KVCD on Dreamcast?
 

Has anyone tried using the kvcd templates with the Sega Dreamcast? There are players for the dreamcast that support mpeg 1 and VCDs, and I've read that they support XVCDs with 352x480 as well.

I just bought one and haven't tried it yet (I actually don't have anything in KVCD format right now...guess I could just download a sample again).

Anyway, just wondering if anyone has given it a shot.

I tried a standard VCD MPEG-1 file in my DC, and it does play. But it's not smooth. It's a little jumpy. There's not much CPU horsepower on the DC for smooth playback.

-kwag

Do you know what program you used for playback? Apparently the hacked version of the one with a "dongle" key and remote doesn't work well, but the full version supports XVCD at 352x480 and people have talked about using bitrate of up to 2000.

I'll give it a shot myself and post the results. I tried a VCD with the hacked player but got green spots and slow playpack. Got to look around a bit for a better player.

I tried it with GypPlay.

-kwag

so does it work now??? mordant?

Dreamcast?
 

Kwag,

Have you been able to get anything to run "smooth" on the DC?

I have a couple of standard VCDs that will run close to smooth. They are 1150 fixed bitrate (made with TMPGenc).

I think you hit it on the head about CPU power. There is enough to emulate Nintendo or SuperNintendo but not enough to play even the lowest end VCD. (It does play MP3 cds but why use that crappy audio out for that?)

The box plays the movies on the game CDs slow... it makes sense real video will make it choke.

But enough DC bashing. I like my DC and my daughter is dragging me kicking and screaming to a new Gamecube. (Damn Pokemon and Mario!) :)


Grantman

Hi Grantman,

I haven't tried any MPEGs anymore on the DC. My machine was confiscated by the kids a long time ago :lol:
Last time I had a chance to play with it, I was actually testing a bootable ISO image of NetBSD to see if it would work. And it did :!:, but I don't have a DC keyboard, so I didn't get any further than that :cry:.

-kwag

Dreamcast Topic?
 

Is it time to start a Dreamcast section? :lol: :lol:

The Dreamcast's best feature is the copyable media and open system. (Not that I am copying games). :twisted: :idea:

I acutally am hooked on the emulator games. There is something comforting about playing old ColecoVision games. They look perfect. :twisted:

And I sit with my daughter and explain about how Daddy played these games and they are better than the games now... :D

And then she blurts out: "Why doesn't the screen look so bad" ... 8O

And then I shut up, put Sonic back on and go surf the web for more ways to tweak my Avisynth scripts. :oops:


Grantman

HAHA, you should hear what my kids say when I turn on my old Atari 400 and start playing "Star Raider" :mrgreen:

-kwag

I ordered a DC VCD player (DreamVCD I think it was called?) a while ago, but it never worked. I think the remote was screwed up... :cry:

I also found the Xing VCD player somewhere on the net, it worked at least, but the quality was terrible. Green smears around the edges, unsynced sound, jerkiness, blocks, motion blur... :puke: So I gave up on playing VCDs on my DC. :(

I saw an add in a some magazine where you could buy the old Atari 2600 revamped...the whole system with a bunch of game roms all fit into a joystick about the same size as the original joystick...just plug into the wall on one end, and the TV on the other.

I was tempted...but had recently been playing some old Atari 2600 roms on the Dreamcast, and those games were much worse than I remember. Especially Pittfall (original). I played that game for days at a time.

Ah well, my favourite arcade game is still Kung Fu Master...and if anyone comes across a good version for the Dreamcast let me know (I couldn't get the Mame version to work).

On another note, there's lots of talk of Divx playback on the Dreamcast. Anyone tried it out? I can't imagine that if vcd won't playback you can get divx running.

I too tried some of the vcd players for dreamcast and wasn't impressed.

DivX is a no no in the DC. There's not enough CPU muscle. It's got great graphics engine, but CPU power is just not there :cry:

-kwag

If you REALLY REALLY REALLY need VCD on Dreamcast?
 

If you really need to play a VCD on Dreamcast it can be done.

You have to go with a very scaled down VCD... actually it is really not a VCD anymore.

If you are willing to cut the resolution way down and create it at a fixed bit rate you can get it running. I can't even say what will work because it is trial and error related to each individual video clip.

Say you get an episode of a TV show to work. The same settings may not work on another eposide of the same show, from the same channel, captured the same way.

Also, ditch the VCD players. I don't remember where I found the tool/kit but there is an ISO maker out on the internet for playing MPEG on Dreamcast. If you don't know where to check I can dig out my old bookmarks and leave a couple of links in this forum to Dreamcast sites. (I found most of them on Google).

The kit has the basic bootable code and a basic player built in. You create an MPEG according to it's specs, put it in the proper directory and then run a *.bat file. It creates a disc image you can burn.

When you run the image it boots up a VCD player and your clip. It is plays choppy or rough then you make a new one with lower res. I would stil with 1150 fixed bit rate.

If you were to go 160x120 or some other multiple of 320x240 I think you get decent results. It was cool burining up Tom & Jerry or Barney episodes for my daughter. We could play them on the DC if we were away from home.

Now, it is cheaper and easier to just get a portable DVD player or use my Laptop.

Hope this helps.


Grantman

Hi Kwag, been using your templates a long time and I love them.

I have played DivX on the DC and it plays pretty good using DCDivX
as long as the res is below 400x400. It also does OGG, XviD and a whole bunch of other formats. If I download something that's "shaky" :wink: or isn't a dvdrip, I'll usually watch it on my DC, no need to spend a few hours transcoding when all you do a drag and drop to CD and put in in.
BTW for those who want to try it, use Nero for creating the data CD,
my Roxio burns never load up for some reason. There is also a way to
make your movie be "bootable" so you don't need a boot CD and then a data CD.

hate to raise a dead topic, but my VCD's played great on my dreamcast under Gypplay, and KVCD did as well, as long as you keep the max bitrate low enough you can get decent quality. besides, all the movies in games are MPEG-1

It's never dead if it makes sense and you add some spark to it ;)

-kwag

I made a few DivX conversions of my DVD's on my trusty old DC just to see how it would look.

Although the quality had to be around 500kbps and the sound had to be Mono @ 22khz.

It was amazing to see it running on a DC but unfortunately the DC really does lack both CPU power and Memory to run decent enough quality DivX or VCD as it cant store enough buffer to run smoothly enough.

Mind you for me now that KVCD can queeze 1 DVD onto 1 80Min CD it kind of makes my trusty old DC redundant. :(

I still love my DC though and regularly visit DCemulation to see what Homebrew apps/Games are being released for it. :)

The DC machine was way ahead of it's time :!:
I still have mine, and some of the games look better than the current crop of PS2 or Xbox.
I have a friend who has DC, Xbox and PS2 ( he's a heavy gamer), and he says the same about the DC.
The graphic chips in the DC are superior to others, even though it has slower processor.

-kwag

The GPU is a Kyro Chip afaik... great piece of technology

Imo opion the DC is eual to and in some ways better than the PS2 grapically speaking, Im not very impressed with the PS2 graphics and find them sometimes to be fuzzy and can hurt your eyes after playing for a while.

I still have my DC and play a lot of my games still but I have to say the GameCube does rule, the X-Box :?: Well to me that's just a gloryfied PC in a box and although the X-Box and Cube piss the PS2 in terms of graphics I still think the DC was a great macine and wasnt given a chance and it was indeed ahead of its time. :)