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Alternative to Toast for making VCD/SVCD's
Authored by: greencj on Oct 17, '03 12:24:06PM
My comment should really be a separate hint.... Creating bin/cue files and burning them to CD are a couple of steps used to create VCD's or SVCD's. These are a poor man's DVD that can be created on an older iMac or any other mac that has a CD burner but not a superdrive. The CD's will then play in most home DVD players - a very cool way of sharing your movies with friends and family. Another bonus is the media is far cheaper than DVD's. The quality is also not bad! Here's what you need to create a VCD/SVCD:
  1. Export your iMovie to Quicktime in full quality DV format
  2. ffmpeg - a shareware application (with free demo) that let's you convert your DV quicktime movie to a bin/cue file suitable for burning a VCD/SVCD
  3. Missing Media burner - a free ware app. that let's you burn your bin/cue file created in ffmpeg onto a CD. The alternative is to buy Toast 6.0 (I'm too cheap)
  4. VLC is a media player you can use to test your bin/cue files before burning a disk. It's a great application - I use it in preference to quicktime for viewing movies.
These tools use open source (GPL) command line applications such as CDRDAO to do the heavy lifting. They are just a GUI to shield the user from long terminal commands with complicated syntax. After an hour of experimenting with ffmpeg and missing media burner I had burnt my 1st SVCD. I could view it on my TV using a $40 DVD player from Walmart. I'm considering writing a simple application (applescripted) that uses these GPL applications and will do the whole lot at once, with a much simpler GUI leading the user through the work process. Any suggestions for a name?

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Chris.

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Alternative to Toast for making VCD/SVCD's
Authored by: Alrescha on Oct 17, '03 12:34:02PM

for those comfortable with X11, I'd like to mention that the OS X port of xcdroast works very well for copying/burning various CD and DVD images. it's also smart enough to put the automounter to sleep while it's running, which is a first in my experience.

I normally prefer native OS X applications over unix ports. I have tried just about every burning app that one can find on VersionTracker and ended up happiest with xcdroast. A bit crude, but very effective.

xcdroast for OS X:

http://www.xcdroast.org/xcdr098/xcdrosX.html

A.



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Alternative to Toast for making VCD/SVCD's
Authored by: barryjaylevine on Oct 17, '03 02:07:15PM

Another great alternative is MPEG2 Works which can be found here:
http://www.tosa.2ya.com/mpegworks

Tosa's managed to hook together all of the essential UNIX components in a very pleasing GUI. Best of all: It works!

Barry

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