[MacDV] Re: Video CD

[Mark M. Florida]

On 3/8/04 11:21 PM, Gregg Gorrie at ggorrie at telus.net wrote:

> on 3/8/04 1:24 PM, 18151 - Gary D. Long at txglong at sc2000.net wrote:
> 
>> The word I couldn't think of in my previous post was ASTARTE. Making a video
>> CD in this version of Toast (3.52 I think) Toast tells you to use ASTARTE.
>> Does anyone know what ASTARTE is
>> 
>> Gary Long
> 
> Astarte M.Pack was (is) a program that allowed you to convert video files to
> MPEG-1 which is the standard format for VCD. I did a couple of VCDs using
> Astarte and Toast and was quite happy with the results (at least compared to
> other solutions at the time). I >believe< Apple bought them out (at least
> their DVD authoring software) and based the first versions of DVD Studio Pro
> on that (someone please correct me if I'm wrong here).

A.Pack is an audio-only encoding app, which Apple bought for audio encoding
for DVD SP 1.x.  ASTARTE M.Pack is a different app altogether for MPEG
*video* encoding -- I used to use it quite a bit years ago for MPEG
encoding.  It does a terrific job, and produces VCD compliant files for the
old 3.x and 4.x versions of Toast quite nicely.  (ASTARTE used to produce
both Toast and M.Pack, so the two programs work together well)

> I guess you have a couple options here: hunt down a version of Astarte
> M.Pack or update to Toast v5.x or later, which has the ability to do the
> conversion to MPEG-1 internally.

I have an old version of M.Pack around here somewhere, and I'm sure whoever
owns the rights to this ancient software won't mind a little "trial"
distribution -- it may lead to the purchase of new software, eh?  (contact
me off-list about getting M.Pack)

> I don't know if there is much point in making VCDs these days. For the same
> price (or less) of updating to the above software, you could pick up the
> iLife package and use iDVD to make DVDs, which will contain more video in a
> much higher video quality than VCDs. The cost or DVD-R media has fallen
> below the $1 USD/per DVD floor, so that is no longer an issue. I guess the
> key is whether or not you have a DVD-R burner.

The problem with that solution is that he'll also need a new machine to run
OS X in order to run iLife -- which, in my opinion, would be worth every
penny.  I stretched my wallet back in 2001 and got a QuickSilver G4, and
have not regretted it one bit.  ;-)

- Mark