Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!

Convert VCDs to DVDs via Toast Apps
I have searched and searched for an easy way to convert my Video CD's to DVD -- most were tedious and didn't seem to work properly, or relied on programs no longer available, supported, or able to be run on Tiger. However, on a whim, I took the .DAT files found in [MPEGAV], labeled AVSEQ01.DAT, AVSEQ02.DAT, etc., and asked VLC to play them -- which it did.

I then dragged them into Toast and told it to (after renaming the files something sensible such as DALEK01, DALEK02, etc.) burn a DVD of them. Perfect. This worked better than expected and didn't take much longer than a normal encoding/burning session.
    •    
  • Currently 2.50 / 5
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  (4 votes cast)
 
[15,562 views]  

Convert VCDs to DVDs via Toast | 6 comments | Create New Account
Click here to return to the 'Convert VCDs to DVDs via Toast' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Convert VCDs to DVDs via Toast
Authored by: magir on Feb 17, '06 08:46:21AM

The DAT-Files are simple MPEG1-Movies, if you rename them to .mpg you can even play them with Quicktime.

I'm not sure what the author meant by "burn to DVD". Are the burned DVDs playable with a standard DVD-Player? I don't think so, only players which read ISO or UDF CDs and DVDs and simply try to play all files found on the media may recognize the files as mpeg-streams. Without recoding MPEG1-files should not be playable as Video-DVDs which are encoded in MPEG2.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Convert VCDs to DVDs via Toast
Authored by: Dirk! on Feb 17, '06 09:16:36AM

Hello,

the DVD specification includes MPEG1 video data like it is found on VCDs. The only problem is the audio: VCD uses 44 kHz sample rate, DVD uses 48 kHz sample rate.

Demultiplexing the VCD file, converting the audio to 48 kHz audio and burning them on DVD sometimes resulted in audio out of sync problems even when using an (now) older version of Toast. If have not tried that again for some time now, so perhaps even the sysnc problems have been solved in current versions.

Dirk



[ Reply to This | # ]
Convert VCDs to DVDs via Toast
Authored by: Little Neddy on Feb 17, '06 12:47:15PM

Toast re-encodes the files so yes, it does play on any standard dvd player



[ Reply to This | # ]
Why convert VCDs to DVDs?
Authored by: sfgecko on Feb 17, '06 11:55:11AM

Why anyone would want to convert a VCD to burn onto a DVD is beyond me. A VCD is low quality 352x240 1150kbps video compared to DVD's 720x480 6-10Mbps. Most DVD players can read VCD discs, so what's the point? Garbage in is garbage out.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Why convert VCDs to DVDs?
Authored by: Little Neddy on Feb 17, '06 12:54:04PM

a. Backup - I have a large number of vcds that are fairly old and not very good quality. Some of the discs have the surface lifting. Value-for-money dictated 6 VCDs onto 1 DVD
b. Saves swapping VCDs - I am lazy..



[ Reply to This | # ]
Why convert VCDs to DVDs?
Authored by: ronbeerguy on Feb 17, '06 01:15:11PM

Yes. Garbage in garbage out is quite true. If you have a bunch of old vcd's
from back in the day. (I was making vcds before dvd burners were practical, cheap , or heard of) You could take a bunch of vcd footage off your cds and compile it all on one dvd. In theory it should work.



[ Reply to This | # ]