Thanks to Acid™ for this tip!

Making a DVD into a VCD

First, you will need these apps, and a lot of time a horsepower :)

DVDextractor 0.9
mAC3dec 1.1
MediaCleaner 5.01
M.Pack 3.5.1e
Toast 5.0.1

Step 1
See the readme file in DVDextractor for more info on how to use it. Use DVDextractor to extract the files from your DVD to your HD. Use the Demux streams option. You will get .m2v files (mpeg-2 videofile) and .ac3 files (audifiles). Sometimes the audio is stored in another format, but thats not too important. Use whatever audiofile you get.

Step 2
Convert the audio (.ac3) to .aiff using mAC3dec. You should now have one or more .m2v (mpeg-2 videofiles) files, and one or more .aiff files (the sound from the dvd) on your HD.

Step 3
Now to convert the audio (.aiff) and video (.m2v) to mpeg-1 audio and videostream using MediaCleaner5.0.

For PAL Video the settings should be:
Output: MPEG-1 Systemstream
Tracks: Include Video, No Audio
Image: Image Size 352x288, Accurate scaling, Noise reduce mild, Display ratio 0.9157, PAL
Encode: Basic MPEG, Slower (higher quality), GOP size 12, P-frame distance 3, Open GOPs, 1.1 Mbits/s video.

With these settings it takes about 8 hours to convert 30 minutes of video on a G4 450. If you want to reduce the time you can change Accurate scaling to Fast scaling and Slower (higher quality) to Standard. You will lose some quality, but not too much, and it will take 5-6 hrs instead. If you want a NTSC MPEG-1 video, use the NTSC settings in MC5 intead of PAL.

For audio, use these settings:
Output: MPEG-1 Systemstream
Tracks: No video, Include audio
Audio: MPEG-Layer 1, 224kbits/s, 16 bit stereo, samples at 44.100 kHz

You will now have two .mpg files, one that contans only audio and one that contains only video. Now it’s time to put them together and make a Toast-ready mpeg file.

Step 4
For this we use M.Pack 3.5.1e. First we have to make the audiofile into a mpeg-1 audiostream that M.Pack understands ( i.e., change the type and creator to .mpa and .MPa3) and the videofile to .mpv and .MPa3 to make a videostream that M.Pack understands.

A) Start up M.Pack and choose the MPEG-1 PAL (or NTSC). Make sure that only the Multiplexer tab is active (Audio and videotab should be greyed out). Mark Toast Ready in the multiplexer window.

B) Now click on the Data tab and drop your 2 .mpg files into this window (it should say Please drag an audio or video stream into this area). Press OK. Now press start. It will take about 5-10 minutes and when you are done you should have a file named .mpeg_tr (tr = ToastReady).
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Step 5
Launch Toast 5 (or later) and choose Video CD (click and hold on the Other tab to see this option).

Click the Select button and and make sure One or more MPEG streams is selected.

Choose the Add button in the MPEG Tracks window, then choose your .mpeg_tr file in the resulting dialog. Type the final name of the CD at the bottom of the MPEG Tracks window, click Okay, then hit the Record button and burn away.

When you're done, you can view it on your standalone DVD player or your Mac with a VCD player app.

If you dont want to make it into a VCD, just a normal mpeg file to watch only on your computer, use WiredMux in the M.Pack folder to put the audio and video files together. Then you can watch it on your computer only, and not be able to make a VCD from that file.

That’s it! A long list, but it’s really easy. It just takes time converting from mpeg-2 to an mpeg-1 file with MediaCleaner 5. Great Quality when you’re finished!