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Last updated on 2008-03-18.
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On this page I aim to help you getting a head start on processing video and encoding your own digital video disks to be played on regular standalone DVD players. Most of the tools used are shareware and available for download from the internet. Those that are not shareware, have at least a demo version available.
Here is a list of some of the basic terms:
| AVI | Audio Video Interlace | A very common movie format in PCs. A variety of encoders can be used to produce AVI. You need a lot of decoders installed in your computers to play all the AVIs that are out there. |
| CD-R | Compact Disk, Read many, | Write once A CD disk which is sold empty and can be written to once. |
| CD-RW | Compact Disk, Read many, | Write many A CD disk which is sold empty and can be written several times. |
| DivX | - A very effective | movie format. Video is encoded with MPEG4 and audio usually with MPEG1 Layer III. |
| CBR | Constant Bit Rate | The amount of bits per second is constant. For example a VCD video stream is constant 1150 kbits per second. This means it is easy to calculate how long piece of video you can put on a single 650 megabyte (equals to 5200 megabits) CD-R. |
| VBR | Variable Bit Rate | The amount of bits per second depends on how many are needed. Easily saves space on your media and can improve quality. Encoding is heavier task than with CBR. |
| MP3 | MPEG1 Layer III | An effective way of encoding audio. Supports many bit rates. |
| VCD | Video Compact Disk | A regular CD disk with audio and video content. Video is encoded with MPEG1 and has a constant bit rate of 1150 kbps. Video on PAL VCD has a resolution of 352 x 288 and frame rate of 25 fps. Video on NTSC VCD has a resolution of 352 x 240, and the frame rate can be 29.97 fps or 23.976 fps. Audio encoding is MPEG1 Layer II. Audio bit rate on both PAL and NTSC VCD is 224 kbps. Practically all standalone DVD players play VCDs. |
| SVCD | Super Video Compact Disk | A regular CD disk with audio and video content. Video is encoded on MPEG2 and has a variable bit rate with a maximum of 2600 kbps. Video on PAL SVCD has a resolution of 480 x 576 and frame rate of 25 fps. Video on NTSC SVCD has a resolution of 480 x 480, and the frame rate can be 29.97 fps or 23.976 fps. Audio encoding is either MPEG1 Layer II or MPEG2. Audio on both PAL and NTSC SVCD has a selectable bit rate from 32 to 384 kbps. There can be two separate audio tracks. An SVCD disk can also contain a maximum of four selectable subtitles. Some standalone DVD players play SVCDs. |
| DVD | Digital Versatile Disk | A large capacity disk which looks like a CD. DVDs are mostly used for storing and viewing movies. Bit rate on DVD movies has a maximum of 9.8 Mbps. Video is encoded with MPEG2. PAL picture has a resolution of 720 x 576 at 25 fps. NTSC picture has a resolution of 720 x 480 at 29.97 fps or 23.976 fps. Audio can be Dolby AC3, DTS or PCM multichannel. DVDs may have two layers on one side, which are regognizable from the golden colour. DVDs can also use both of their sides for storing data. Depending on the total number of layers used, the capacity of one disk is 4.7 GB, 9 GB, 13.7 GB or 18 GB. |
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