I picked up an oddity for my original Playstation today.

[2600Lives]

It's called a Movie Card. I'm sure you all know what it is, and I'd heard of them, but have never seen one. Anyway, it only cost me 5 bucks. Oddly, it doesn't even have a manufacturer's name on it anywhere. It's one of the external ones that fits in the parallel port and the multi-AV out port, and it has a little lighted switch to toggle it from the game to the VCD player. It works fine as far as I can tell, the little title screen shows up and everything, but I have no VCD's to play on it. Now, question about these VCD's. I assume that this is a standard format MPEG player, correct? If so, I should be able to just burn off some MPEG files onto a disc and it'll play (I'm unable to currently test this as I'm all out of CDR's at the moment). I dunno very much about VCD players, so this has piqued my curiosity on the matter.

[Raijin Z]

Download TMPEG Encoder. Not all MPEG files are the same. Though, some CD burning progs will automatically convert video files to the proper format and resolution while burning a VCD... Meh. Only my DVD drive can play CDR VCDs, so you may have mixed results.

[Jasoco]

I heard about that thing. If I had a PSX, I'd want one too just for the cool factor.

[Ze_ro]

I'm afraid VCD's are a bit more complicated than just burning mpeg files onto a disk. There are a number of VCD mastering programs out there that can convert mpeg (or even other video format) files into the specific type of mpeg that VCD's use, and will create all the extra data that is needed. If you happen to have a copy of Nero, it can handle VCD mastering. If you don't have access to any other VCD mastering software, VCD Imager, although lacking in features, is entirely free.

 

You might want to read this for more information on VCD's.

 

--Zero

[Ze_ro]

Oh, here's a list of VCD mastering programs. Most of them are probably quite a bit prettier and easier to use than VCD Imager.

 

I've only ever used VCD Imager (and only via a Unix command line at that), so I can't comment on any of the other programs listed there.

 

--Zero

[Raijin Z]

Nero performs admirably.