Wednesday, November 03 2004 @ 09:47 PM EST Contributed by: glosser
So you've recorded the last six seasons of "Red Dwarf" off of PBS, and now you'd like to burn them onto a disc that you can watch on your TV? Most DVD players support two formats that you can burn onto a regular CD: Video Compact Disc (VCD) and Super Video Compact Disc (SVCD). This article will help you create your own videos on SVCD, the superior of the two formats.
An SVCD can hold 35 to 60 minutes of video data, supports MPEG-2 5+1 surround sound, menus, and more. You can create an SVCD with menus and multiple tracks that will look, for all intents and purposes, just like a DVD in your DVD player. The main differences are that the resolution will be lower, but not noticeably so, and there will be more encoding artifacts. Like DVD, SVCDs are encoded with MPEG-2 video. Unlike DVD, your only choice of audio is MPEG-1 (technically the audio is MPEG-1 layer II audio, but I'm calling it MPEG-1 audio for simplicity. It can also be referred to as MP2); DVDs also support PCM, MP2, AC3, and DTS audio. Supported video and audio bitrates for SVCDs are also lower than for DVDs. While DVD is perfect for feature films, SVCD is generally sufficient for burning anything you've recorded from a TV network.
