Does anyone burn VCDs from their miniDV footage?

[backpackerx]

I'd like a way (preferably freeware) to burn my miniDV videos onto a VCD or SVCD to view in my DVD player as I don't yet have a DVD burner.

Secondary question: I'm not getting the miniDV cam until Monday so what format is MiniDV video? Is it just miniDV or is it a type of .mpg or .avi?
Thanks for helping out a digital video newbie.

[backpackerx]

Ok, this might be a moot point because I'm supposed to get Pinnacle studio 8SE with the camera which I *think* lets you burn VCD's. Any other programs you know of would also be helpful though as well as anyone who has 8SE and can say for sure.

Thanks

[Jason Dunn]

I have Studio 8 and it allows me to burn to VCD and SVCD - if 8 SE has it, it will be an output option on the right-most tab. I think you found it. ;-)

When you pull the video off your MiniDV camera, it will be in AVI format, commonly called DV-AVI. It's a regular AVI format that has mild compression (about 5 to 1) at 720 x 480 resolution (if you're NTSC land) and a high bit rate for quality. Once you have that DV-AVI file on your computer, that's when the fun starts. :-)

[backpackerx]

Perfect. That answers a lot of questions. I'm currently sitting here waiting for the UPS guy to make his delivery! I'm interested in comparing the quality from my Hi-8 camera to this one.

[Littleshmee]

Hey hey,

I've been fooling around with VCD's from miniDV for the past week or so, and I've learned a few things...

First off, not all mpeg encoders are created equal. I've never tried pinnacle, but I know that the all-in-one programs that I tried (WinDVD, Powerdirector) had much worse quality than less user friendly programs.

I ended up using TMPGenc to encode the DV-AVI to mpeg, and then I used VCDeasy to make a vcd with menus and chapters and all that fun stuff.

Also, if you want to put less than half an hour or so of footage on a disc, consider SVCD (mpeg2). The difference in quality is huge.

Finally, the best site I found to answer pretty much any question (it also has a bunch of free or trial software available to download) is http://www.dvdrhelp.com/