To play a video in your standalone DVD unit or portable device, the video file must be converted to one of the MPEG standardized formats. There are several MPG formats and not all might be compatible with your device, so you should check your unit's documentation for info on its supported formats and media types allowed.

MPG is basically a container format, which can hold several audio and video tracks, or even optional subtitle tracks. Depending on the audio and video properties (resolution, bitrate, frame and sample rate, etc) the MPG will fit certain standard.

In the following table you can see a resume the most common MPEG formats available. There are certain additional formats but these are the most currently supported. For CD support, the most successful MPEG-1 formats are VCD and CVCD, and for MPEG-2, SVCD.

  DVD Compatible Formats

Formats

CVCD

XVCD

SVCD

DVD

Name

Video CD

Compressed

Video CD

Extended

Video CD

Super

Video CD

Digital

Video Disc

Resolution

352x288

352x288

480x576

480x576

704x576

720x576

352x240

352x240

480x480

480x480

704x480

720x480

Framerate

25

25

25

25

25

23.9 / 29.9

23.9 / 29.9

23.9 / 29.9

23.9 / 29.9

23.9 / 29.9

Format

MPEG-1

MPEG-1

MPEG-1

MPEG-2

MPEG-2

MPEG Layer 2

MPEG Layer 2

MPEG Layer 2

MPEG Layer 2

MP2/AC3/WAV

Bitrate mode*

CBR

CBR / VBR

CBR / VBR

CBR / VBR

CBR / VBR

Bitrate,

Kbps

1150

300...1150

Up to 2350

Up to 2550

Up to 9000

224

96...224

32...384

32...384

Up to 448

Audio freq., KHz

44.1

44.1

44.1

44.1 / 48

48

Audio channels

Single

Single

Single

Multiple

Multiple

Subtitles

Fixed

Fixed

Fixed

Optional

Optional

DVD authoring comptible

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Minutes per disc

74 / 80 / 90

74...130

35...60

35...60

60...240

* Bitrate modes are either CBR (constant bit rate) or VBR (variable bit rate).

Depending on your video's purpose, you'll choose one format or another. For instance, if you are looking for maximum compatibility with all players, you should point to VCD; if you want to fit an entire movie on a single disc, CVCD is the best choice; if you only care about quality, SVCD will be more than enough; if you want to export your camcorder's digital videos to a high quality media, the DVD format will be perfect, and so on.

  Regions and Frame Rates

The MPG format is dependant on the geographical zone it will be played, thus, PAL is the format for the European zone, while NTSC is for the American zone. However, certain devices have the ability to playback both PAL and NTSC formats disregarding its zone.

If the MPG file you want to convert is at 25 FPS, it should be converted to the PAL zone, and it it is in 23.976 or 29.976 it should be converted to the NTSC. Conversion to the incorrect zone might cause audio/video desynchronization and other problems.

The converted MPG file can be burnt into a disc as a normal data CD, but to make it playable on your standalone or portable device it must be burnt as one of the VCD formats shown above.

DVD Region Protection

With utilities such as DVD Idle it's possible to playback DVD without changing your DVD drive region number.

   Maximum Capacities

74 min CD

90 min CD

738 MB

897 MB

The above table shows the maximum capacities for VCD and SVCD. The actual size of the MPG file to burn can be the same as indicated in the table. Since this type of discs are burnt in mode 2 (without error correction data), the actual capacity is higher than normal data CDs.

  Questions? Comments?

If you have any questions or need support regarding this guide or article, don't hesitate to ask at the DivXLand.org forum personally.

  Related Topics

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