How to restore old VCDs

[MichaelT]

Hi

I am new to the forum but since long been using Pictureshow. I started with 1.0 and still using 2.0. After checking old projects on burned VCDs I realised that some are already corrupt. With these the autostart on the DVD player does not function anymore. I still have the UPS-project files but unfortunately I changed the source folders of the fotos and audio files. That is why PictureShow cannot open the project. I have a couple of questions regarding this issue:
- can I edit the project file with some software in order to change the source file paths?
- how does the CD autostart? If I make a copy of a functionning CD it does not start anymore
- what is the meaning of the VCD folders? I ususally have
CDA - empty
CDI - empty
Ext - empty
Karaoke - empty
MPEGAV - VCD movie (showing "Please turn on PBC ...")
VCD - files: Entries, Infos, Lot, PSD
Segment - VCD files with fotos which I can run with e.g. Power DVD

- can I somehow backup an image of the CDs in order to be able to burn a new one if the old one goes corrupt?

That's a lot but I hope somebody can help.
Cheers
Michael

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums,

Here is a link to some information that may answer most of your questions:
http://www.videohelp.com/vcd

Now as far as backing-up those discs, that depends on what type of software you have, and what media you want to back them up on. Do you want to back them up onto hard drives (internal or external), other CDs, or DVDs? Archiving could be done by simply copy/paste, or using a compression utility like WinZip. Once all the files are zipped-up, just burn them onto a disc, or copy them to a HDD for storage.

If you're wanting to have discs that will play in stand-alone players, then you need an authoring program. For DVDs. there's several on the market. Corel offers DVD MovieFactory 7 Pro. With it you can back-up data files, create video discs (VCD, SVCD, DVDs), provides templates to archive numerous Video CDs onto a single VCD, and much more.

A disc, be it a CD or DVD auto-starts not due to just the disc itself, but from what your OS has set to auto-start. With WInXP, right-click on your CD drive and select Properties. In the CD drive Properties dialog window that opens, select the Auto Play tab. From there you can set what you want Windows to do when a disc is inserted to the tray.

winxp_autoplay.jpg (46.79 KiB) Viewed 16347 times

[MichaelT]

This was fast! Thank you Ron.

Only one question you did not answer: Can I edit the PictureShow project files?

Michael

[Ron P.]

The only way to edit them is with Picture Show. They are proprietary, like VSP is to VideoStudio, DVP is to MediaStudio Pro. If PS is not allowing it, then sadly I would say they are corrupt, and probably lost. I'm not very familiar with PS. Does it have a re-linking function? If so you would need to relink all your clips. If not, you would need to recreate where all the files were once located.