HDVD (HomeDVD): The New Revolutionary Method!

Preliminary Results and Some Problems

*******************BETA VERSION*************************

19 November 1999

(c) MiLLeNNiuM BuG, Y2K Inc. :)

NOTE: I admit that so far I was unable to keep my initial promise to create a DVD-compliant CD-R. I'm sure that it will be possible in the end. Team effort is required!
Any contributions are most welcome :). Below are results I've reached so far and the problems I encountered. In the coming few weeks I won't have time to continue my tests so I decided to post this *BETA* results for others to complete!

SUMMARY: The method described below can be used to create two sets of CD-Rs with DVD-compliant .vobs:

(a) data CD-Rs that can be played back on many soft DVD players on PCs (with an "open file" option) but not on DVD shelf players;

(b) SuperVCD disks that can be played back on *SOME* DVD players, both HI-FI and PC.

Further experimentation/exploration is required in order to actually burn the VOB to CD-R with a DVD-Video method. Problems I encountered are described in the last section (4) below.

Overview

This method actually applies SuperVCD standards to DVD- compliant specifications and with a bit more effort may allow video enthusiasts to create DVD disks on CD-Rs.
The resulting quality is significantly better than when using the VCD method. This I hope should suit even some of more demanding critics. In short, the video quality that this method offers is comparable, if not higher, than the quality of a S-VHS VCR standard, which is the current standard of all TV studios in the world.

Here are the main features of this method:

Benefits:

* allows you to create DVD-standard compliant VOB files that can be played on most PC CD-ROMs with an installed DVD soft player!
* S-VHS picture quality - much better than VCD!
* a total of max. 55 minutes recording time on one CD-R!
* no need for expensive DVD-R/RW hardware and disks: just use the cheap standard CD-R blanks!
* create your own menus and chapters!

Drawbacks:

* extremely time-consuming method: full DVD2HDVD conversion might take more than two FULL days (48+ hours)
* requires fast CPU (Pentium III or Merced :) preferred) and a large HDD
* lower video quality than in DVD (-33%) but still much higher than VCD (which is -75% from DVD quality)
* wide-screen movies will be slightly cropped on both sides
* although possible, I do NOT recommend using AC3 or CD/48kHZ audio with this method because you'll have to compromise disk space. This will lead to a much smaller capacity CD-Rs than described below
* complicated method: you cannot do it in "one hit". You SHOULD have advanced knowledge of DVD-ripping and IBM-compatible OS/software in order to perform it properly. Be prepared to experiment and do not expect to get a 24-hour on-line support from the DVD Consortium :)
* I still have no clue how to successfully burn the DVD-compliant VOB file that the method produces to a DVD-Video-formatted disk :(

Part 1: A Quick Guide to the Existing Video-On-CD Standards

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DVD SVCD/HDVD VCD
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Compressor MPEG-2 MPEG-2 MPEG-1

Pixel Size:
PAL 720x576 480x576 352x288
NTSC 720x480 480x480 352x240

Files-Per-Second Rate:
PAL 25fps 25fps 25fps
NTSC 29.97fps 29.97fps 29.97fps

Audio:
AC3 Dolby 5.1 Yes Yes/Not recom. No CD Stereo Yes Yes Yes

Special Features:
Menus Yes Yes No
Multilingual Yes Yes No

Disk space:
1 second a/v ~630kb ~250kb+ ~180kb
1.5hour movie ~3.4 Gbs ~1.35 Gb ~970 Mb

DVD compression
ratio 1:1 1:2.5 1:3.5

Usage:
PC DVD-ROMs yes some some
HI-FI DVD yes some some
PC CD-ROMs no yes yes
SVCD Players some yes yes
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Part 2: CONVERSION: Required software

You will need to have a set of different programs in order to succesfully create a HDVD disk. This, of course, assuming that you somehow got already a DVD-compliant original .vob file(s) on your HDD. You can also use this method to create HDVD CD-Rs from an .avi file(s), which you can get after you record your favourite televison program or home movie off VCR with a hardware TV tuner or Video card.

