01/05/04: Making VCD

Today is VCD fun! So what is VCD? It's something that the Chinese have invented as a substitute to DVD. Why is it so interesting? You can burn your movies on a regular CD-ROM and watch them on your DVD player.

So, let's get the tool:

apt-get install vcdtools

I used an MPEG1 movie of dimension 384x288 with a bitrate of 1152 KBit/sec and an audiostream with a sample rate of 44100 Hz, stereo and a bitrate of 224 KBit/sec. Let's call this file movie.mpg.

Next I create the VCD file with the following command:

mkvcdfs movie.mpg

Next you will need to burn the file with cdrdao. I had a bit of a headache here because the version that comes with Debian testing doesn't yet support the new IDE interface that comes with Linux 2.6. I grabbed and manually installed version 1.1.7-5 in unstable and it works fine.

Now i am blanking my CD-RW:

cdrdao blank --save --driver generic-mmc --device /dev/hdb

Note that adding the --save parameter will save the options in a file called .cdrdao in your home directory. In effect, you don't need to specify the driver and the device on the command line.

Next I burn my movie:

cdrdao write vcd.toc

I pop that CD in my DVD player and the movie looks great. I am pleased!

I if use a movie encoded in NTSC, it plays back in black and white and I am not sure why

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