VCD to DVD

[cca82]

A couple years ago I made some home movies into VCD format as they were small and CDRs were cheap. They play fine on my DVD player, but some family and friends I've shared them with can't watch them. How can I convert the VCD to a DVD. I'm not willing to go back to the tape and recapture/edit for this.

 

Chris

[itsme51]

Try James's suggestions, and see if it works okay for you. I would recapture that tape as an .avi file, if possible, do whatever editing you need to do, and burn it to a DVD. The quality will be better than that VCD.

Although I have EMC 7.5 someone suggested I read this thread for assistance for converting a VCD to a DVD. I tried James' suggestion with no luck. Then I tried your suggestion to recapture as an avi. I used the Capture feature and chose the drive where the VCD was inserted. But nothign happened. The right hand side of the capture box said "no files selected" (or something like that). I'm not home now to try it at the moment and can't remember the exact wording of the message. Anyway . . . do you have any idea why the Capture feature might not work?

[grandpabruce]

Although I have EMC 7.5 someone suggested I read this thread for assistance for converting a VCD to a DVD. I tried James' suggestion with no luck. Then I tried your suggestion to recapture as an avi. I used the Capture feature and chose the drive where the VCD was inserted. But nothign happened. The right hand side of the capture box said "no files selected" (or something like that). I'm not home now to try it at the moment and can't remember the exact wording of the message. Anyway . . . do you have any idea why the Capture feature might not work?

 

I was talking about capturing from the actual original tape, not the VCD. You won't be able to improve the quality of the VCD, even if you can capture it.

[d_deweywright]

Although I have EMC 7.5 someone suggested I read this thread for assistance for converting a VCD to a DVD. I tried James' suggestion with no luck. Then I tried your suggestion to recapture as an avi. I used the Capture feature and chose the drive where the VCD was inserted. But nothign happened. The right hand side of the capture box said "no files selected" (or something like that). I'm not home now to try it at the moment and can't remember the exact wording of the message. Anyway . . . do you have any idea why the Capture feature might not work?

It sounds like you're trying to capture from the VCD? The idea was to re-capture from the original, probably VCR source, not the already highly-compressed VCD. The target for the capture needs to be your HD.

 

Hope that helps!

[itsme51]

Aaaah I see. I didn't fully understand what you were saying. Unfortuantely I don't have the orignal so I am left with the VCD. Thanks for responding.

[james_hardin]

You can copy the xxxx.DAT file from the MPEGAV directory to your HD and rename it to xxxx.mpg.

 

However, resolution is going to be a bit of a problem… Your VCD mpgs are 352 X 240 whereas DVDs are 720 X 480. You cannot render UP without taking a hit in quality!

 

Get a couple of DVD RW discs to play with. Try one without doing anything to it except burning and see what you think…

 

Try one with the Project Settings at 352 X 240 and see how it turns out…

 

In the worst case you may have to use VideoWave and insert a colored panel (your choice of color). Then add your mpg as an overlay and adjust the size to about 80% of the screen size. This will force the video to appear smaller on screen but it will look better.

 

Save the Project then go to MyDVD and when you Add Title, use the VW dmsm file.

 

By all means let us know how you make out with this – I have a few VCDs I have been wanting to convert but I haven't gotten past the thinking stage!

[grandpabruce]

A couple years ago I made some home movies into VCD format as they were small and CDRs were cheap. They play fine on my DVD player, but some family and friends I've shared them with can't watch them. How can I convert the VCD to a DVD. I'm not willing to go back to the tape and recapture/edit for this.

 

Chris

 

Try James's suggestions, and see if it works okay for you. I would recapture that tape as an .avi file, if possible, do whatever editing you need to do, and burn it to a DVD. The quality will be better than that VCD.