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Converting
a Video CD (VCD) to Divx is usually easier to do than converting
a DVD CD. But why convert? Simple, VCD's take up two 650MB
CD-R's whereas Divx almost always use one CD-R. The file size
of the average Divx is usually about 600 MB's so exchanging
them over the Internet becomes much easier.
Programs
you will need
- VCDGear
- Flask
Mpeg (0.58 or above)
- VirtualDub
(optional)
- Pecks
Power Join (optional)
- Divx
Codec (3.11 Alpha or above)
- Radium
MP3 Codec
Note:
Most programs will require that Windows Media Player is
installed and fully up to date i.e.. Install the latest Media
Player upgrade! You will probably also need Direct X 7.0 installed
and Direct X Media (which is different from Direct X and needs
to be installed as well). Be warned, though, you will not
be able to uninstall Direct X 7 one it is done. Peck's Power
Join is just to stick the two VCD CD mpegs together. Anything
that either sticks Divx or VCD mpegs together will do the
job. For example, you can use IFilmEdit, VCD Cutter, Camel's
MpegJoin etc. But with these you must copy 'both' VCD Mpegs
on to your hard drive and then stick them together. VirtualDub
is also additional and will only be used if you have sound
synchronization problems.
Step
1. Extracting the Dat File
Make
a Folder on your hard drive and call it GEAR. Put inside this
folder the program VCD Gear. The VCD Gear program doesn't
need to be installed just copied to this folder.
(a)
Insert your first VCD into your CD-ROM
(b)
To run VCD Gear you will need to open the MS-DOS Prompt. Either
do this with the icon (i.e.. Programs > MS-DOS Prompt) or
just go to START > RUN. And then type Command.com ie.
Change
to the GEAR folder you created ie. type:
- cd..
(press Enter)
- CD
GEAR (press Enter)
Okay,
make sure you name the file locations correctly. Type the
following command line:
VCDGEAR
-dat2mpeg -fix D:MPEGAV\AVSEQ01.DAT C:\GEAR\AVSEQ01.MPG
The
first part in Green is the commands to convert the dat file
and fix the broken structure. The Red part is the location
of the dat file on your CD-ROM.
The Blue part is where on your computers Hard Disk the converted
file will be placed. Don't just copy the above put the correct
locations in place of the Red and Blue text. It will look
like this:
click
to see picture
This
all should take about 15 minuets. When it is finished you
will have a fully compliant Mpeg-1 file in which you can convert
to Divx. Move on to Step 2.
Note:
Many people are of the opinion that because they can play
VCD *.dat files in most Mpeg players the *.dat file is the
same as an Mpeg. This is not the case! A VCD mpeg is basically
an Mpeg-1 file but just like the DVD VOB files the *.dat file
also contains other pieces of information needed to play the
VCD in a commercial VCD player. These files need to be deleted
otherwise you will not be able to do anything with the Mpeg
movie. This is why we need VCD Gear.
Step
2. Converting the Video and Audio to Divx
Make
sure you have the Divx Codec installed along with all the
Windows upgrades mentioned at the start. You may as well install
the Radium MP3 Codec here too. Now run Flask Mpeg 0.58 and
open the VCD mpeg file:
click
to see picture
Under
Options > Global Project Options use the following Settings:
click
to see picture
Note:
the 720 x 480 is DVD settings but I find that this setting
works best for me! The finished Divx will look just like a
DVD Rip. Selecting a smaller resolution will not significantly
reduce the filesize or compression speed. The above Time Base
(fps) is set to a PAL CD. If your CD is NTSC you can choose
29.97 (fps).
Now
the audio tab should be set to Decode Audio:
click
to see picture
Under
the Files tab you can tell Flask where to save your Divx ie:
click
to see picture
Leave
everything else alone and click OK.
Select
Run > Start Conversion.
