PBC Playback control?? (1 Viewer)

[JeremyR]

Hey folks. I have a technical question for you all. Over the summer I replaced my old DVD player which finally crashed and burned after 4 years with a new Sony DVP-NS665 5 DVD/CD changer. We also have a Kodak Easyshare digital camera which we got last spring. I was under the impression that if you put pictures on a cd from your digital camera, you could view them on a DVD player. My dad, at least, is able to do that on his phillips DVD player. But when I put it in my Sony DVD player it doesn't do anything. As I was reading the owners manual trying to figure out what was going on, it said you were able to view digital photos using PBC Playback control if the format of the cd was Video CD format. So I tried to do a search online to see what in the world that meant, and I wasn't able to find anything that told me how to make a Video CD. As of right now, I just have a cd with pictures on it, what exactly is video cd, and what exactly is PBC playback control. And how in the world am I able to make a video cd that will show digital stills on my DVD player, or am I out of luck on this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MikeEckman]

If you just used a regular data CD and put JPEGs on it, that wont work, unless you have a DVD player that supports JPEG CDs. Most of your lower end generic DVD players support this, but as you go up into the name brand players (like your Sony), they cant play non standard formats like this.

To make a Video CD (which will have considerably lower quality images than just viewing a normal JPEG), you can use a program like Nero that can make Video CDs. There are many others that can do it, but Nero seems to be the most common. I am at work now so I cant tell you exactly what steps to use, but it should be pretty self explanatory. Just go to File, New, and it should be one of the options in there.

To be honest if you think this is a feature you will use often and want the improved quality of JPEGs on your TV, and dont want to go through the hassle of authoring and burning a Video CD each time, you might want to look into getting one of the cheapo Cyberhome or Norcent DVD players that are always being sold at Best Buy or Walmart. Most of those can handle regular CD-ROMS with JPEGs burned directly to them.

 

[JeremyR]

Great... thanks for the help. I will look into a cheapo player instead maybe just for this purpose.

Kind if bizarre the cheapo players will do it and the better players won't.

 

[Brian L]

Well, FWIW, I too have just been introduced to Video CD's as a means of viewing digital PICs on my TV. Thus fatter I am hitting 1 out of 3.

I have 3 DVD players in the rack; Pio 45a, Denon 1600, and Sony 650D. The manuals for the Pio and Denon say they do support Video CD; don't know about the Sony.

But, with the first Video CD I created using Adobe Album 2.0, only the Pio would play them.

The Denon does recognize the disc as a VCD, and displays the message "PBC Play" on its front panel, but I get a blue screen. Tried changing to interlaced from progressive, but same result.

The Sony refuses to recognize that there is a disc in there.

So, not sure what that all means, but even if the manual says a given player supports VCDs, it may or may not work.

I also have Nero...perhaps I will try using it to burn a VCD and see what happens.

As a side note, last year I bought my mon a Samsung DVD/VCR combo player. It is able to read JPEGs directly....don't know about VCDs though.

BGL

 

[Mark R O]

A couple of months ago while wandering around our neighborhood Costco, I spotted a Sony DVP-NS501 for $79.00. Having paid 10 times that amount for the Marantz in my theater system, I could not resist buying the little Sony to see what it was (or was not) capable of doing.
It has become a permanent part of the system now because of it's JPEG playback capabilities. Two of the supported formats are: DATA CD w/ MP3 and JPEG files, VCD w/ cd's in Super or Video CD formats. I have been burning discs with software that came bundled with my HP PhotoSmart printer. Works great, and its very simple to use. Windows XP also records various images to disc with a click of the mouse, and they play back on the Sony as well. I've been so pleased this capability (which the Marantz lacks) that I've ordered a high-zoot image editing/management program to allow more creative production work. The $79.00 player turned out to be a very worthwhile and enjoyable investment.