The following programs need to be installed:

Program Name Usage

- CD-Motion VOB Snoopy To split VOB files into audio and video streams

- Womble Multimedia MPEG-VCR v.3.0 To sizedown DVD video from DVD to HDVD size

- Catalin Beju's ac3dec v.0.810 To convert ac3 Dolby audio to WAV format

- John Schlichther's wav2mp v.1.0 To convert WAV to mp2 audio format

- CD-Motion StreamWeaver DVD To join (multiplex) audio Multiplexer v.5.0 and video into a new VOB file

Get them here

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Part 3: How To Convert/Downsize VOBs
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Assuming that you have all of the needed software installed on your PC and a VOB file "test.vob" on your hard disk drive, you can now proceed...

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Feed in "test.vob" into VOB Snoopy and select "extract". This will create two new files: "testvideo.m2v" and "testaudio.ac3"

2.1. Open MPEG-VCR. Now you have two options. At start it will ask you what video file you wish to work with. You can either select "testvideo.m2v" that you just created OR original VOB itself - "test.vob". (The latter might not be possible in some configurations. It might depend on what video filters you have installed on your system earlier.) The VOB will be obviously a preferrable options, for the less conversions you make with the original file the better :)

2.2. MPEG-VCR should open a window with the first scene of the file you selected. The quality of image will be very poor - it's normal. Scale down the window so as you can see the lower part of the window frame - that is where all control buttons are! Press the red (pink rather) RECORD button which is the second in the lower row of buttons. This will open a new settings window.

2.3. Select the path and name of the new file that you will create, say "test2video.vbs". (NOTE: the format and file ext. should be VBS!) Then select "MPEG format" as "VBS". This will make "Video" button functional. The rest of the settings in this window are not important.

2.4. Press "video" button. This will open a new window "Encoder Setup". In the "size (pixels)" options select 480x576 for a PAL movie and 480x480 for an NTSC movie. Make sure that "Format" is "MPEG-2" (lower button). Select frame size 25 for PAL or 29.97 for NTSC. "Gop size" settings are not important: do not change.

NOTE: I have played with other size settings than described above. The results were NOT encouraging. The resulting video was either of a very poor quality or its size was equal (or even larger) than the size of the original DVD video file. It seems that MREG-VCR is set up to create only those video files that are compliant with the current MPEG specs. That means that the program can successfully manipulate only three DVD-compliant sizes: 720, 480 and 576. After experimenting I decided that the best quality/compression results were achieved with using SuperVCD standards: 480x576 for PAL and 480x480 for NTSC.
(Probably Chinese who invented the SVCD standard did same tests? :)). Obviously, aspect ratio with these new settings becomes different which means that selecting these sizes WILL SLIGHTLY crop the original movie on sides, especially if its wide-screen. However, I think that most people (myself including) can easily live with that... :)

2.5. I hope that you have not yet closed the "Encoder Setup" window. The next important setting is "Bitrate Control". This one is tricky. First, you should select "Constant quality (variable bitrate)" setting - who would settle for less using MPEG-2? OK.
Now is the trick: the first normal intention will be to move the bitrate indicator to the highest possible position all the way to the right. However, either due to a bug in MPEG-VCR or MPEG-2 standards (or both), this is NOT the best option. If you do that the file you'll receive will be of almost the same size as the original DVD video file. What you should do instead is to first move the bitrate indicator all the way to the right and then
move it slightly back to the shortest possible distance from the "high" setting. This should be about one half of one standard marking DOWN from the highest setting ("high").

2.6. Now close the "Encoder Setup" window. Click the "OK" button in the previous "Record settings" window. This will start the conversion process. This one takes LOTS OF TIME!!! Conversion of one minute of video track takes about... 30 minutes of real time. The speed depends ONLY on your CPU: so don't try it on 66 processors ;)

2.7. After the weekend is over your wait might finally be over (provided your power supplier did not switch of electricity during that time!). You should have a new "test2video.vbs" sitting on your hard drive. Before closing MPEG-VCR do one more thing: click on the far right button in the low row of buttons in the movie frame. This will show the total length of the movie file. Write it down. Now you can close MPEG-VCR.

