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Video Authoring
In this section we will show you how to burn
your videos to standard formats such as VCD/XVCD, SVCD/XSVCD and DVD.
Two software tools will be used in this section. Nero Burning
Rom and Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2.
Author and burn an MPEG1 to standard VCD/XVCD
with Nero
Nero Burning ROM is the best CD burning
software available today. I have been using it for a few years
now and it just keeps getting better.
Open Nero and select "Video CD" from the
left menu on the new compilation window. Make sure you select the
proper Encoding resolution for your region. In this case, we will be
using NTSC (USA).
Next, click on the Menu tab. Nero can
create a menu for your VCD if you want. This is optional but we will
show you how it is done. From the Menu tab, mark the "Enable menu"
checkbox. From here you will be able to select your menu layout,
background picture(optional), header/footer text and font sizes. For
this example, we will enter "Sample Menu" as the header text and leave
"Created with Nero" as the footer.
Click on the Label tab and label your new VCD.
This is optional but I do like to label them especially if it's a series
of VCD's your creating. For example, burning episodes from a TV
program. Once your done here, click on the "New" button.
Drag your VCD file to the bottom left
portion. You should then see your menu page and your video
file there. Note that Nero will analyze the file you are adding.
If you encoded the file properly to compliant VCD format, you should have
no problems here. However, if you try to drag a video file
that is not in standard VCD format, the following screen will appear:
The good thing about Nero, is that it will
re-encode the file for you to standard VCD format. If you wish
to re-encode the file yourself, you can do so with TMPGEnc as explained in
our Video encoding section.
Now, click on the video file you added and
right-click and select properties.
Select the Menu tab. From here,
you can title your video and drag the video progress bar to select the
desired thumbnail picture that will be displayed on the menu page that you
have created.
Now double click on the first track "1/1
Menu page 1" which is your menu page.
What this does is display for you a preview
of what your final menu page will look like. Click OK to exit the window.
Now we are ready to burn our VCD.
Click on the
icon from the toolbar or select "Write CD" from the file menu.
Understanding what is written to the CD
When creating a VCD, a series of files and
directories are written to the CD. These are shown above.
These are the necessary files needed for your DVD player/CD player to read
the VCD properly. The actual video file is located in the
MPEGAV folder with a .dat extension.
That's it! We have created a compliant
VCD with our own custom menu. Below is a great sample menu from one
of my own VCD's.
**click to enlarge**
Author and burn an MPEG2 to standard SVCD/SXVCD
with Nero
To burn to standard SVCD please follow the
same instructions above selecting Super Video CD instead of VCD from the
first screenshot above. Remember the file you will burn needs
to be already in SVCD format. If it is not, you will need to
either re-encoded it following our instructions in the Video Encoding
section of this guide or by letting Nero re-encode the file for you.
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