I made a movie(Stalingrad, 128 min) with LBR template 352x288 mpeg-1, from DivX source. Not the great quality, but it is clearly watchable on my 86 cm 4:3 TV. I muxed the file as SVCD with bbMPEG. VCDEasy gave me warning that the movie duration is too great and in the TRACK.SVD file it will be clipped to 100 min. Nevertheless the CD plays from the very beginning till the end on my DVD player.
Well, I tried to repeat the success with another movie (Black Hawk Down, 130 min, cutted end credits, DVD source) making two versions 352x576 and 352x288, both mpeg-1. Muxed with bbMPEG as SVCD because I wanted to add selectable subtitles and it is working on my player (I have tried with several movies before without probs). I had the same warning from VCDEasy (clipping the duration to 100 min) and this time the movie starts from the middle (33-35 mins are skipped, and at start point the player timer shows the time right). On the computer (Power DVD in disc mode) it plays from the beginning. I tried to change every option in bbMPEG and VCDEasy without success. Tried to mux with TMPG as SVCD - the movie starts in the middle on the player and from the beginning on the computer. Only when I muxed as non-standart VCD with TMPG the movie starts from the beginning on the player (and VCDEasy didn't clip the duration!) but in this case it is impossible to add the subtitles . Well, I don't know if there is a kind of restriction for SVCD (in my case seem to be 130 min or so). Can someone tell me how I can avoid the clipping from VCDEasy, or some other way to do this as SVCD
I mean without reencoding.

SVCD has a max duration of 100mins, although the disc should play fine after that anyway. The only thing is that your DVD player probably won't display the time correctly after 1h40mins and chapters beyond that point don't work. This is on my Pioneer DV-343. Could be that your player really dislikes long clips..

A workaround: split the original clip in two halves and mux them as separate movie files and place them both on the same disc. I think that you can get (almost) seamless viewing if you set the time to wait for next segment to zero in VCDEasy.

Thank you very much for the suggestion! In fact I have thought about this possibility, but failed splitting the subtitle file. Without the subtitles I don't need SVCD as VCD works. I had and worked out even more mad ideas, for example to put a title picture (default from DVD2SVCD, the grinning orange ), and so to force the player to play from beginning. Well , it plays the title picture and after that starts to play the movie from the middle . So I will try once more to split the thing.

I don't know what kind of subtitle format the switchable subs use, but if it's simple ASCII code like SubRip, you could split them manually. Unfortunately I've never done that kind of subs so I can't give any specific details.

Edit: almost forgot..good luck and tell us how it turned out

Well, it seems that my player really doesn't like the clips longer than 130 min. Another attempt with Minority Report (133 min) with the same result. Splitting doesn't solve the prob. If I gonna author only the first part of the splitted file as SVCD, it plays the clip correctly - I made this as I had doubts that it is for the bitrate. So, it seems I should live with this - making >130 min movies as two CDs. The player is Schneider DVD V-300 - a copy of Mustek model with the same designation.
Thanks again.

I have had similar problem before, the movie started playing in the middle on the stand alone player.
All you need to do is use the remote control for your dvd player, and set the time to play to 00:00 and then it'll start playing from the beginning, and there should be no problems with the subs.

Well at least it worked for my dvd player, so try it out, maybe it'll work for yours too

good luck

Hi, titans_ca! It works! Thanx! I have pressed "GoTo" and tiped 00:00 and it starts from thew beginning! Yuhuu!
Well, I'm a bit ashamed that didn't guess it myself...
Thanks again!

Hehe, you'll learn something new every day