format but rather something called a "wrapper," this should be fairly easy
to grasp, as when you have something like a present, which is wrapped, when
you remove the wrapper you are left with the item you received. Well, here,
the item is a video file and an audio file (you can get the two original
files back from an AVI file), and the wrapper is AVI.

Your PC has a CD-RW drive, so you can write CDs. You cannot write DVDs, and
there is no such thing as a "DVD CD." The DVD-R and DVD+R discs you can
find in stores will not work in your PC at all.

However, you mentioned you had some MPEG files. What you can do with the
MPEG files is try to burn a Video CD (if you have Nero, thats exactly what
the project is called, if you dont have Nero, then you can try a program
called VCDEasy). These are compatible with most of the DVD players. I have
3 in my house, and VCD discs play in 2 of them, an Apex and a KLH, it wont
work in the Zenith I have from 2 years ago.

These DVD-SVCD you mention, however, they have less compatibility, but still
2/3 of my players work with them. These are also going to have an MPG
extension (ie, "Memento Disc 1 SVCD.mpg"), and in Nero instead of select
Video CD, select Super Video CD. In VCDEasy, change VCD2.0 to SVCD1.0.
Also, it is worth nothing that in the US, Canada, and Japan, NTSC format is
used, while in pretty much the rest of the world, PAL is used.

An extra special note to SVCD and VCD: In the NTSC world, the framerate of
video is either 23.967 or 29.97 (slower one is film, and faster one is TV),
but in the PAL world, it is 25. So, if you try to make a NTSC compatible
VCD, but use a 25fps MPG file, it will not play correctly in some players.
For example, between teh 2 players that I have which do play VCD, only 1
will play this foreign VCD correctly. The APEX knows to take the extra
resolution from the PAL video and squeeze it to fit my screen (which is what
it is supposed to do), but the KLH does not, so what happens is it cuts off
video from the top and bottom, takes that wider image and makes that fit the
screen, so that it comes out so people are taller and skinnier than they
should be. The same thing works for SVCD. I am unsure how playing an NTSC
VCD on a PAL system works, although my guess is that the video becomes
"widescreen," unfortunatley the people are suddenly short and fat.

Anonymous Joe

in article bsmdj2$k6k$, Belinda at
wrote on 12/28/03 3:08 AM:
>
> Can anybody please advise, if I wanted to play DIVX, DIVX-Rip, DVD-SVCD,
> XVID, AVI and MPEG formats, as DVD's on my DVD player, what would I require?

Just curious because I see posts like this all the time, and I'm wondering
why people are still messing around with these hacks for putting video on a
CD to play in a DVD player?

Please no "piracy" arguments here as it's irrelevant...I've seen people
wanting to do this with their own camcorder content.

Why not invest the $100 in a DVD burner? Recordable DVDs are now well under
$1. The software is easier, faster, and simpler. The resulting disc is
better quality and more compatible.

5-10 years from now are you going to be searching for a way to convert the
hack CD to DVD so it will play in future equipment?

I'm not trying to argue here, I'm just curious as to why so many people seem
to be spending so much time, money and frustration when making actual DVDs
is so damn easy/cheap.

> I have a PC which has a CD-RW, would I be right is thinking I would need the
> following items; some conversion software to change the format into DVD, and
> Some CD-RW or CD-R's

CDs are CDs. DVDs are DVDs. Except for the shiny 12cm roundness, there's
nothing much in common.

You'll need some software to edit the video, encode the video in compression
method of choice (like MPEG), and then burn the CD (as something like VCD).

The most important part is that you need a DVD player capable of playing the
format...both the compression format (VCD) and the disc format (CD-R or RW).

> Also if the movie is more than 700 or 800mb's will the conversion software
> span the disks for me.

It depends on the software and what exactly you're trying to do. Most
software compresses down to what will fit on a disk or you edit the video
and then compress down each file.

> As a matter of interest can you use DVD CD's in a standard CD-RW, (brand new
> out of the box, without anything on them) to copy data onto?

There's no such thing as a DVD CD. Are you asking if you can put a DVD into
a CD-RW? The answer to that would be, "yes it will fit, but it won't be
usable by the drive in any way". On the other hand, most DVD burners also
burn CD-R and CD-RW.

Hope this helps.

MR_ED_of_Course