Cucusoft MPEG/AVI to DVD/VCD/SVCD Converter Pro 7.07 - User Guide and FAQ

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1. Launch Cucusoft AVI to VCD/DVD pro, you will see the UI.
   
2. Select button "To VCD"
   
3. Choose the "merge" or "batch" tab.
   
4. Click "Add/Open" button to open your avi file.
   
5. (optional) Set your preference: region "4" in red line can set the output MPEG properties.
   
6. Set the advance setting.
   
7. Click "Convert&burn" button to start the convert task.
   
8. After you click "Convert&Burn" button, the following dialog will pop up automatically.
   
9. After converted, the burning process will load automatically. Please choose the cd burner.
   
10. place a cd disc into the burner. if it is a rewritbale disc, the program will erase the disc at first, then the problem will burn the vcd.
    
11. Select burning properties.
    When the burning is finished successfully, the vcd disc will be eject. You also can find the output file at the output folder you set.

Frequently Asked Questions - Cucusoft MPEG/AVI to DVD/VCD/SVCD Converter Pro

1. What is 'AVI to VCD / DVD'?
   'AVI to VCD / DVD' is a Windows based program to encode avi files to VCD/DVD/SVCD compliant mpeg files for recording to VCD with a VCD creation program. The resulting VCD/DVD/SVCD can be played on VCD players, and many DVD players.
   
   
2. I made a VCD, but my DVD player cannot play it.
   Not all DVD players can play VCDs. Some DVD players that can play commercially stamped "silver" VCD's cannot play VCD's on CD-R. You need to try both CD-R and CD-RW media. I have found that even different brands of CD-RW get different results.
   
   
3. I get a "FATAL ERROR: Could not retrieve video frame xxxx" error".
   
   the frame number is 0, then you either do not have a properly installed codec for the compression method this video uses, or the codec in question is not accessible from DirectShow or Video-for-Windows, and cannot be used with 'AVI to VCD / DVD' ver 2.0. You might also need to upgrade the version of DirectX installed on your system.
   
   If the frame number is higher than 0:
   Most likely either your video is corrupted (the video frame in question is "damaged") or the codec has a bug. 'AVI to VCD / DVD' tries to skip over the corrupted frame to the next good frame (it will skip up to 15 bad frames for most codecs, or 60 frames for Divx, where this is much more common a problem). This is most usually caused by downloading video from the net, and having the download fail. When you restart the download where it left off, often the video is corrupted at the point of resumption. If this is the case, you need to re-download the avi in one single, unbroken session.
   
   
4. What's a codec?
   Codec stands for "COmpressor/DECompressor". Every compressed video file uses a codec to decompress the individual frames for playback. There are a great many codecs. Some come with Windows, others must be downloaded and installed before you can play back the video. Some codecs are not compatible with DirectX, which is what 'AVI to VCD / DVD' uses to decode the video frames, in which case you will not be able to encode the video using 'AVI to VCD / DVD'. Try getting the latest version of the codec, it might work with 'AVI to VCD / DVD'.
   
   
5. Why is 'AVI to VCD / DVD' so slow?
   Depending on your computer system, you may experience anywhere from 1 to 10 frames (more or less) encoded per second. Some systems will be slower, some faster. This means it might easily take from 3 to 30 hours to encode 1 hour of video to mpeg. Mpeg encoding is a computationally intensive, and slow, process. The characteristics of the video also have an effect. If your video is 720x480, for example, 'AVI to VCD / DVD' needs to resize each frame to 352x240 (or 352x288 for PAL), which adds to the time required. Some codecs are also slower than others.
   
   
6. When I encode a video the resulting mpeg is larger than the source?
   The resulting mpeg will always be 176400 bytes x # of seconds in source video. This is a result of the VCD standard.
   
   
7. When I encode an avi file that uses the Cinepak (or other) codec, the resulting mpeg is very "blocky".
   The encoded mpeg can be no better than the original source file for video quality, in fact it is usually significantly worse. This applies to all codecs. To obtain maximum quality, you must use a high quality original video that is only slightly compressed, or not compressed at all. Simply encoding miscellaneous avi's you may have lying around will probably not work very well. The encoder is paricularily sensitive to noise, if the source avi has visible noise in the picture (as from VHS video tape), it will not encode well.
   
   
8. Adaptec's Easy VCD Creator says the mpeg produced by 'AVI to VCD / DVD' is not "Whitebook" compliant?
   Start up VCD creator, go to Help - > About. What does the dialog box say next to "MCI Mpeg Video Driver:"? If it says something other than "DirectShow" or "ActiveMovie", for example "QI Cinemaster DVD", than that's likely the problem. Easy VCD Creator uses the default MCI MPEG driver to determine the source mpegs characteristics. Many DVD software players replace the DirectShow MCI Driver with their own, which may not properly identify the mpeg file characteristics to Easy VCD Creator. All I can suggest is that you remove whatever software installed the new MCI driver and try again. You should also request a fix from the manufacturer of the software which caused the problem.