I just picked up a dual format DVD burner. I have a huge pile of excellent quality KVCDs on CD-R... but many movies I backed up from CD did not fit on one CD-R and some of the low budget DVD players in my family will not play any of the KVCD samples above 352x240.

I have searched and read about everything I could find in the forum and I did not see any DEFINITIVE Kwag reccomendations on the optimal way to make use of a DVD-R vs. CD-R.

It appears there is no chance of just making BIGGER VCDs. The MPEG-1 outputs I have created do not seem to make good DVD content (even if I change the headers using the TMPGEnc header trick).

What is the best way to migrate KVCD content to DVD? From scratch, should I still consider creating MPEG1 or do I now have to use MPEG2 and deal with lower quality on TMPGEnc?

Ideally I would like to use the DVD burner to create similar quality output to a KVCD. Maybe a notch higer and multiple movies on a single disc.

My biggest issue is weather I can still use the KVCD MPEG-1 process or do I start over learning a better MPEG-2 method than using TMPGEnc?

I have started my own testing but so far all the "reccomendations" on this forum end up being right on.

Please help.

Thanks,

Grantman

Hi Grantman,

Take a look at Dano's post here: http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5513
As for the resolutions, you might have to use "DVDPatcher" to patch your resolution to DVD standard resolutions.

-kwag

Hello Grantman,

Besides DVDPatcher, you can also use DVDLab to author your DVDs because it is more forgiving with out-of-spec stuff.
Unfortunatelly, DVD Spec only defines MPEG-1 at 352x240, and only on CBR up to 1856 (there is some controverse if DVD spec alows VBR MPEG1). Anyway, the stand-alones that didn't play KVCDs before will probably not play KDVDs with KVCD content now.

I would suggest that you move on to MPEG2 KDVDs. You can put up to 6 hours of 720x480 video in on DVD with 192 kpbs audio, or 10 hours of 352x480 video with 192 kbps audio, or even 18 hours of 352x240 video. Sometimes you can even put one of the movies with 5.1 audio! Please note that I am talking about full-compilant discs that will work in *every* stand-alone, unless there is any media issue.

Yes, of course you can do out-of-spec stuff and get a little bit more footage, but I don't think it is worth the trouble for DVDs. But it's up to you to decide. If you want, I've posted a sticky guide about KDVDs using TmpgEnc or CCE in this KDVD forum.

[]'s
Vmesquita