DVD to VCD

RARE ELEMENTS

Introduction

DVD (Digital Video Disk) movies are very high quality, however, even a short film requires 3.5 to 4 Gb of storage, so ripping the image at full quality to CD is no exactly practical. However, the film can be converted to a lower resolution and bitrate to save a consiterable amount of space, and still playback on a TV screen at as high a quality as a new VHS video tape, with the advantage that, with a little commonsense care for the disks, you could watch the VCD as often as you like with no drop in playback quality (unlike VHS which will stretch over time).

The method described here can take around 24 hours to complete, and requires a lot of Hard Drive space - between 4.5 and 10 Gb depending on the movie length. I have seen the results of so called "quick, onestep" methods, if you want a quality result, be patient.

Installation

Uncompress all the files to a suitable folder (e.g. C:\FlasKMPEG) - that's the easy bit :-) Of course a shortcut on your desktop will make life easier - but I'm not here to teach you the basics of Windows customisation

Method

The first thing you need to do is copy the movie files and DVD info file to the Hard Drive, this is described HERE

OK, finished? Good, now start FlasKMPEG

Select File/Open and find and highlight VTS_01_0.IFO

When you open this file you should get a box showing all the video, language and subtitle options, choose the options you want, normally their is only one video option, a selection of languages and subtitles, with the option for no subtitles.

In Options/Select Output Format choose bbMPEG Encoder (this is supplied with FlasK, you can use other Adomie Premiere plugins - check the documentation)

In Options/Global Project Options set the Video Tab to these settings:

Width: 352
Height: 288 (240 for NTSC)
Time Base: 25 (29.97 for NTSC)
iDCT Options: MMX iDCT (fastest) - for Pentium MMX, P2, P3, K6-2, Athlon Systems
: Non-MMX fast iDCT - for lower spec systems (hey your in for a long job)
In the Audio Tab:

Decode Audio
Uncheck "Same as Input"
select 44100 Hz

In the Post Processing Tab:

HQ Bicubic Filtering - as it says it's the slowest, but the extra quality is worth it
Keep aspect ratio checked
No Crop and No Letterboxing options, I normally leave these checked, if you want to crop a widescreen movie down to 4/3 TV aspect, you can uncheck these and play with the settings, use the "Show Output Pad to see what the results will be. Normally it will add black borders above and below a widescreen presentation.

In the Files Tab:

Select the filename and folder where you want to put the VCD encoded file.

In the General Tab:

If the movie is longer than 74 minutes (or 80 minutes depending on the media you plan to record to) you will need to encode the movie in two parts (one for each disk) their are programs available that will cut a VCD mpeg file, but none that I can find are freeware. Even if the movie will fit on one disk I recommend you enter the Compiling time, otherwise bbMPEG assumes the movie is 3hrs, 20mins.
Uncheck Compile Whole File
On the DVD disk or box it normally gives you the running time of the movie, 1/2 that time if it is to fit on 2 CDs (some movies require 3 disks, so 1/3 the time) - add 5 seconds to the time to allow for a slight overlap between disks, that way you don't miss any action.
Set Compiling Time - seconds, enter the time to encode in seconds.
For the second part of the movie, select Run/Player, run the movie up to a point a few seconds before the break point you got when you compiled the first section and stop it. close the player window - flask will now start encoding from that point. REMEMBER TO USE A DIFFERENT FILENAME IN THE "FILES" TAB - OR YOU'LL LOSE THE FIRST PART

Click OK to save those settings.

Now Click Run/Start Conversion, the bbMPEG window appears, we need to set that up now.

Click the Settings button.
In the "Video Stream settings select VideoCD and Pal Defaults (or deselect for NTSC)

Click the OK button now to save that setting, press Start and the conversion will start.

OK - after you've been through all that you should have the MPEG files on your hard drive, you can delete the .VOB and .IFO files you ripped from the DVD now (but check the MPEGs in Windows Media Player first - just to be sure).

Now load a file into a VCD template in your burning software to create a high quality VCD disk. My favourite software is Nero - you can get a 1speed recording trial version from www.ahead.de

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