Monday we reported that MacVCD, the Macintosh Video CD player and QuickTime movie editor, has been updated.
Michael Theochares, multiMedia Specialist, K-12, of TheoSuarus MultiMedia, says the update is timely with Apple’s inclusion of CD-RW drives on new Macs although “we just need easy VCD burning software to catch up.” Video CD, or VCD, is a movie format that hasn’t caught on too much in North America, but is popular in Europe and Asia.
However, there is a product called Terpain from Teraoptix that burns official “WhiteBook” VCDs that will play back on many computers using QuickTime 3.0 and higher and in newer generation DVD drives, Theochares told MacCentral. The key for playback is that the drives have “multi-read” capability and be able to read different formats (VCD, DVD, HQ-DVD), he added.
Terapin costs US$499. It can take a camera or VCR video input — but not, unfortunately, DV or FireWire yet — and use off-the-shelf CD-R and CD-RWs. Terapin encodes MPEG-1 in real time.
“Although there are other devices that encode MPEG-1 in real-time none have this convenient feature set,” Theochares said. “It’s like a VCR-VCD combo you can hook up to your TV and later on a laptop or desktop. The quality is ‘VHS.’ The original source of video you encode makes a BIG difference. In other words, garbage in, garbage out.”
Terapin also burns audio CDs and has a digital optical input for connection to CD players.
“I work in education and have found a multitude of uses for this unit, such as creating training ‘videos’ and archiving, among others,” Theochares said.