Remaking VCD into DVD

Kiwi Bob · Post by **Kiwi Bob** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 10:37 pm

I have a Pal VCD (67mins) made some years ago which sometimes would play with no problems but often would pixelate and freeze up. I now wish to salvage, tidy and remake into a widescreen DVD.

I have tried to copy the mpg from the vcd onto my pc. Many attempts would lockup but on some I got the full mpg but towards the end of the copied mpg there were many artifacts athough on different frames on each attempt. The file size of each of the copies is the same as the original.

I had always thought that the same file size was a check that you had a true copy. Is there another way to know other than viewing the frames?

I used to archive my films on mini-dv tape when I made my VCDs but for this one I only still have the second half on tape.

So for this project I have:
1st half mpg (ok quality) - - - - 2nd half DV (good quality)
24 bits, 352 x 288, 25 fps - - - 24 bits, 720 x 576, 25 fps
Frame-based - - - - - - - - - - - - lower field first
Video: 1150 kbps - - - - - - - - - 2974 kbps
Audio: 12 bit 44.1Khz - - - - - - 16 bit 32,000 Khz

I have tried various setting for the DVD but lose too much of what quality I have for the first half. I am thinking of going with:
352 x 288, 25 fps, Lower Field First, quality 70, variable 6000 kbps, Dolby 3/2 384kbps.
The mpg is rendered on the video track (not widescreen) and DV on the overlay with top/bottom cropped to give widescreen effect.

Any there any other settings which may give a better result without degrading the mpg part?

Thanks - Bob

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 10:48 pm

I don't really mean to jump in here as I am still away from my main computer (and still in Europe rather than Australia). However, if you are expecting miracles, you are in for disappointment. VCD, even good VCD, is still only relatively low quality mpeg-1. Decent DVD is mpeg-2 using higher frame settings and bitrates -- even though mpeg-1 can nonetheless be burned to DVD.

However, think about it. You have lower quality mpeg-1 and you are now wanting to convert it to DVD-quality mpeg-2. Any editing of mpeg, whether mpeg-1, 2 or 4, is -- by the very nature of the beast -- going to involve quality loss.

You certainly are never going to improve the quality. And if you are increasing the frame size from the half frame size used by VCD, to the full frame size used by the DVD format you have chosen, then there is even greater and obvious quality loss.

Kiwi Bob · Post by **Kiwi Bob** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 12:12 am

I appreciate your comments Ken. Yes, I will not get better quality than the original.

I take it then, that remaking it as a VCD would give me better TV viewing quality than if I did it as a DVD with frame size 352 x 288. I was planning on remaking my old VCD's as DVD thinking that this format may be more stable when viewing.

Back in 2002 I did not find burning/viewing my VCD's reliable and gave up on the hobby, but I have now got back into it with a newer burner, discs and VS10+.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 2:32 am

It would only be worth going over the old ground again if you have access to the original source material that you used to create your VCD discs from. Otherwise you can simply keep the old stuff in VCD format as most DVD Players will play them anyway.