The
following Dialogue box will appear. You must click on both
the Audio and the Video Select Codec buttons to select the
correct Codec's for Divx:
click
to see picture
Under
the Video Codec Select DivX ;-) MPEG-4 Low-Motion. Press the
Configure button for additional settings. I set the Compression
Control to 0 Crispness. You can play about with these settings
if you like to see how it turns out. What Data Rate to choose
depends on your finished film length, this is the length of
both VCD's added together.
click
to see picture
Now
select the Audio Settings. Choose MPEG Layer 3 and 96 kBit/s,
44,100 Hz, Stereo 12KB/s. Actually many Divx use 64 kBit/s
audio, so you can select that if you wish.
click
to see picture
That's
it! Sit back and wait for the finished Divx from VCD! It should
take less than 6 hours per CD using a 500MHZ computer.
click
to see picture
Step
3. Sticking the two Divx files together
This
is simple enough using Peck's Power Join. Find the two files
and add them to the list in correct order from top to bottom.
Press the add to list button to add each one (circled in red).
When done press Join! That's it! You now have a finished Divx
movie converted directly from a VCD and small enough to fit
on a single CD-R.
click
to see picture
Troubleshooting
The
only serious problem I have encountered using this method
is that sometimes the sound synchronization is out. If this
happens run VirtualDub and open the finished Divx file.
click
to see picture
Go
to the Video settings and select Direct stream copy.
click
to see picture
Choose
Frame Rate > Change so video and audio duration's match. Click
OK.
click
to see picture
Go
to the Interleaving options and set it to Preload 1000 ms
of audio and interleave audio after every 500 frames. Click
OK.
click
to see picture
Choose
the Audio Compression option > MPEG Layer-3. Click Show all
formats and select 96 kBit/s, 44,100 Hz, Stereo (or 64 kBits/s).
click
to see picture
Go
to the Audio settings. Make sure it is set to AVI audio and
select Full processing mode.
click
to see picture
Finally,
choose Save AVI and select where you wish to save it on your
hard disk.
click
to see picture
The
following box will appear showing details of its progress.
In about 10 to 15 minuets your fixed Divx will be complete.
To speed up this process you can also select a higher priority
in the processing thread priority box (circled in red).
click
to see picture
ABOUT
DivX (MPEG-4) Player
What
does it do ? This player can utilise the Microsoft Media Player
and the DivX Codec to play back DivX (MPEG-4) clips.
Why
should I use it over Microsoft Media Player or MicroDVD ?It's
all up to you whether which one you choose. The DivX (MPEG-4)
player is still in the early days of development, and the
kind of features it will have will be determined by you, as
you can submit your ideas and wishes to the author of this
program (see below "credits" section for contact details).
So
how easy is it to have subtitles ?To display subtitles, all
you need to do is to include the MDVD subtitle file with the
following format :
{start-frame}{end-frame}subtitleeg.
{100}{200}Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix
is.
Save
this file with extension .sub, and rename it to the same name
as your DivX MPEG-4 AVI file (eg. for testing.avi, name the
subtitle file testing.sub) and place them both in the same
directory - Done !!. Various font options for subtitles can
be configured within the player as well.
Credits
This
program was written by REDZ, and you can contact him regarding
suggestions/wishes here : DivXplayer@hotmail.com For general
DivX (MPEG-4) problems, please use our tech-support email
service.
DivX
MPEG-4 Player - Files
| DivX
(MPEG-4) Player 0.01 |
DivX
Player - 198K |
| DivX
(MPEG-4) Player readme |
Contains
more information on how to get subtitles |
| Microsoft
Media Player |
Needed
for playback |
| MPEG-4
DivX Codecs |
Needed
for playback of MPEG-4 content |
Links
| Official
English MicroDVD Guide |
The
official documentation for MicroDVD - instructions about
it's subtitle format inside |
| Official
French MicroDVD Guide |
The
official documentation for MicroDVD - in French |
| Forum |
Read
what others have to say about this player, and also submit
your queries |
| Notification |
Get
notified by email when a new version of this software
is available : |
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