Play-through SVCDs?

Dennis R. Cohen drcohen at mac.com
Wed Oct 29 07:50:42 PST 2003


On 10/28/03 at 6:05 PM, David Thrasher <idave at earthlink.net> transmitted
the following electronic message:
>
>I was wondering if anybody could tell me how to make SVCDs that will
>simply play when you press play on your stand-alone DVD player's
>remote?
>
>Here's how I'm making them right now:
>
>I export a full quality Quicktime Movie file from iMovie 2 and use
>Quicktime Pro to export an AIFF audio file from the mov file. I move
>these two files over to the OS X desktop and then reboot into OS X.
>
>I use MissingMpegTools to create an MPV file using the mov file and a
>MP2 file from the AIFF file.
>
>I continue under the next tab in the program to Mux the MPV and MP2
>files together into a Mpeg-2 file. (I've already created a black still
>Mpeg for the menu.)
>
>I use Missing Menu Generator with the Mpegs I've created to create the
>menu (the play order of the files; where it will take you if you hit
>previous, next or return; which file is the menu file that plays when
>you first hit play). This creates an XML file that is used for the
>final files for burning.
>
>Back in MissingMpegTools I go to the last tab and select the XML file
>to go ahead and build the files for the SVCD.
>
>I delete the files ending in "pregap" and "toc" and put the rest of
>them on the OS 9 desktop. (I don't have a version of Toast that runs
>in 10).
>
>I reboot in 9 and run Toast and go under Other to "Multitrack CD-ROM
>XA" and then drop the files I've created into the window in numeric
>order (the file ending with 1 first, 2 second, etc.) and then burn my
>CD. And of course I put it in my DVD player and test it.
>
>The thing I'm wondering is if the Missing Menu Generator program can
>set up the file(s) so that when you hit play on your remote that it
>doesn't stop on the first file but rather just starts playing through.
>

It seems like you're going to a lot of extra work if all you want is an
SVCD that starts playing as soon as the DVD Player finishes loading the
CD.

Export your full-quality movie file from iMovie 2 and, in OS X, drag
that file onto the ffmpegX icon (current version is 0.0.9). Choose SVCD
from the Presets popup at the bottom of the window and click then Encode
button. ffmpegX will grind away for the time it takes to encode the file
to MPEG-2, at the appropriate resolution and frame rate for SVCD,
including the audio conversion. It will even create the SVCD image
files, all ready for you to load into Toast under MultiTrack CD-ROM XA.

If you wish to continue using MMT, you might investigate using VCD
Builder to create the menu structure, etc. You can then specify the
sequence order in which things play, whether you go back to the menu
after each play or onto the next movie, and can set chapter markers in
your various files.

I cover using VCD Builder in "iLife Bible" and in its predecessor
"iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD Bible" (which you can probably find
discounted somewhere and which covers iMovie 2.1 rather than iMovie 3).

-- 
Dennis R. Cohen
Mac Digital Photography
iLife Bible
Mac OS X Bible (and other titles)



More information about the MacDV mailing list