How to produce a Video CD from Lightwave...

[starbase1]

Can anyone point me at any guides or tutorials on how to make a video CD from Lightwave? A web seach just gets me loads of false positive hits.

I've not done this before, and have no ideas about resolution, codecs, formats, or anything like that...

All clues very gratefully received!

Nick

[Flat]

Try http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

Ingredients :
- A video res animation from LW, preferably an uncompressed AVI made from numbered stills, with or without sound added, do this with AFX or Virtual Dub.

- An mpeg encoder (TMPgEnc comes to mind)

- A CD-DVD burner program (Nero)

Once you've got all that, it's just a matter of encoding the .avi to mpeg using TMPgEnc, and burn to VCD using Nero.

Note that this recipe also works for SVCD, which is much better quality.

If you need more specific help just ask.

Phil

[starbase1]

Thanks for the pointer, that looks a very comprehensive site. SVCD sounds much better for my needs.

Would you recommend any particular authoring package for SVCD's? (I have Nero but the *!$% thing is refusing to run, time to pester the tech support people!)

Cheers,
Nick

[WCameron]

http://www.vcdeasy.org/

- Will.

[Flat]

Well... I've always used Nero for SVCDs (or is it miniDVD, SXVCD, or... whatever. The format where you burn mpeg2 files at DVD res on a regular CD :) ) without a single problem.
No, my troubles mostly came from badly encoded mpegs.

What do you mean by "refuses to run" ?

SVCD are fairly easy to make but there are a few pitfalls.
Mainly, keep in mind SVCD is not a real standard, it works on most home players but not all of them.
For example my Pioneer DV-55 won't take full PAL res on regular CDs. I have to encode in 704x576 instead of 720. It won't take the wide screen aspect ratio either, meaning I lose a lot of pixels to letterboxing.

Also, be prepared for some serious color correction, especially if your monitor is at 9000° K. TV and computer gamma are seriously different animals.

The gain in quality is *well* worth the hassle though !
VCD is about VHS quality, that says it all. :rolleyes:


Phil, on an early weekend.