Hi~ new here. Great forum. Learned a lot already. I'd like to get people's take on the best approach to converting analog sources (VHS, S-VHS via s-video) to DVD, with THIS particular setup.... SONY VAIO RZ44G, pentium 4, 512mg Ram, media-center-edition software (which uses the Sony Giga Pocket card) BUNDLED SOFTWARES: Click To DVD - a Sony software that works fine but almost NO editing capability, and what it does have is extremely limited. Windows Movie Maker - better capability, but this software only works with analog IF I use a analog/digital converter, and is still quite limited in it's capability. Media Center Personal Video Recorder (previously known as Giga Pocket)- captures analog very handily to the 'D' drive, but has NO editing features at all. Sony has created this for people who want to suck up Television programs. Not my thing, but it does work well. DVgate - another Sony program that wants to see DV only and doesn't seem to offer any editing or authoring features...haven't examined this one very carefully. THIRD PARTY SOFTWARES: Ulead VideoStudio v7 - this has more editing features than anything that came bundled with the computer, but is difficult to work with. The work flow layout is not user friendly and the controls are limited and stodgy. Arcsoft ShowbizDVD v2 - has an excellent interface, layout and WAY superior controls and adjustments to any of the above. OK......so far, I much prefer the Arcsoft ShowbizDVD because it allows me control over brightness and contrast and hue, etc...and I also have much better control over the titles, menus and music. But the burned DVD image isn't quite as crystal as what I was first getting with Click To DVD. (I'd better tell you in front that I can't afford Adobe Premiere or expensive editing suites like that right now. And I should mention that my objective is to create DVD-R's with menus in the highest NTSC resolution possible. My understanding is that this would be MPEG2, 720 x 480 and probably not more than about 55 minutes worth of program material per disc.) Q. With the system I now have, am I going to have to sacrifice picture quality for editing and menu/music/titling capability? Regards, L7
If you use a Good Quality Mpeg encoder instead of the Encoders Bundled with the Softwares you mentioned then you can fit in excess of 2 Hours on a DVD, I have even gotten up to 3.5 hours of Full resolution Video on a DVD when useing a High Quality Mpeg2 encoder.... I would suggest that you use whatever you have that can capture to a Low Compression AVI format or to DV AVI and then use something like Video Studio 7 to edit the Captured Files and render the Project as a Low Compression AVI format Like useing the HuffUYV Codec or to a DV AVI format and then use a Good Quality mpeg2 Encoder Like Tmpgenc or MainConcept encoder to encode the Video to Mpeg2 and then use whatever you want to author the Files to DVD as Long as your DVD authoring program doesn"t re-encode the Video which will ruin the Quality...I actually Prefer DVDLab for DVD authoring because it doesn"t have an encoder so it will never re-encode your Files and it has Very good Menu features......
