Dvd Shrink is a tool for use with dvd's so therfore it's application is intended for post authoring. That is, you still need an anolog to digital conversion/transfer like you are thinking but if you find that AFTER authoring this dvd is still too big- then dvd shrink can transcode it to fit. It is of no benefit until you have acheived whatever A/D method you have chosen and then authored this to dvd structure.
Doug, I must apologise for two errors in my typing. First of all I said "frame rate", when I should have said bit rate (I was trying to take a short cut so as not to confuse you, but may actually have done worse in the process). Secondly my authoring software is TDA not TAD - it stands for TMPGEnc DVD Author. Check it out. There are a number of different "Sizes" when digitizing video - from 720 by 640 on down. A Digital Video Recorder (or PVR as some prefer) will use a smaller size at each longer recording time - I won't itemise them here because they differ from PAL to NTSC - the one I quoted is from the North American standard (whereabouts are you?). The picture quality doesn't degrade noticeably until you get down to longer record times than three hours, although four hour recording on my Daytek P30 is still comparable to a standard VHS tape. Some machines have different CODECs so quality can vary. Go to www.DVDRHELP.com and check the reviews on the DVRs that are available in your part of the world - you may see my comments on the Daytek (Liteon) and the BenQ 300 - both are good, but the Liteon based machines use a Guider menu that is absolutely foolproof. The reason I recommend doing the transfers using the DVR is that you can walk away and play on your computer and come back to a first class capture every time (using RCA cables between tape player and DVR) and you also get to use it in place of the VCR for off-air recording, which is way better than VHS. My acknowledgements to the previous poster also for reminding you again that DVD Shrink is a "post production" tool. It is not totally intuitive, but check the tutorials on this and other sites, especially anything written by Lord Smurf. Happy transfers!
Thanks for all these comments. After searching on web I now have better understanding on PVR. Noivce people like me may check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_recorder for more details. It is basically a digital analog of the analog VCR with programmable recording capability to TV broadcast, and with more. My purpose is to convert tapes with analog signal to digital format,(VCD/DVD) not to record TV shows or watch TV in real time. Therefore, I do not need the higher cost PVRs or TV cards, rather the low end DV converter or capture cards, in stand alone (external) mode. After buying a converter then I can move to post authoring using either of the suggested software. Again, thnaks to all you guys.
Let me answer my original question. I was told, and read some lines on web, that the DVD transferred from home video does not have a region code, and can be played on DVD players of all regions.
I now choose a different approach. I borrow a PVR which allows me to covert my VHS to DVD in DVD+RW. I copied two titles in HQ format into one DVD+RW. Then I use the software coming with my Pioneer DVD writer Sonic RecordNow! to make duplicated DVDs. It works fine. However, I wish to author my video to take out of unwanted parts, add chapters, or insert title pages to separate these two titles, or, I may want to separate these two titles into individual files in the future. I copied the DVD image to HD. Only .gi and .iso formats are supported. The addional packaged software Sonic MyDVD is a limited edition and it does not allow me to do authoring. I downloaded TMPGEnc and it does not recognize either .gi or .iso files, neither the files copied directly to HD by Win2000. It seems that I am stucked. How should I proceed?
Corrections: The freeware TMPGEnc cannot read files on DVD directly but the commercial product TMPGEnc DVD Author can. Surely I used the 30 day trial version. I copied all files into HD and used TMPGEnc DVD Author to read in each title and do authoring. However, it allows me to combine two titles (originally in one DVD+RW) into one title but does not allow me to incoporate two titles after authoring (two volumes as output) into one DVDR. (I have two short titles.) I tried unsuccessfully several software including DVD Shrink, super DVD Ripper, and DVD Decrypter. Therefore, I need other software to do the job. So far I have not found one on Afterdawn web site. May be some one can help. Two other minor problems with TMPGEnc DVD Author are 1) I cut some frames unrelated to the main vedio at the begining but the cut was not clean and could not be found within TMPGEnc DVD Author. I only found it after replaying the saved authored DVD files. 2) I was forced to do the authoring again by cutting more frames but every time the program converts the original DVD files to .mpg files first while it takes time and redundant. It would be better for TMPGEnc DVD Author to read in .mpg files it created previously.
DVD Shrink actually treats menu created by MPEGEnc DVD Author as an independent title. So when I combine two titles into one DVDR I actually got 4 titles. The playing on DVD player was no good. I could not switch between titles during playing. Then I tried MPEGEnc DVD Author again to combine two titles in one DVDR. I put each title on different track and created menu for them. At output stage, an error message "stream writing error" always occurred on my win3k OS. Don't know what was going on. Does anyone know how to combine 2 titles in one DVD?
The problem was that I did not have enough disk space. The created DVD has menu on the title and two tracks with links to play, very nice. TMPGEnc DVD Author works well.
Doug Sorry I missed your earlier posts, but Afterdawn seems not to notify me on a timely basis that there are new threads coming through. I love TDA, and I have found it very easy to create custom front pages by simply enlarging the size of a clip frame to fill the menu page (thus "covering" the rather blah templates that come with the package). I'm also glad you finally caught on to the the use of a PVR/DVR to do the initial transfers. If I want to capture a two hour tape, I typically do it to two discs in one hour segments at the HQ setting. That ensures that I get the maximum quality in the transfer. I then capture these DVDs into TDA, edit and combine (outtakes simply becoming chapter points) Once I have the finished edits, I can switch to DVDShrink if I have too large a file, and let it run at bedtime. As I said in an earlier post, it will turn itself off when finished, while you enjoy a blissful night's sleep. Happy transfers.
I just oredered a video-capture device to replace my old card. I got a cable this time, if you haven't purchased a cable yet, check out this link: http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/SubCategory.asp?SubCategory=47 and the specific one i got: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815100112
The original route: "VHS, V8 -> DVD recorder -> computer" did not work well. My DVD burner (Pioneer DVR-A09XLA) started not being able to read the DVD created by DVD recorder and hung the system. I suspect it due to update to new firmware for DL writing. The bad thing is the replaced 2 DVD burners from Pioneer could not read not only the DVDs created by DVD burner but not even recognize the DVDs its predecessor created! I tried another route by purchasing a USB 2.0 linked capturing device to directly convert A/V signals to mpeg-2. In order to preserve the best picture quality for later use I do transfer using the highest bitrate option available resulting in about 90 min for a 4.7 GB DVD-5. I can use DVD Shrink to burn DVD longer than 90 min into a DVD-5 for broadcast. I also want to save the original .mpg files for backup purpose. I do not want to sacrifice the quality to further compress the .mpg files longer than 4.7 GB, and do't know how. Instead I prefer split each of them into two .mpg files in smaller size and save smaller size files into DVD as data. How can I do it? Please advise. Thanks.
