Now why the other way round? DivX playback requires a lot of CPU power. So if your PC is slow, the playback is jerky. On the other hand, VCDs can be played back even on an ordinary PC with a decent video card or even on your home theatre. For this, you’ll first have to strip the audio from the DivX file using VirtualDub. Load the file and then click on ‘Save WAV’. Though this WAV file can be played back normally, it’s not an ordinary WAV file, but a Windows Media Audio V2 file for DivX audio. You have to convert it to a PCM WAV file for your use. Our good old Winamp did the job with its output plugin set to NullSoft Disk Writer. For the final encoding, the audio and video have to be merged. You can use either Xing MPEG Encoder or Panasonic MPEG for the purpose. Load the DivX AVI in the video box and the normal WAV in the audio (after unchecking ‘Use identical files’). Start encoding and you get the MPEG that can be burned into a VCD using either Nero or Adaptec Easy CD Creator.

Video tapes to Streaming video

So you videotaped your daughter’s birthday and want the whole world to see it. What do you do? Put it on your Website. And for that you need to convert it to Real video. Though video can be streamed in other formats also (like ASF), Real media is popular because it is easy to encode, distribute and play back on client machines. This is a two-stage process—the first involves capturing the video as an AVI and then encoding it to RM depending upon your bandwidth considerations. For the first part, any graphics capture card would do. For the second part, RealNetworks’ Real Producer again comes handy. The software encodes AVI, MOV, and even QT files. It can also take input directly from a media device like a camera or a VCR and publish it as streaming media. The data rate of the encoded file is determined on the basis of target bandwidth say 28.8 kbps, DSL or intranet LANs.

DVD to VCD

Why do you need to convert a DVD movie to a VCD? Well, suppose you have a standalone VCD player at home, and a DVD drive on your PC. You can convert all DVDs you have to VCD for viewing on your larger TV screen. The process can be divided into four steps:

1. Rip the data tracks (VOB files) off the DVD

2. Strip the video from the VOB file

3. Strip the audio and convert it to stereo or mono, and

4. Combine the video and audio to generate a VCD compliant MPEG file.

Though you can see the VOB files if you explore the DVD, you may not always be able to copy them directly because DVDs are copy protected. VOBDec is a command-line software that rips the VOB files and stores them on the hard disk. It also has a GUI, which makes it easier to use for a novice. Other tools like CladDVD or SmartRipper also do the same job. Then you need to extract the video and also the Dolby AC3 sound from the file. Use DVD2AVI, a utility that creates a project file storing the two.

The next step is to convert the sound to stereo from Dolby AC3 5.01 format to simple stereo format for putting on to the VCD. Any good sound-editing package like Sonic Foundry’s Soft Encode lets you do that and gives the output as a PCM WAV file. Now we use an encoder to merge the audio and video. TMPGEnc is one such software. Load TMPGEnc, select the project file that you made earlier as the video and the WAV file as the audio and hit ‘Start’. It takes a while to generate the MPEG output, which can then be used to make a VCD. You might have to use a MPEG splitter to split the MPEG into two files so as to fit on CDs.

This list of conversions is in no way comprehensive. There are a lot of other things you can do with your videos. For this, you need to keep experimenting and updating yourself.