http://www.kudla.org/index.php?wl_mode=more&wl_eid=3&wl_search=vcd

10:36pm EST, 8 Mar 2003 (Updated 10:45pm EST, 8 Mar 2003)

I've been pissed off at the proliferation of incompatible video formats (and then incompatible codecs within those formats) for a lot longer than I've been using Linux. But oddly enough it was a Linux tool that finally let me come up with a way to convert them all to VCD-compatible MPEG files.

These scripts aren't really fit for human consumption yet but I just wanted to get them out there as long as I'm stalled. They do work for the most part, but they're not pretty (pure command line perl with lots of debug output from the programs they call) and I have some sync issues to work out with videos converted from variable frame rates.

whatever2mpg is the main script. It will take any 25 or 30 frames per second video (in any format understood by the Linux video player mplayer and convert it to an MPG file which may then be made into a Video CD using vcdimager.

http://www.kudla.org/whatever2mpg/whatever2mpg

make30fps and make24fps are the helper programs, which use mplayer's "mencoder" program to convert videos at other frame rates (or variable frame rates) into an intermediate AVI file of 24 or 30 FPS with accompanying WAV file for subsequent conversion to VCD by whatever2mpg. I use DivX 4 at the highest possible bitrate for minimal loss in quality without running into the 2GB limit (or requiring a ridiculous amount of free space.) make24fps is not too useful at the moment since I haven't actually run into any videos that needed to be converted to 24fps, and so whatever2mpg will erroneously treat them as 30fps files at present.

http://www.kudla.org/whatever2mpg/make30fps http://www.kudla.org/whatever2mpg/make24fps

I intend to write a point and drool PerlQt front end for these once they're a little closer to being done (a number of people have already asked for SVCD support) with options for automatically building bin/cue files and other things, but since I've been treading water for a few weeks now I figured it was time to release. These aren't version numbered or anything and they are subject to change without notice (at least till I cob together a more official release.) They are licensed under the GPL and you'll be using them at your own risk. That said, please contact me with the details of any videos you run into that these scripts fail horribly on. If you're prepared to provide me with a copy of the video (or better yet a brief clip), so much the better.

documented on: 2004.06.02