Creating a VideoCD
It's easy to create a VideoCD from the movie you have made in MovingPicture. VideoCD's are like DVDs in that they can play in most modern DVD players, but can be made from regular CDRs on a normal CD-burner. You will need a copy of Roxio's Easy CD Creator to do this.
VideoCD is half-resolution MPEG-1 single-field encoded video (352 pixels across, in contrast to DVD's 720 pixels/interlaced fields) , which looks pretty good on a DVD player.
VCDHelp.com is a very helpful site for learning about VideoCDs, and lists other ways in addition to Roxio, (some free) to create VideoCDs.
Making the Movie File
Create the moves on the picture(s) you want to do in MovingPicture as you normally would do. Save the movie, using the "Make Movie File" option. Set the Width to 352, the Height to 240, the FrameRate to 29.97 (352 by 288 and 25fps for PAL). Do not check the Render Fields box. You can use any codec, but the best results will come from the "Full Frames - Uncompressed" option.
Making the VideoCD
Use the "Select A Project" entry in the Start menu to launch Roxio's control center for making CDs, and click on the Video Expression button to turn your AVI movie and sound track into a VideoCD.
The control center will open the simple video editing application, Click on the New icon to start a project. A storyboard screen will appear.
Click on the template button (1) and choose the [new] template item listed within. Click on the Get icon (2) and select the AVI movie file you had created earlier.
Click again on the Get icon (2) and select the WAV audio soundtrack file you had created earlier. You can use one of the supplied by Video Expressions if you don't have one, but all VideoCD's MUST hast have some audio track.
Click on the AVI file (1) you had just added. Click on the Add to Storyboard icon (2). The video will appear in the timeline (3). Click on the WAV file (1) you had just added. Click on the Add to Storyboard icon (2). The soundtrack will appear in the timeline (3). Finally, click on the Play Movie icon (4) and check your movie.
Click on the Save icon (1) and set the name of the mpeg file you are about to make, as well as setting type to MPEG-VCD NTSC (use MPEG-VCD PAL for Europe). Click on the Write icon (2) to start the CD making process.
Click on the Launch CD Creator radio button and click on the Start button to start the VideoCD Creator application.
Click on the Create CD button to create your VideoCD. That's all there is to it!
NOTE: Most modern DVD players will support the playing of VideoCDs, but some earlier models will not. Click here For a list of supported players.
Downloads and Links
Download an evaluation copy of MovingPicture Producer
How MovingPicture worksView the MovingPicture Manual
Check out the FAQ's (Frequently asked questions)
