Shortly, I will have in my hand a (complete, working) 30 minute clip of our Billings cruise.

It will be a "video CD"

It plays in my laptop, using a program called cyberlink power dvd. Windows media player won't play it. It plays in my home dvd player just fine.

If I look at the disk in explorer, there are NO files in the root, and folders "EXT" "MPEGAV" "SEGMENT" & "VCD"

"MPEGAC" contains 1 file called "AVSEQ01.DAT"

"VCD" contains "entries.vcd" "info.vcd" "lot.vcd" & "psd.vcd"

The entire disk contains 262MB of data, tho the disk I have now loses video at 16 minutes.

I want to post it on the web for all to see. I assume I'll need to convert it to a different format, such as mpeg or something. I've never played with pc movies. What software do I need and how do I do it?

You created a VCD which most newer DVD players can play. It's not a true DVD.

How do you want to distribute the video and what medium do you want to distrubute it for? Streaming online video, digitial hard copy CD/DVD?

What did you capture the original video with?

What format is the ORIGINAL video in? MPEG, AVI, WMV, Quicktime?

I didn't create it, the mailman brought it to my door....

Shane's wife Jessica brought a camcorder with on the Billings run, and shot a bunch of tape, at least I assume it was tape.... Do they still use tape?

The edited it down to 30 some minutes and burned it on this CD and sent it too me.

That's all I know, other than that they initially tried to email me a file, but it was too big and bombed on thier end.

I would "like" to make this available as streaming video for any member who wants to see it, or perhaps as a downloadable video file of some sort might be easier. I'd like to do this without spending any money or dealing with too much of a learning curve.... I have enough on my plate without taking on digital video.

I'd like to also not cause any more hassle to the people who made it, but I think I'll shoot em a pm and ask them to also send me a data cd with the mpeg or whatever on it.

The original format should be AVI and yes DV tape is still used today in cameras. Some record directly to DVD, I think Sony is the only manf. that has a camera that records to mini DVD.

Since you are looking for free and no effort. Can you mail me a copy of the CD and I will hook you up?

Since it appears to be in a VCD format already shouldn't be too tough to convert out to a webable format. I converted all my 8mm tapes to mpg and then created VCD or DVD from those. The time consuming part is the editing. Just need a system with some horse power, ram and disk space....

I'm far from a video guru tho...
The original format should be AVI and yes DV tape is still used today in cameras. Some record directly to DVD, I think Sony is the only manf. that has a camera that records to mini DVD.

Since you are looking for free and no effort. Can you mail me a copy of the CD and I will hook you up?

www.videohelp.com

excellent site, Bonzo!

I was able to download a program called isobuster, which happily created an mpeg file that media player will play.

Now all I gotta do is wait till Shane sends me a file that doesn't quit after 16 minutes, and we'll have video up of the Billings run!

wooohoo :) cant wait.