[VCDImager] Thanks & a question

[Hans Engelen]

First of all ... Thanks for a useful program. Just what I needed.

My question, how exactly does one go about compiling the gnome frontend. What 
do I need and how do I go about it all. I probably would get there myself 
looking through the sourcecode but this is easier ;).

For your information I include some info on my setup which also should 
illustrate why I like vcdimager.

Capturing station: 
Dec Alpha AXPpci33 running NT 4.0sp6a WS (I know it runs linux too
but read on). 128 Mb of ram and 1 + 4 gig SCSI for system and capturing 
storage. AV321 framegrabber (no linux driver afaik see) for the video, AWE 64 
for the sound (anyone have any ALPHA drivers for AWE other then generic 
SoundBlaster PNP ?). This is all the Alpha does, capture in AVI MJPG or JPEG 
but in exceptional quality considering the age of the hardware (95-96). Full 
384x288 PAL 25fps which is exactly what I need and at better quality then what 
I found in my Iomega Buz (which btw I never did get running smoothly in Linux).

Recording and Converting to MPEG-I:
(several systems being tested/tried here)
1.
Dell Dimension PIII-450 with 384 Megs of RAM and 25+20 gigs of HDD running RH 
7.0 (kernels 2.2.16 and 2.4.0). VCDimager for the CD preparation of course and 
CDRDAO for the writing to a Sony Recorder. I just found a great tool for linux 
to convert JPEG and MJPG AVI files to MPEG-I. It's part of the linux version 
(windows version available too) of MainActor, a promising video-suite (only 
99$) which has this command line converter tool (www.mainconcept.com). It's the 
first tool I found that does this kind of conversion smoothly and hasslefree 
whilst delivering an MPEG-I file that vcdimager accepts rightaway (no padding 
or anything needed). I am testing it as I write with a LARGE avi file and will 
keep you posted on the results. 

2. Dell Latitude PIII-500 laptop with 256 Mb ram and 20 gig HDD, running 
Panasonic MPEG-I encoder v 2.51 (tried others but vcdimager was happiest with 
this one after padding). Needs the MJPG codec, I took the Morgan Multimedia 
codec. Should work with other MJPG grabbers too like the Buz (not all MJPG 
codecs seem to be created equal). 

3. Dell Dimension 8100 PIV-1.5 Ghz with 256 Mb ram and 60 gig HDD running 
Panasonic MPEG-I encoder + Morgan MM MJPEG codec too. This one is only for the 
hardcrunching jobs or editing afterwards (though I am testing MainActor as an 
alternative for that now).

In case 2 and 3 the endresult after encoding is transferred to nr. 1 for 
vcdimaging onto CD. 

I would like to add that I already tested a vcdimager cd with my Aiwa XD-DV370 
standalone DVDplayer and can happily report that it worked fine provided the 
source files are decent (I tested it with some cheesy mpegs I found on the net 
since my Dec station was not ready yet).

There you go,
Hope this info helps out.

Cheers,
Hans

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