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Also forgot to mention, the *nix port is also underway and I'm aiming to release the updated version after the GUI gets out.

First off, thanks to everyone who have helped to support VCDGear.  Your donations have definitely helped me to cut a huge amount of development time off the next release that I'm working on (see below)!  

Second, kennydeath sent a better written German language set.  Thanks!

Third, all about the new VCDGear :-)  Yes... so I've been saying that a new version will be coming out for the past couple months and still nothing (see August 16/02 entry hehe).  I have been putting as much of my development time and now I'm happy to say the next version is nearing completion.  Aiming for December release date so everyone please be patient.  It's currently in the testing phase.

Main features and changes from v3.07b15 GUI

• Bug fixes, glitch fixes!  oh fixes galore!  Too many to list and I've pretty much lost track of how many there were :-)
• Totally rewritten code
• Improved repair routines
• More options like creating TOC images and extracting directly from BIN without a CUE file
• More batch processing options to make [S]VCD distributions easier (e.g. Making an image, spanning across RARs, add SFV checksums, etc.. with just a few clicks of the mouse)
• Can create SVCD images
• Auto image spanning - Got a 900MB [S]VCD you can't fit on one CD?  Add your video as a track using the spanning option and VCDGear will automatically split your video into multiple 74min/80min parts and put them onto separate CD images.  After that, just burn them and watch! There is NO NEED to demux/remux your 900MB and/or edit your video in an MPEG editor.  Think of how much time that'll save you :-)

A little update on what's happening with the new GUI version in development:  There has been a lot of code rewrites from the 3.0x GUI.  Some bugs have been fixed, some new features, and more.. details will follow once it gets released.  I won't give out much more... but I will leave you with one thing for now...  SVCD support (ah finally) ;-)

BTW.. everyone who has submitted language packs, keep up the great work!  I will be attempting to contact each author to make updates for the new version soon.

• Fixed bug in sector padding routine which might cause crashes

• Remembers last save directory

• Various beauty interface glitches

• Some other tweaks which I don't remember :-)

Added Italian language pack.

Added Romanian language pack for v3.06 and 3.07b12

Aubin has provided Debian package for version 1.6e.  It's also built for Debian "Woody".  You can grab this in the download section.

• Fixed CUE->MPEG without Fix Errors turned on (which broke in b10)

• Added tolerance amount for colour indicators under Options/Display

• Added on-the-fly sector padding to fix MPEGs that do not have constant sector sizes (like they should)

• Fixed Cancel button when running out of disk space

• Fixed some beauty glitches

• Fixed up splitting problem when Passive is turned on

• Fixed up multitrack extraction

• Repaired the 0-byte track problems that cropped up in the last beta

• Relaxed some restrictions when fixing MPEG files

• Fixed up temporary dir problem where it did not save the changes

• Freezing problems have been addressed when Fix Errors is enabled with image extraction

• Patched up the issue where sometimes videos would be cut too early when Fix
  Errors is applied

• Added status / colour indicators to make it easy to see if there was any problem 
  without needing to click on the Log page

Fixes the broken writing code and the SCANDATA generation with the Video-CD imaging routine.

This includes the fix for the CUE INDEX gap problem which caused previous versions of VCDGear to print out "Cannot find MPEG stream".  Please report if you run into problems with this new fix.

Other fixes include some glitches in the Passive read/write MPEG option.

Added new single conversion option for RAR->CUE/BIN->MPG.  NOTE:  This conversion will *ONLY* work if the RAR file has the same name as the CUE file. There will be a fix for this in the future (hence.. the "beta" part of v3.07b5)  :-)

Added French language pack.

Updated Turkish language pack to v1.01

Added Indonesian language pack. 

Updated VCDGear to v3.06.  This version patches some problems from v3.05: 

• Fixed rare BSOD problem on certain machines

• Minor interface glitches

• Fixed file split option bug

VCDGear has received the Wintotal Award from Wintotal - a popular German site for PC software.  Thanks guys! :-)

Updated Norwegian language pack to v1.1.2.

Added German language pack!!  Thanks to Megamacy for sending this in --- now I can start clearing up all the email requests for a German pack from my inbox :)

Added Portuguese language pack.

Added Chinese (traditional/simple) language pack.

oh.. something I'd like to mention.  If you want a language file.. say for example, XYZ,  that is currently not available, please do not email me asking for it because there is a huge chance that I do not know this XYZ language.

I am saying this because one-liner emails like "GERMAN!" won't help anyone at all.  If you can write a language that is not listed then please do so.  I will not use Babel Fish :-)

Apart from that... yes, someone needs to write up a German translation file :-).

Added Norwegian language pack.

Added Spanish language pack.

My ISP has decided to change hostnames so as a result I will be probably lose my existing e-mail address.  Please send your mail to vcdgear@hotmail.com instead.  I have updated this in the v3.05 release.

Added language packs for Swedish and Russian language.

Updated VCDGear to v3.05.  Fixed a possible memory leak, minor interface glitches, and a bug in the SVCD extraction routine (thanks to tangx for bringing this problem to my attention)

Turkish language pack added for 3.0.

I'm glad to finally say that this new version replaces the aging 2.0 GUI, fixes a ton of bugs, and updates it to the newest 1.7 engine.  Many thanks go out to MACKerMD for doing *MAJOR* testing and contributions on this.  If you ever see him on Efnet, give him a warm greeting :)

I'll copy out what's listed in the manual (yes, I actually made some documentation!)

