Since I bought my first DVD player about a year ago, I have been interested in authoring video CDs (VCD) using Linux tools. Thanks to a lot of hard work by others in the last year, I have recently been able to make good VCDs. I wanted to share my experiences in using a diverse range of software. ================================================================================ I am currently using the following hardware: o AMD Athlon 550Mhz processor o Creative Labs Sound Blaster PCI 128 (es1370 chipset) o Win TV PCI o Phillips Magnavox DVD 825 DVD player and the following software: o Linux kernel 2.4.0-test9 o videodevX + bttv2 (most recent as of 12 October) o mp1e 1.8 o vcdtools 0.2 o lavtools 1.4 o qdvt (Quick and Dirty Video Tools) o cdrdao ================================================================================ Here is the process I am using: 1. Grab video mp1e -v -G 352x240 -s 352x240 -b 1.152 -a 0 -B 224 -S 44.1 > foo_mpe1.mpg (Get error ``Bit rate is too low, dropping frames'') 2. Demultiplex audio for re-encoding mpeg1demux foo_mp1e.mpg -a "cat > foo.mp2" -v "cat > /dev/null" 3. Uncompress video for re-compression AUDIO_PIPE=`mktemp -u /tmp/audio.XXXXXX` mkfifo $AUDIO_PIPE VIDEO_PIPE=`mktemp -u /tmp/video.XXXXXX` mkfifo $VIDEO_PIPE ( qtmux foo.mov $AUDIO_PIPE $VIDEO_PIPE & mpeg1demux foo.mpg -a "buf | \ mpg123-stream - > $AUDIO_PIPE" -v "buf | mpeg2decode | \ yuvrgb > $VIDEO_PIPE" ) rm $AUDIO_PIPE $VIDEO_PIPE 4. Re-compress video so that it is VCD-friendly mpeg2enc foo.mov -o bar.mpg 5. Multiplex video and audio vcdmplex bar.mpg foo.mp2 final.mpg (Get error ``BUFFER underrun!'' after about 40 seconds of video have been processed) 6. Create disc image mkvcdfs final.mpg 7. Burn it cdrdao write --device 0,3,0 --driver generic-mmc vcd.toc ================================================================================ Here are some problems, questions, and comments: o Colors become washed out between step foo_mp1e.mpg and final.mpg. o Image quality could be improved. Perhaps I could grab with mp1e at a bit rate above 1152Mb/s since I am recompressing anyway. I have a feeling mpeg2enc may be able to create higher quality low bitrate streams, as it does not have a real time requirement. o After about four minutes the video becomes extremely jumpy when I play it on my DVD player. This happens whether I fast forward to the four minute point or not. Unfortunately, I have not been able to try my disc in any other DVD player than my own. o How could I reduce the process I use? I would really like to skip the recompression phase, but mp1e seems to be unable to generate VCD compliant streams at this point. mpe1 is the ONLY grabbing program I have found with which I am able to grab syncronized audio and video from my Win TV PCI card. ================================================================================ Anyway, I would be very interested to hear any one else's experiences. -- W. Michael Petullo :wq
