KVCD: Too Many CD-R Coasters!
 

I have done a number of successful kvcd conversions, but each one consumes at least 3 and usually 4 cdrs, because I have such problems burning the mpegs to disc! I don't know whether the problem is my burner or a setting in TMPG or VCDEasy causing me grief, but I keep on getting 'write failed ... Buffer Underrun' errors. I get the buffer underruns whether I burn directly with vcdeasy or create the bin/cue in vcdeasy and burn with another application (burnatonce, deepburner), so I suspect the problem is not with vcdeasy. Anybody has some ideas to lead me where to look?

Well this has definetely nothing to do with the MPEG/BIN file.
Do you get these kind of errors only when burning in Mode 2 (that's Video CDs and SVCDs...) or also when you burn normal Data Discs/Audio discs?

Burn at a lower speed and do not do anything else while you are burning !

4x or 8x is a MAXIMUM !

I get the write errors when I burn mpg files to vcd using vcdeasy; when I use vcdeasy to create bin/cue files and then burn using burnatonce; and on a few occasions when I tried to create data cds also using burnatonce.
I usually use Roxio Easy CD creator for my audio cd burns, and have never had a write error with it.

I found that even 4x is too high (guaranteed buffer underrun) so I now do all my burning at 2x. To allow more memory to the write I turn off all non-essential memory-resident programs (from ctrl-alt-del), and I still get buffer underrun errors. Needless to say, I never do anything else while the burn is in progress.

My hardware is a P4 with 256 kb ram, and the operating system is an XP pro. Is it my system itself that is the problem (i.e., underpowered), or is there some setting that will increase the buffer size? Will increasing the vbv buffer setting in TMPG from 40 to say 100 help? Thanks for the help.

8O
With your hardware you should be abble to burn at 32x without ANY buffer underun :!:

Verify that :

1/ your hard disk and your DVD burner aren't on the same IDE port (idealy HD is IDE1 master and Burner is IDE2 master)

2/ the DMA is activated on all your IDE port (see that is config panel -> system)

AS told your problem isn't related to mpeg. Do not change anything in tmpgenc !

If all else fails, you may want to try and change the IDE cable that goes to your burner :idea:
If it's a bad quality cable, there will be "spikes" on the data lines, which could mean garbbage on high speed data transfers, causing all kinds of problems.

-kwag

Try Daemon tools. It is a virtual drive which you mount the images into. In two years I have yet to burn a bad VCD/SVCD utilizing this in conjunction with a quality buring program (not Roxio :D ).
Search through Doom9 for the info.