Engine v1.7 -

• Time code tracking and automatic file splitting during MPEG output

• Passive read/write option -- see how many errors without writing output

• New VCD image creation routines with CD-i support

• Fixed some memory corruption

• Fixed 99% completion hang when Fix Errors used

• Slightly improved speed

• Returns exit code (console only)

VCDGear v3.0 GUI -

• Multiple language support - English and Dutch included

• Batch processing

• RAR / unRAR support

• New GUI look and pics :)

• an Easter egg!  (can you find it?)

• Fixed file closing bug

• Lots of minor other bugs in 2.0

Grab version 3.0 from the download area!

Interested in making a language file for 3.0?  Modify the default English language file and email it to me.

Other news... ports to MacOS 8-9 and OSX are currently being worked on with the help of a new developer =).  We are trying to iron out as many bugs as we can find on this platform.  Please submit any new ones that you might run across.  We are currently aware of:

1. Toast 4 sometimes accepting certain MPEG files and sometimes not

2. Sometimes cue/bin files need to both be placed in the desktop folder in order for it to work.

And for those who are wondering what has been happening with VCDGear, I've been working on a new GUI to replace the current 2.0 release.  Still need to fix up some routines and add multilanguage support :)  The console releases will get an upgrade to 1.7 once the new routines are in.

Fixed a lot of the problems associated with the mpg->bin
conversion to improve playback compatibility in DVD players.
Non CDRWin users should now be able to correctly see the files
in the right order.

Windows link to 1.6c temporarily offline.  Has a minor problem that needs to be fixed.  Will be up shortly.

For those who have already downloaded the 1.6c Windows version, please redownload the fixed version later on.

Fixed a bug in the conversion to DAT, CD image generation, and RAW->MPG/MPG->MPG.

and for those running MacOS.... Toast support has been implemented :)  even for those who do not have a Mac, Toast compatible MPEG files can be generated with the "-toast" option.  

NOTE: This option is only valid when the conversion method creates an MPEG file.

12·19·2000

First I'd like to thank Psychosis for deciding to hosting the website.  This should thankfully take off the considerable load on X69's server :)

I've been quite tied up for the past while but now that Christmas is coming, I'm happy to say that there'll be more time to spend with working on more updates.

Toast support is being incorporated so expect a new version soon.  

10·01·2000

Some slight things to note.  Click here to read about it.  Download of the port available from 2 sites.

Some things to note for AmigaOS users:

This is the Amiga port of VCDGear (console version) for creating VCDs on your Amiga. Info on the original project can be found at http://www.vcdgear.com.

To get the full benefit of VCDGear, I suggest you buy the DAO version of BurnIT, as it's the only program afaik that can burn true VCDs (mail me with info if you know different).

The following changes have been made especially for the Amiga port: · AsyncIO read/write using asyncio.library (if this isn't convenient (f.ex. if it doesn't work over your network), use the .noasync version). · Makes Amiga specific .cue files (BurnIT, as it's the only program that supports MODE2/2352 BIN/CUE afaik). · Reads Amiga specific as well as standard .cue files.

 - CISC

09·26·2000

SunOS 5.6 / FreeBSD 4.1 (Alpha/Intel) / RedHat 6.2 (Alpha/Intel) / SuSE 6.4 (Alpha)

09·04·2000

Additional note: The MPG->RAW issue still needs to be worked out so hang in there.

09·03·2000

08·28·2000

Just remember to use -fix to correct the errors.

Go download version 1.6a for the new modification.

08·25·2000

New features and bug fixes include:

• better extraction engine.  Everything should be more accurate (if not better than v2.0) - even ETA
• patched possible memory corruption while reading CUEs
• MPEG pack size checking
• Smarter CD-i checking
• Auto-cuts video tracks for CUE->MPG or RAW->MPG.  This option will work 100% of the time if your cue/bin or raw image is PERFECT.  If the output gets cut too early, this feature can be disabled with the new option -nocut
• MPG->BIN/CUE, Nero Image NRG->BIN/CUE, Adaptec CIF->BIN/CUE
• SVCD extraction for CIF->MPG, NRG->MPG
• NRG->MPG and CIF->MPG can now extract multitracks
• Dreamcast SFD->MPG.  IMPORTANT: The audio in the MPEG file will not play because it is encoded in SFA - Sofdec Audio.  Until we get a Sofdec audio decoder codec, there is no way to decode the sound.
• MPG->RAW image tracks (use with CeQuadrat WinOnCD or VideoPack).  Can Macintosh users with Adaptec Toast use this somehow to write VCDs?

Some Nice Things to Know Before Using

If you want to create a CUE/BIN with multiple MPEG tracks, create a text file which lists all the MPEGs you want to write.  Run VCDGear with the text file as the input file.  Don't forget to add the @ symbol in front of the list file.

Writing a VCD after MPG->CUE/BIN works fine.  Tested to be readable on PC and a video CD player.  Took a lot of time reverse engineering but it was well worth the time :)  Not aware of endian issues so I am interested in those with Macintosh systems to let me know how they write VCDs.  Then making a VCD writing solution could be worked out for MacOS platforms.

07·16·2000