3. Next step is to convert audio file to a smaller size. If you wish, you can use ac3 Dolby Digital-encoded file that you extracted from the original vob as well ("testaudio.ac3"). But note, that you will lose some of disk space, albeit not much. To convert you'll have to do 3 steps:

(a) convert "testaudio.ac3" from AC3 to WAV using ac3dec. This is very straightforward.
(b) open new .wav file in any WAV editor (CoolEdit preferred) and see if the total length of the audio matches the length of the video file you just created ("test2video.vbs"). If not - stretch it.
(c) convert WAV to mp2 format using wav2mp converter. Again, this one is very simple.

After conversion you should have a final audio file in mp2 format, say "test2audio.mp2". Now simply rename this file to "test2audio.mpa"

4. Open StreamWeaver. Select path/name of your output file (say, "test2.vob"). Then simply feed "test2video.vbs" as video source and "test2audio.mpa" as audio source. Check that you have correct video standard setting (PAL or NTSC). And then click "Make" button.
If you done everything right you should see the process going. After a while (few hours for a whole movie) you should get a "test2.vob" on your hard drive, as well as DVD .ifo file.

This is a DVD-compliant .vob file which at this stage will be read by any decent soft DVD player as a file off your HDD. You can also burn it to a data CD and read from there.

Summary notes:

* depending on the audio source you used (AC3 or MP2) and additional features (menus, other languages and soundtracks) the size of the .vob may vary greatly. I have managed to create a straight video and audio (mp2) .vob with a compression ratio of about 250kb per 1 second
* if you use an overburn function (with proper hardware and software) this ratio can transform to about 53-55 minutes per 1 blank CD (ie. 820 Mbs : 0.25 Mb). Without overburn function a normal CD blank will fit about 43-45 minutes of a movie (650 Mbs : 0.25 Mb)
* be prepared to spend LOTS of time to convert one movie. All processes are rather quickly (for video mastering, of course!), except MPEG-VCR downsizing: 1.5 hour video took about 45 hours to convert on my p2-400 machine!

): Part 4: Burning Problems - Still Not Solved! :(

Now you have a DVD-compliant vob file which I don't see any reason why it cannot be played on *ANY* DVD player, shelf or PC. The only problem that I was not been able to solve so far is how to burn this file to a blank CD. Here are my experiences:

1. Robshot's MiniDVD method: create a DVD-Video image file with Scenarist NT and then burn it with Nero. Scenarist NT won't work because it keeps on refusing to accept the video as an "illegal format".
2. Gear DVD Pro: it has VERY nice and easy interface but it does not have an option of burning DVD-Video disks on CD-Rs. It can only accept DVD-R/RAM of 3.5+ Gbs. When the right disk is not in the drive record button is disabled. In addition, I'm afraid that Gear won't work anyway, because for DVD-Video it uses DVD-R hardware settings that, if applied, may damage your CD-recorder.
3. UDF disk (with any UDF/packet-writing software): this one is NOT a DVD-Video format. Although disks created using this format will be readable on DVD-ROM drives, HI-FI DVD players will see them only as audio CD disks and will NOT play them.
4. UDF-ISO disk (some newer CD-recording software): same as above.

There is, of course, an option of creating a SuperVCD using the above method. Just download SVCD software of Philips, register it, spend few days trying to figure out how to use this most user unfriendly package and get yourself a SVCD-compliant disk image. Then burn it with CDRWin or Nero. But there's nothing new in this method: the whole idea was to create DVDs that can be played on normal DVD players, not like SVCDs - on some...

In short, these are some challenges I want to share with other video enthusiasts:

- how to make Scenarist NT or any other DVD-authoring software to accept SVCD-compliant MPEG-2 video to create and IMAGE file? Then thisfile
can be burnt to a CD-blank (see robshot's MiniDVD notes). This is a preferrable path to follow.
- how to make Gear DVD Pro 2.0 or any other DVD-writing software to accept CD-R blank as a valid disk for DVD-Video burning? However, I'm not sure whether this one is at all possible due to different hardware burning specifications used by CD-R and DVD-R recorders...