Josh,

Are you burning this to DVD to play in your computer's DVD player, or are you burning it to CD?

I encode MPEG-1 to CD all the time... because it will play in nearly everyones computer. But it won't always play smoothly, as not all CD players deliver the stream at a fast enough rate (if you have selected to encode at a high quality).

I instruct my viewers that, if the play is choppy, they download the video to their hard drive... and play it from there.

MPEG 2 will ALWAYS be considerably higher quality that MPEG1. MPEG1 standard sets the default bitrate at 1850 kbps(max). This produces absolutely horrible videos.

burned it to CD-R, Mpeg2 encoded as SVCD, as per everyone's recommendations. Plays in my dinkly little portable DVD player, but not my girlfriend's fancy shmancy not so portable player! I want something that could be both the submission and playback version for film festivals.

If you want maximum playback compatability then DVD-R is the way to go. It's supported on the largest majority of DVD players. But even DVD-R 's that are burned at home will not play on every machine. This is usually due to the age of the DVD player. Older players seems to have the most problems playing back certain brands of DVD's. You might try a differnet brand of CD for your project. Pick a very HQ brand, try Verbatum, Fuji, TDK, Maxell, etc. in your girlfriends machine.

Jeff

<<<-- Originally posted by Josh Bass : burned it to CD-R, Mpeg2 encoded as SVCD, as per everyone's recommendations. Plays in my dinkly little portable DVD player, but not my girlfriend's fancy shmancy not so portable player! I want something that could be both the submission and playback version for film festivals. -->>>

How did the copy of the one we burned at my shop work?

That one works real well, unfortunately, I noticed some glitches in the movie that I needed to fix.

So come on back over and let's burn a few? This time bring the appropriate DVD format. :)

Josh,

Yes, I meant software that allows you to play a DVD with a
DVD-rom player. It might require some special measures to work
with Windows 2000 or XP though! Most used programs at the
moment seem to be WinDVD or PowerDVD. They are included
in most laptops with DVD-rom players in them (with my DELL
laptop I got WinDVD).

Hope this explains some.

Most DVD houses seem to use DVD software players to test
their DVD's BEFORE they are even burned with something like
a Pioneer DVD burner. After it passes the DVD software player
test they burn one with a consumer DVD burner and test hardware
DVD players to see if any thing comes up. Then they press a
test disc at a replication plant to test that one and if all this
passes they give the green light to have the rest pressed.

Paul, too much money! I want numerous copies cheaply!

Rob: My computer (or its original components, anyway) is from 1998 or 1999. It came with a DVD ROM drive, but as I've said, no luck getting it to play my SVCD encoded CD-R

What OS and player software are you using Josh?

MPG 1 or 2
 

Its a matter of the right file format for the distribution mode and target audience. for display on computer monitors with the largest compatibilty in terms of OS version, MPG1 is an excellent choice...it will play on practically on any computer, Mac, PC, Linux, without need for loading a plugin or codec, and it looks way better than most of the old codecs , like Cinepac. For display on NTSC monitors, MPG2 is the way to go.

OS is Win 98 (yes I live in a cave). DVD software? HMM. I'll have to check.

Josh, the most common players on the PC are WinDVD and
PowerDVD. I myself have WinDVD and this program has a bug
while playing SVCD. It doesn't play them (at least not most of
the time it seems). What I do is I insert the disc and then click
on playlist icon, make sure you select File on the right (default
is Disc) and navigate to your CD. In the directory Data (if I'm
not mistaken, otherwise just check all the directories on the CD,
which won't be much) there will be an .MPG or a .DAT file. Select
that and WinDVD will start playing it fine!

Most normal standalone players should do SVCD as well now
a days.

And no, win98 isn't really stone age. I have it too on one of my
machines. Mostly for playing games though. I do like Windows
2000 Professional for my video work though!

Can you download WinDVD? Whatever the hell I have doesn't have a "File" tab or anything else. I open DVD player from Start/programs/accessories/entertainment/DVD player, and it just brings a tab for playing the DVD, and FF and Rewind and so forth.

Josh,

Check www.intervideo.com, they'll probably have an
url there!

If you can't find anything let me know and I'll look around a bit
for you!

Good luck.