from standard CD/DVDs to TV's DVD/VHS player? « Videomaker Community Forums

billhansen1934
Member

Rank newcomer here, so my apologies if this is a question to which everyone but me knows the answer: Is there a format which would allow me to play my video output on a standard CD/VHS player connected to my TV? I'v'e tried WMV but that doesn't work - and I'm not surprised since I didn't expect a "Windows Media Player" or similar program residing in the DVD/VHS player.

Posted 2 years ago #
Coreece
Member

vas is das?

Posted 2 years ago #
billhansen1934
Member

Coreece - Not sure if you're kidding or not and I've forgotten enough German so that I'll answer in English. I'm hoping to be able to play some older home videos which I've burned to CD and DVD, on the standard VHS/DVD player (not HD DVD or BluRay) which is hooked up to my TV set.

Bill

Posted 2 years ago #
CraftersOfLight
Member

Could you let us know what editing program you are using, and a short description of your process, so that someone might be able to assist with instructions?

Simple thing to forget is the finalizing of the DVD when done.

Life is not a guided tour nor a destination.
It is a journey. Take the time to enjoy your family, friends and surroundings.
Build memories. Share experiences. Travel at sight speed not light speed. (C)

Posted 2 years ago #
billhansen1934
Member

Thanks - for the older family vids I didn't use any editing program. They were done several years ago, and I just shot from a VHS camcorder and saved the tapes, unedited. They're SD, moved from a VHS camcorder to CD and some the DVD by a local camera shop, but the original tapes were destroyed during a house fire, while fortunately the discs were in the safe (fireproof). Most of the discs are in WMV but a few are in MPEG-2. They play just fine on my computer, but none of them will play on the CD/DVD player which is connected to the TV

I do have an editing program now though - it's Pinnacle Studio 12 Plus. I'm just beginning to learn how to use it, and just beginning to get into HD video - but I'm assuming that's another matter entirely. It will be a while before I have a Blu-Ray Player.

I haven't tried it, but I assume I could port the older vids through Studio, but then I don't know what format I could convert them to. I could also get a conversion program, if I knew which format to convert to.

Posted 2 years ago #
neilrussell
Member

You shouldn't have to worry about converting the videos into other formats unless Pinnacle won't understand the files you have.

I don't use Pinnacle, but version 12 is new enough that it should read WMV and Mpeg files with no problem.

I also figure it has a DVD authoring program built in, most NLE programs today do, if not you could download a trial version of programs like Magix or Sony Vegas and use the DVD authoring built into them. That would give you up to 30 days to make some DVDs of your video files.

There's also the option of downloading some free authoring programs, I've done that in the past but couldn't give you the name of a single one, since I switched from an antiquated version of Vegas to Magix I haven't needed anything outside of the main program.

This may not affect you, but I've found that since I use an older PC (assuming you are on a PC since you mentioned WMV files) I have to use DVD-R discs to get a playable copy.

DVD+R just won't work in my machine (Toshiba M-65 809) that I bought in 2005. As far as I know, almost all computers will write to DVD-R discs. Someone that knows what they are talking about may refute that however!

If government is the answer, the question must have been WTF?

Posted 2 years ago #
billhansen1934
Member

I think some of you have forgotten the original question. I *do* know how to edit in Pinnacle (except that Pinnacle movies never have sound - an unsolveable problem, after many hours spent with Pinnacle support people - but never mind).

My question is "Is there a video format which I can use so that my standard non-HD DVD player will play discs made from my older family (tape) videos?"

I have quite a few of these discs lying around. I can play them on my computer. I'd like to be able to insert them into the SD DVD player which is connected to my TV and play them through the TV too - but none of the video formats I've tried will work.

Can this be done? Anyone know how?

Thanks - Bill

Posted 2 years ago #
neilrussell
Member

I don't think knowing how to edit in Pinnacle matters in this case, you wanted to know about taking what seem to be data discs with WMV and MPEG files and make them playable through your standalone DVD player attached to your TV. At least that's what I understood to be the question.

There are some DVD players that can play VCDs and the like, but wouldn't it be a lot easier to just copy your files into your computer, then output them as dedicated DVDs via your editing program or some other DVD burning software?

That's the conversion that I see you having to make. It also sounds like your video files are all SD anyway so the part about HD shouldn't matter much either

The flow of events would be Data discs into computer >> video data into editor >> video out to DVD

While you're experimenting you may screw up a couple of discs but who hasn't?

Posted 2 years ago #
billhansen1934
Member

Okay - I think I understand now. There's no way to tell what will or won't play in a non-HD DVD player - but maybe some codec or format will play, and you just have to try one thing after another until you find out that either (1) you stumble upon something which works or (2) you find out that nothing is going to work with your particular DVD player.

I have to admit that I'm a little surprised. I thought this was something that quite a few other people would have needed to do. But I guess not.

Bill

Posted 2 years ago #
neilrussell
Member

You might check the specs on your player. I've seen some that can play a variety of formats just like you suggested, but by and large a DVD player is just going to play DVDs.

It's the same situation with a CD player in a car, the old ones will only play regular audio CDs but a lot of the newer ones will also play MP3 files.

You might run a Google search for your particular player and discover it will indeed play other file formats, but again it depends on the make and age.

If I have video files in a standardized format such as MOV, AVI, WMV, or MPEG I pretty much always follow the steps outlined above, copy the files into the computer, import them into the NLE, and then use the burn function to make a DVD.

Again, there's a lot of software out there available that may convert your files directly but I don't know of any without hunting them down.

Of course my info may be way out of date too and someone will come along with a "just do this to that and bingo!" and this whole discussion will be just so much wasted bandwidth!

Good luck on the project

Neil

Posted 2 years ago #
Coreece
Member

"Coreece - Not sure if you're kidding or not"

Yeah...I was. I just needed a little more clarification....no biggie. :)

"They're SD, moved from a VHS camcorder to CD and some the DVD by a local camera shop"

Here's where the problem is...we don't know if they are Data CD's/DVD's or Video CD's/DVD's and there's really no way of knowing what jerry-rigged technique they used to create the discs....futhermore, we don't know how good of a dvd player you have...the specs of your particular model should list the accepted playback formats.

In many cases, if they are just data dvd's or cd's, they're not going to play in the DVD player anyway.

The files, as already suggested, need to be converted to the standard dvd format and re-burned (like they should be) in order to play in a set-top dvd player...

So Basically, to answer your question:

"Is there a format which would allow me to play my video output on a standard CD(DVD)/VHS player connected to my TV?"

The Standard DVD format is an .m2v file and a seperate audio file that are combined into a container called a VOB file.

Posted 2 years ago #
billhansen1934
Member

Coreece - Thanks! That's a big help - really - very instructive. I'll try a couple of the formats which are available to me - WMV, AVI, MPEG-2,and MPEG-4. My video editing program, Pinnacle, doesn't list a ,2v or a VOB format (codec?). I'll ask on the Pinnacle forum whether I can incorporate either of those two missing formats into Pinnacle.

Bill

Posted 2 years ago #