A lot of people are having trouble writing proper VCD's that will work in everything, including VCD Players/PSX VCD Mods/DVD Players and more. Read below for more information you will need.

Do not copy the .DAT straight off the CD, in some circumstances it will work, but in most it won't so it's a good idea to get used to ripping a CD properly. A .DAT is not the same as mpeg, it's a slightly different format used for writing VCD's, so in most cases this .dat will not write a proper VCD.

What is wrong with just making a VCD from a .dat file?

A .dat file is NOT a .mpg file, it is simply a storage file. You can't just rename .dat to .mpg and expect any VCD creator to produce a Video CD correctly. Why not?

Because a .dat file doesn't have the same kbit/sec as a .mpg file. i.e. The Video stream bitrate is not correct. If the .dat is simply copied from one Video CD, and used to create another, the .dat will be place the SEGMENT dir, when a true Video CD has all of its .dat file in the MPEGAV directory. As a result the new Video CD created will not work in stand alone Video CD players.

In order for the .dat file to be placed in the correct directory by a VCD creator it must have the following bitrates:
Video:- 1152 Kbits/sec
Audio:- 224 Kbits/sec.

If this is not the case, then you cannot make a proper VCD from what you have. At this time I know no way of fixing the .dat file so that you can make a proper VCD. There is talk of using mpegsplit to split the .dat into Video and Audio, and then recombing.

What do you mean ? I take the DAT file, and write proper VCD's all the time

This may be the case, but is your VCD really proper ? Adaptec VCD Creator will ALWAYS write a cd that is compatible with the computer, but just because it runs with software VCD players doesn't mean it's properly written. Software players are just more forgiving than Real Stand-alone DVD/VCD players. There is a way to check to see if your VCD is properly written or not. If you VCD has one of the following symptoms it is a badly written CD and will not work in all players :

CD has only 1 Track total - On a real VCD the first track is simply a pointer to the raw data on the subsequent tracks. For every properly written VCD, there must be at least 1 track for every mpg file used to create the cd. So a VCD made with 4 mpg's will contain 5 tracks.

The main .DAT file is sitting in the Segment Directory, instead of the MpegAV Directory. Mpegav Directory is where all the movie information is stored. The Segment directory is where menu items, slideshows etc. reside. If you main dat is here, it's not good.

Yeah well, I only play my VCD's on the computer so who cares if it's not properly written?

When the standard for proper VCD's becomes accepted, your collection will become untradable. As well, as DVD players are creeping into the market, a lot of people prefer to watch their vcd's on the home theaters or big screens instead of the computer. Some day you will probably own a DVD player, wouldn't you like your collection to be playable?

Okay - I want a perfect VCD, how do I do it?

The best way to rip a cd is by using a complete disc image, most preferably BIN/CUE images. The reason is, this is the only way to preserve any of the 2.0 enhanced features on a VCD, many VCD's are starting to come with menu's, slideshows and more. If you just copy the mpeg data off the cd's, you will miss all of these enhancements.

But some people want to view their vcd's before writing to cd, you can't watch a .bin/cue.

All they need to do use use BinChunker or Bin-X or WinImage which can extract the mpg from the bin/cue/iso/raw.

How i can copy VCDs with CDRWin and DiscJuggler ?

Full Rip - CDRWin
1. Open CDRWin
2. Click on the 2nd Icon (picture of a cd) - Copy Disc
3. Select "Copy Disc" in the top radio buttons
4. Change your DATA Reading Speed to 2x (ripping VCD's at anymore than 2X can cause glitches or audio pop's clicks in the resulting file)
5. Take a look in the bottom left corner - it will display a track list, if your cd does not display at least 2 tracks, the CD you are trying to rip is NOT a properly written VCD. So you should forget about ripping this cd
6. If your cd is 2 or more tracks, Leave everything else alone and click Next
7. Choose the Copy to Image file radio button
8. Type a name for your image file, you can give it a path here as well ie. d:\aliencd1
9. Under Reading Error options change the retry count to 4, and set the On error to "ignore"
10. Click Finish and you are done. * note if you get an error reading your cd in CDRWin, try using a different reader, or try setting "On Error to Repair"

Full Rip - Padus DiscJuggler
1. Open Disc Juggler
2. Click on the File Menu and Select "New"
3. Choose from the wizard "CD Player to CD Image"
4. Click the Browse Button beside Destination
5. Type a filename. Then click on the pull down menu "Save As" and choose ISO 9660
6. Click Start and you are done. (Note if you create a .CDI image that is fine also, but you can only write a .CDI image within Disc Juggler, If you save as ISO you can use adaptec to write it.)

Someone sent me an MPG/DAT file - how can I test to see if it will write properly?

1. Open Adaptec Video CD Creator.
2. Drag the Mpg/dat in question into the data window.
3. A new window pops up with a preview of the mpg.
4. Click on the "Video" Tab of the Add New Item window.
5. If this says MPEG Segment item - it will not write properly. Video CD Mpeg Audio/Video track, or Mpeg System Stream are ok.
6. Once you create your cd, and go to make the image, when you get the screen which says CD Creation Setup click on the Summary Tab
7. If it says number of tracks is 1 - then it will not write properly.
8. If everything checks out so far, go ahead and create the cd. (Note : This test will always write a proper 2 or more track, MPEGAV VCD but - if the image wasn't ripped properly then it's possible you will get audio jittering, when playing on a dvd/vcd etc. There is no audio jittering test, so once again I encourage you to rip your CD's properly.)

How I convert DAT to MPG?

I recommend that you first try WebFlix Pro to convert your .DAT file. Install it, open it and select "File" -> "Convert VCD file to mpg". Other tool is DAT2MPG program. You can also use VCD Gear but the results might be different than the expected..