SVCD cannot be viewed

kebrinton · Post by **kebrinton** » Fri May 12, 2006 6:27 pm

I created a SVCD from a VHS tape which in turn had been made from an old 8mm home movie taken in the 1930s. I shared the DVD with my brother.

Then my sister heard about it and wanted one, too. I copied my SVCD and sent it off. She was unable to view the video on their livingroom DVD player, their Mac, and a friend's PC.

Uh-oh! How embarrassing -- I'd sent her a dud disk. So I made another copy and checked it carefully, viewed it all the way through, and sent it off.

Once again she cannot find any DVD player or computer that will let her view it. What could explain this? I'd love to be able to tell her something.

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Fri May 12, 2006 6:35 pm

Not all DVD players can play SVCD. (Some players can't even play "burned" DVDs, or can they can play DVD-R but not DVD+R, etc.)

(I don't know what software it takes to play an SVCD on a computer.)

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Fri May 12, 2006 8:21 pm

I suspect a missing mpeg1 decoder in the case of the PC's used, out of my 3 DVD players only one plays SVCD's

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri May 12, 2006 9:29 pm

... Except, Heinz-Oz, that SVCDs use mpeg-2! And I am afraid the reality is that, as Doug has said, quite a few DVD players -- and again, mostly at the higher, brand name end of the scale, cannot play SVCDs at all, and may have difficulty even with home-made VCDs, not to mention home-made DVDs...

But Keith, why did you choose to do it in SVCD format in the first place. Given your long participation on this Board, I would have assumed you could easily have made and burned a DVD of your old film. And if you keep the burn speed down to around 4x, then that should reduce the chances of it not playing on certain DVD players...

kebrinton · Post by **kebrinton** » Fri May 12, 2006 10:34 pm

Yikes! I didn't think I'd get any responses.

Ken: The answer to your question (why I used CD medium to make an SVCD, and not a true DVD) is that I simply could not bring myself to use up a DVD-R for this tiny movie (5 minutes?). Since it would only be viewed "in house," I figured use a cheaper medium (cheaper back then). Even on an SVCD it only occupies the first half-inch of recordable space!

Your comment, though, makes me kind of ashamed that I didn't just make a DVD for my sister. I always thought she was the skinflint!

As for machines not being able to play SVCDs, I've never run into any machine at all that couldn't play my DVD-R creations or my SVCDs. So I naturally assumed there'd be no problem. Guess I've just been lucky.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri May 12, 2006 11:39 pm

Re being a skinflint --

-- the odd thing here in Oz about pricing these days, is that, at computer fairs, I now pay almost the same price for a blank, full face single layer DVD-R as I do for a blank CD, give or take 5 cents. It just 'does not compute' to me that I should be paying so much (in reality, only around 30 cents) for a CD when a DVD can hold six times the information. At any rate, I fully understand the reluctance to 'waste' a disc on a tiny project -- but it is the space and not the price, which is the key factor for me...