Okay I am trying to put 3 hour movies onto DVD. Most of them are wrestling and are in excellent shape. I have tried putting them on DVD using ULEAD DVD Factory and I did not like the quality. What can I do to change this. This is my setup: Magnavox VCR which connects to my Hauppauge PVR 250 via Composite Cables. My computer is an Athlon 64 3400+ with 2 GB of PC3200. I have an 80 GB HDD and it has 45 GB Free. For DVD editing/bruing programs I have: Nero and ULEAD. What settings should I alter to get good quality. I have got other DVDs from people with wrestling on them and it looks fine. I must be doign something wrong. Please help me. Thank you for reading this and taking the time to answer.
3 hours on one DVD requires a fairly low bitrate. Ulead and Nero will fall flat trying to re-encode to fit it. You need a good standalone encoder, with the right settings. Try Canopus Procoder or Mainconcept mpeg encoder, or even Tmpgenc if you want to wait 40 hours for it to encode. Minimum 2 pass VBR, Motion search precision slowest, DC component 10.
Ok I dont really understand what you said. But I think I get the gist of it. I dont really know what TMPgnc is or what it does so I would need a guide on how to use it but I would be willing to try. Lets see standalone? You mean like a DVD Player that connects directly to a VCR and a TV. I would rather not as they can be pricey. I looked up Procoder and if the same one you are talking about it is like 500 dollars which is too much. I tried researching your DC but have NO IDEA what that is. The MainConcept thing looks good but once again I dont know how to use it so I would need a guide and I do not want to buy it if its not what I need. I do not mean be picky/stingy I would just like quality DVDs like the other ones I have received. Any suggestions? Please include instructions. Thanks alot.
You basically need to take the hauppauge PVR-250 captures, and make them fit 3 hours on one dvdr. To do this, you need to re-encode the video to a lower bitrate, so it will all fit. To do this, there are software encoders. Canopus Procoder express ($59 I think) is probably the best, however, there are others, such as mainconcept and tmpgenc. You would load the video, and set the bitrate to 3150kbps, then encode. The resulting mpg you would then load into Ulead, and add your menus, author, and burn. If you want to try tmpgenc (30 day demo), here's a guide: http://members.shaw.ca/videojunk/avi2dvd.htm There are also many more guided for this, right here on this site, just click the GUIDES link at the very top of this screen. In the future, set the capture bitrate to whatever you need using a bitrate calculator http://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm in your capture software. Then you can author and burn without having to re-encode.
Okay I downloaded Tmpgnc and was about to use it when I realized the files I have are in MPEG fromat not AVI. Another issue that arose was that it told me my 30 day trial was up (I dont remember using this program at all). Should I continue to capture with ULead DVD Factory and then move the MPEG into Procoder Express? Should I try another capturing prgram? I have tried VirtualDub but for some reason it does not work. I get an error and it tells me to stop running WinTV (which isnt running). Thank you in advance you have been great.
Sounds like your capping to Mpeg 2 and then your program objects when authoring to dvd. Like Reboot said- 3 hour mpeg stream onto a single layer dvd just won't look good because it would have to be encoded at too low of a bit rate. If you could author the 3 hour mpeg to dvd (on hard drive folder) it's possible to use Dvd Shrink on it, however, the shrinkage would also degrade quality. 10-20% shrinkage is acceptable to me but @ 3 hours it requires more than 20% to fit on dvd. If after trying reboot's good advice and you still get poor results you'll have to capture 2 separate mpegs and author 2 dvd's. Unless of course you have a dual layer dvd and burner.! When I encounter 3 hour videos and can get it all on one mpeg stream I use Womble mpeg-vcr to split it. This program is 30 day free trial. Once the mpeg is split where I want it I then save as 2 separate mpeg files that can be authored to dvd. Remember though, you would end up with 1. the original mpeg and 2. two new mpegs for authoring (this is when HD space becomes premium)
I have converted about 120 VHS tapes to DVD. Here what works for me. Equipment: P4 3.06 GHZ 1 GB Ram Two hard drives, 1 system, 1 video Sony VCR, Composite outputs Hauppgue 250 PCI Card Ulead 4 Movie Factory Womble MPEG Editor I capture the video from my VCR at 4400 KB/s (Varible BIT Rate). I trim the Mpeg files in Womble. I load into Ulead and make menus. I set Ulead to the same Bit rate as captured ( This way it does not have to render). Good DVD in about 15 mintutes using 4 X DVD-R I can get roughly 2.75 hours on a DVD this way. I recommend not let Ulead try to squeeze the Video in, since the hard ware encoder on the card is much better.
