Heyas, I'd like to start backing up video onto CDs, rather than DVDs, but most of the guides out there are geared towards DVD->CD conversions. I don't *have* a Video_TS folder, what I have is 3.3 gigs of video (.mpeg files), over three hours of a monster movie marathon I captured. And I'd like to fit it on CD. I have a new Philips DVP642, which can play DivX and MPEG-4 and "everything you can throw at it". What I'd like to know is, are there any freeware utilities that can compress the hell out of a file? Quality isn't a concern, I'm gonna be watching these on TV anyway, and as they say, Low Resolution Monitors Heals All Artifacts. I know I could make a bunch of VCDs or SVCDs, but since I have the DVP642, which can read any DivX or MPEG-4 file, I figure I might be able to use one of those newer compression routines to fit everything on one disc. So, am I crazy?
Divx would be a viable option for what you're wanting and VirtualDub is a very good freebie to do so http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_tools/virtualdub_1_3c.cfm
A conversion DVD movie --> .AVI is very good, and DivX is the best codec to do so losing very few movie quality. The only problem is that a PC will read it, but a DVD player won't (a few of them read DivX, but I don't know which ones). But there's a VCD/SVCD forum (http://forums.afterdawn.com/forum_view.cfm/40). Post there, please.
Thanks, but I don't want to make a VCD. I want to encode three hours of footage onto a CD (suffering a HUGE quality loss, of course) and then burn the DivX/MPEG-4 file directly onto a CD-R, 'cause my player can read those.