David,

I, too am not happy with the quality of video cds. Are these meant for playing on DVD players (which sometimes don't even work on the newest decks) or for computer? If it's computer, why not render out a high-quality Windows Media or QT?

VideoCD is popular in China, where DVD is considered to expensive. Many US DVD players support it because the decoding hardware is already there.
///d@

SB,

> ...but i have found that vcd's are really low quality anyway

I use an economical no-name 24x10x40 burner that does have "buffer under-run" protection and it seems to work fine. In my opinion, the low quality VCD problem you see isn't with the VCD burner, but with the VCD format itself. Vonhosen pointed to the Terrapin burner and it may be a nice CD-R and CD-RW burner, but it won't help the low video quality of the MPEG-1 VCD format itself.

Passing out 400 copies of anything at a trade show is going to cost you a significant amount of money. Jessariah's suggestion to render out a high-quality Windows Media or QT seems like a good compromise. Compromise is the operative word. Regardless of what format and media you select, some people won't be able to read it. For a disc, DVD-V is probably the most universally readable format.

If you remove the restriction of using a disc, VHS tapes are still the most universally readable media. Nearly everyone has a VCR nowdays, and if they don't they can get one for $50. You could make higher quality VHS tapes by first making a DV master from Vegas, and then dubbing it 400 times to a VCR.

But, besides the cost of the 400 VHS cassettes themselves, it would take more than 100 hours just to do the dubbing (figuring each dub would take more than 15 minutes). Besides, handing out CD discs has a better professional "image" for you than handing out VHS tapes. And the discs themselves cost much less than the tapes. But a significant fraction of existing DVD players can't even read a CD-R. Earlier models were only designed to read commercial DVD-Vs. Too bad there isn't a good way of putting video on a Krispy Kreme donut.

-- Burton --

I would go for the QuickTime or WindowsMedia solution as well. Probably at least as many people have computers that can play these formats as have DVD players that can sucessfully play VCDs. The other advantage is that you won't be restricted to the low quality bitrate of VCD. Since the demo is only 15 minutes long, it can be encoded at 3Mbps at a full 640x480 pixels. This is probably as good as or even better than VHS.

You could also render to MPEG-I at the highest bitrate available and have a disk that is more universally playable than Windows Media. My DVD player will play most any MPEG I or II file stored as a data file on a CD-R. It would also be equally well playable under almost any OS.

Chienworks, you said,"My DVD player will play most any MPEG I or II file stored as a data file on a CD-R." What kind of player do you have? Can anybody else do this?

Check out using 185MB "pocket" CDRs, labels and clear plastic cases. These are basically "digital business cards". Memorex makes the CDRs & labels; Check out www.c4component.com for the plastic cases, too. Note on the CD label to "Play in PC CD-ROM" & "Click on .WAV file". Most people can do this and see your promo. Put your phone number on the CD label, too. MPEG-1 is about as good as basic VHS and looks good on a PC screen when the WM player is less than full screen. Consider keeping the promo to less than 10 minutes..viewer attention span is limited.
Steve

thanks for all the responses
i'm still not sure what way to go with my demo
if i want to make it windows media player---how exactly do i do it?
what do i render as? avi still?
and how exactly do i burn it?
thanks thanks thanks
all who answered will get a complimentary copy of my video
just say the word
sb

Hello,
I don't trust those business card CDROMS. Remember how fast a Audio CDROM would spin in a portable CD-player. Now multiply that by 40. Do you trust that they are all balanced and they won't wobble out of control causing internal damage? And ask yourself, what exactly are you going to tell the person who put the business card CDROM in their Slot loading CDROM, and it got jammed?

I have been perfecting a format that you may be interested in. It's basically, a cross-platform multimedia hybrid CDrom. What the heck is that? Well, its actually simple, but tricky. Face facts that you won't be able to satify everyone, so you will have some decisions to make. The main being Quality VS. Compatibility.

In volumes of 500,don't wear out your home unit. Make a master & have a CD Duplication house churn them out. Your probably be looking at $1-1.50/Copy+$.50/Blank CDR +????labeling.

If you just want to make it playable in a typical DVD Player, then by far the most compatible format is VCD. The only snag is that unlike a DVD that AutoRuns. Almost all VCDs require the user to push Play, but from then on its menu driven.

Now, if you want to offer a CDROM, which will act (as above) -- a VCD, but will also Autoplay in a PC, with greater menu driven possiblities, now you are talking a Hybird CDROM. If you also want it to Autorun in a MAC, now you're talking crossplatform, hybrid CDROM.

I personally think that this type of format (Hybrid VCD/PC AUTOPLAY) will become more popular for exactly your needs. Frankly DVD is to difficult, expensive, and problematic for most users, and for your purposes.

If interested email me at jeffy82@aol.com. I'd go into detail here, but, there are multiple variable to decide which would change the entire method. It would also open up a can of worms. You'll understand.

Jeffy82@aol.com