Creating a VideoCD

[Charles Martin]

> From: Neville Thomas <nevillet at clear.net.nz>
>
> I tried the demo version of iVCD and created a MPEG-1 verion of a
> movie, and then recorded on to CD (via Firewire) with Toast Lite.
> It plays fine on my iBook with DVD player.
>
> Questions...
> Can iMovie Export to MPEG-1 and/or MPEG-2 ?
>   (and then burn CD with Toast)
>
iMovie can directly export MPEG-1 with the help of a plug-in that comes 
with Toast. You may not be aware that Toast includes a plug-in (which I 
think you have to manually move over to iMovie's plug-ins folder) that 
allows you to export an iMovie project DIRECTLY as MPEG-1 and right 
into Toast, which automatically burns the VCD for you. Couldn't be 
easier.

iMovie3 exports to MPEG-2 when you save for iDVD, however the exact 
format used only seems to work with iDVD/DVDSP. There's no way I know 
of to get iMovie to directly export to "standard" SVCD-ready MPEG-2, 
but by saving the project as a "full quality" Quicktime movie you can 
use another tool to do that, such as ffmpegX.

> Does   iMovie Export to Quicktime, Format CD-ROM do that ? or what?
>
iMovie can export your project to almost any format Quicktime supports. 
It's under the "Expert Settings" pop-up in the "Export" menu. When the 
Toast plug-in is present, you get a "Toast Video CD" option under the 
"Expert Settings."

> Would the quality be the same ?
>
You can't get much WORSE quality than VCD, unless you choose the "web" 
or "email" settings! :)

VCD is a very handy format for a lot of reasons, but MPEG-2 (in the 
form of either SVCD or a DVD) is an order of magnitude better in terms 
of image quality.

> Should I buy iVCD ?

At the moment I can't yet recommend it fully. It certainly looks very 
promising, but I think there are other, cheaper ways to put a VCD 
together (the "Toast" method I mentioned, for example) for now. Perhaps 
in the near future that will change, and heaven knows there's a market 
for a truly easy VCD creation method that doesn't require buying Toast, 
or even better -- a way to add a plug-in to iMovie that will allow 
export to SVCD-ready MPEG-2.

All of the above just my opinion, and certainly not the final word on 
the subject by any means. :)

_Chas_

TIME: The people at Listen.com say downloading isn't the most popular 
feature on their music service, Rhapsody. What's your  response?

JOBS: Well, that's correct. Downloading sucks on their service! You 
download a  track and you can't burn it to a CD without paying them 
more money -- you can't  put it on your MP3 player, you can't put it on 
multiple computers -- it sucks! So of course nobody downloads! You pay 
extra to download even on top of subscription fees. No wonder they have 
hardly any download traffic -- they hardly even have any subscribers!