DVD to VCD?

N

noahsnyc

macrumors regular
Hello -

Are there any super-simple apps out there to directly convert a DVD (in it's entirety) to VCD?

Obviously, chapters and buttons, and possibly menus would be sacrificed, but what about being able to just copy the "main title" to the ol' RAM buffer and then to a VCD (probably more like 2 or 3 VCDs)?

I've been through Handbrake, MacTheRipper, 42, etc. But have yet to find anything that will simply extract and convert the main title to MPEG2 over the course of a couple of CDs in one step....Does something like this even exist?

Thanks

N.
 
not that I can think of, but perhaps with Automator in Tiger next year, something like this can be set-up easily. :D
 
Have you tried Forty Two?

I presume you mean an entire DVD onto multiple VCD disks. An entire DVD crammed into a single VCD would be impossible as the VCD format is time based at a predetermined video quality.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10778

However be warned, its a finicky app that will give bad results as often as good ones. FFMPEG is also great, but requires some finesse and registration. Its WELL worth the money as it will do many other neat things.

But what you ask requires RIPping and decoding CSS on the DVD and Re-encoding to MPEG format and properly formatting to a VCD/SVCD format. That is some serious processor intensive work, but it can be done.
noahsnyc said:
Hello -

Are there any super-simple apps out there to directly convert a DVD (in it's entirety) to VCD?

Obviously, chapters and buttons, and possibly menus would be sacrificed, but what about being able to just copy the "main title" to the ol' RAM buffer and then to a VCD (probably more like 2 or 3 VCDs)?

I've been through Handbrake, MacTheRipper, 42, etc. But have yet to find anything that will simply extract and convert the main title to MPEG2 over the course of a couple of CDs in one step....Does something like this even exist?

Thanks

N.
Click to expand...
 
seamuskrat said:
Have you tried Forty Two?
I presume you mean an entire DVD onto multiple VCD disks. An entire DVD crammed into a single VCD would be impossible as the VCD format is time based at a predetermined video quality.
However be warned, its a finicky app that will give bad results as often as good ones. FFMPEG is also great, but requires some finesse and registration. Its WELL worth the money as it will do many other neat things.
But what you ask requires RIPping and decoding CSS on the DVD and Re-encoding to MPEG format and properly formatting to a VCD/SVCD format. That is some serious processor intensive work, but it can be done.
Click to expand...

Yes, as with consumer VCDs, I would expect to fit an entire DVD movie onto two or three VCDs...

I've found that Forty Two doesn't respond well, although there are two new versions, "professional", if you will, that seem to be a little more up my alley. One of these includes a dedicated MPEG2 decoder and presets for VCD, so maybe I'll give that a try...

FFMPEG is a bitch, to say the least. The fact that everything has to be pre-set and qualified means that unless I know my set decode/encode process, bitrates, etc, it's trial-and-error. Same goes with most other DivX-based apps, such as Handbrake.

What I'm looking for is a program that will import and decode a DVD, then automatically recode into MPEG2 (whilst of course saving and attaching the audio files, a big request in itself) and split whatever the space is over however many CDs it requires. Of course, the encoding should automatically be the "perfect" bitrate and combonation of quality and compression required by the medium. This may sound like a feat, but there are PC-based apps that do it seamlessly, and, as a recent trip to Southeast Asia showed me, lots of folks all over the world seem to have mastered.

Thanks,

N.
 
noahsnyc said:
Hello -

Are there any super-simple apps out there to directly convert a DVD (in it's entirety) to VCD?

Obviously, chapters and buttons, and possibly menus would be sacrificed, but what about being able to just copy the "main title" to the ol' RAM buffer and then to a VCD (probably more like 2 or 3 VCDs)?

I've been through Handbrake, MacTheRipper, 42, etc. But have yet to find anything that will simply extract and convert the main title to MPEG2 over the course of a couple of CDs in one step....Does something like this even exist?

Thanks
N.
Click to expand...

First, I think you have to break the encryption using something such as OSeX or DVD2OneX (I've only used the first). Then, using Toast, you can burn a VCD. It will probably take about one full day to do all this (unless you have a G5).

ffmpegx will do it in basically one step, but I find that it often crashes the computer after a few hours of encoding.
 
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