CDROM on DVD format?

[xineizer]

Was I dreaming? I could recall that I read somewhere in this forum that it may be possible to burn a CDR in DVD format so as long as the video size does not exceed the capacity of the CDR. However, I can't seem to find the thread anymore...

I have a 5 minute long video that I made and I would want to have it in DVD format so that it'll be very clear -- VCD format just doesn't cut it for me. Unfortunately, I only have a combo drive.

Is it really possible to burn a video in DVD format on to a CDR? If so, help please.

I tried it with Toast. DVD Player on my PB can read it and plays it fine, but strangely, neither of my DVD players could play it. The LG plays it, but the sound is all garbled and stalls the video, while the JVC thinks it's a MP3 CD...

[extremyks]

Originally posted by xineizer
Is it really possible to burn a video in DVD format on to a CDR?

Hmmm... I don't think so, that explains why you can't play it on a standalone DVD player.

If you really wan't to transfer your video to DVD format, my shop can do it for you for a minimal Philmug price since it's just a 5min. video. Recently got a Zenith DVD Recorder for straitght DVD transfers, now I can transfer DVD video in realtime. PM me for details.

[Henjie]

Originally posted by xineizer
Was I dreaming? I could recall that I read somewhere in this forum that it may be possible to burn a CDR in DVD format so as long as the video size does not exceed the capacity of the CDR. However, I can't seem to find the thread anymore...

I have a 5 minute long video that I made and I would want to have it in DVD format so that it'll be very clear -- VCD format just doesn't cut it for me. Unfortunately, I only have a combo drive.

Is it really possible to burn a video in DVD format on to a CDR? If so, help please.

I tried it with Toast. DVD Player on my PB can read it and plays it fine, but strangely, neither of my DVD players could play it. The LG plays it, but the sound is all garbled and stalls the video, while the JVC thinks it's a MP3 CD...

Yup. The unofficial format is called miniDVD (DVD on a CD). I made a post about this in the old board:

----------

I second Ken's statement re: miniDVD. Since it's technically similar to a DVD, the quality is superb (depending on the source footage, of course) compared to VCDs or even SVCDs. Minimum DVD bitrate is 4000Kb/s while max for a VCD is somewhere in the 1200Kb/s range. 2500Kb/s for SVCD. You do the math. :-) The only drawback is you can only fit 20+ mins. of footage in one 700MB CD-R/CD-RW masquerading as a DVD, hence the term miniDVD. Plus the fact that most branded DVD players (Pioneer, Harman Kardon, Sony, etc. etc.) can't read miniDVDs. The cheaper DVD players by the likes of Nextbase, Skyworth, etc. etc. have no problems reading miniDVDs. ;-)

PC tools for making miniDVDs have been available for some time now but I only found out that the same thing is possible with Macs a few days ago, and only by accident. I was fooling around with a bunch of DV footage I'm editing, encoding them to different formats, burning to CD-RWs to test the quality (VCDs, SVCDs) when I stumbled upon miniDVD. Talk about a nice surprise. :-)

MiniDVD is a great option for those without SuperDrives/DVD burners but need to burn videos with quality better than VCDs and SVCDs. Assuming your DVD player's got uber-compatibility, then you're all set.

To make a miniDVD, you need ffmpegX and Toast 6, and iMovie/Final Cut Pro/etc. to capture and edit the source footage.

Capture the footage, edit it as you normally would using iMovie or Final Cut Pro and export to DV (NTSC). Everything matches up perfectly with DVD NTSC, including resolution (720x480) and framerate (29.97fps). It's a good idea to split your entire "production" into 20-25 min. parts to make sure that each part will fit into a 700MB CD-R.

Use ffmpegX to encode the DV file/stream to DVD format, using the "DVD hi-bitrate" quick preset. Video bitrate should be 4000Kb/s, video size 720x480, framerate 29.97fps. Open the file, choose the directory where the resulting DVD file should be saved, then tinker with the settings.

In the "Options" tab, make sure that "Bicubic", "Decode with Quicktime", and "No SVCD scan" are checked. If you've got a G4 Mac, "Altivec" should also be checked. Keep "Letterbox" unchecked unless the source footage is in widescreen 16:9 format. "Profile" should be DVD; "Q Matrix" either Standard or High frequencies (better quality); "Thread" Normal for single-procs and Dual CPU for dual-processor Macs. "VBV Size" 230 KB; "Sync" 0 ms; "Constant bitrate" should be checked; "Qmin" 3 or 4.

In the "Tools" tab, "Author as DVD (VIDEO_TS)" should be checked. "Keep elementary streams" should only be checked if you're gonna process the video and audio portions separately after you're done encoding. I don't do that so I just leave it unchecked.

Double-check the settings and when everything's okay, encode.

After ffmpegX is done encoding (around 15-20 mins. for a 5 min. footage in my machine), open up Toast 6 and choose DVD-Video from the "Video" tab. NTSC, "Video Quality" high. You can also have Toast make a simple DVD menu by checking "Create DVD Menu".

Drag and drop (or add) the Video_TS and Audio_TS folder (or folders) created by ffmpegX into the Toast window. Click on "Edit" beside each chapter to change the chapter titles which will appear in the DVD menu. Once everything is set, insert a blank CD-R then burn. And you have your very own miniDVD. :-)

----------

Hope this helps. :-)


~Henjie

[extremyks]

Interesting Henjie, thanks for the tip... would love to try it out if it's playable.

[Edited on 10-25-2004 by extremyks]

[xineizer]

Thanks, guys! Um, does it make a difference if I use ffmpeg rather than Cleaner 6?

I guess that I was able to make a successful miniDVD, except that my DVD players are not capable of reading miniDVDs.