Greetings to all. I have a few questions about burning DVD vids. I hope this is the right spot to post this topic, but I think I have a handle on the +/- thing for DVDs. But mine are more detailed and specific. First off, I have a LOT of 6 hr and 8 hr. VHS tapes that I'm mainly focused on to transfer over to DVD. So immediately I'm drawn to double-layer DVD burning, so that's the kind of burner I will be getting. I guess my main issue are the things that I kinda wanna do with transporting these tapes to DVD. Some of the things I wanna do may be more advanced since I'm a n00b to it, but I'm just wondering what's the best way to go about starting this process. What I had planned on doing was the following: 1. Buy a video capture card or capture device. I currently have a Dazzle 80 capture device, but not sure how "effective" it would be. Since I have these multiple hours VHS tapes, I'd have to leave the computer on overnight or when not being used, to record all of the hours to the HDD. 2. Buy a 100+ GB HDD to add to my desktop to house the sheer sizes of the videos. Some of the capture devices I've seen say your HDD requires 1.5 GB per 20 mins. of video. 3. I'm not sure what's the DVD burning software is to get because of the kinda stuff I wanna do. With these tapes containing multiple 20-30 min. TV shows, I want to be able to make chapters to go to certain shows, and make menus for the DVD. I saw on here that someone recommends DVD-Lab Pro, and I may look into that. 4. Instead of investing in this stuff for my computer (though may even out in price), is there a stand-alone DVD burner that will do these kinds of things? I've seen the LG Multi-format Double-Layer DVD Burner that's at Best Buy, and I've been drawn to the Sony DVDirect Hybrid DVD Recorder (VRD-VC20), but I don't think they give the option of you customizing your chapters, or making menus....more like making DVDs that will play like CDs, in which you put it in, then just cycle through. I guess that's pretty much it. I don't know what capture device (reasonably priced) or DVD-burning software to get to accomplish all of this...all for about the price of a double-layer DVD burner around $300. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. As it stands now, I'm thinking about just going to get an external double-layer DVD burner, the HDD, use my Dazzle 80 capture device, and just burning away, 'cause all of this stuff is kinda confusing.
The Dazzle 80 will do it, but I'm sure you won't be happy with it's quality. A device such as the Canopus ADVC-110 will probably give the highest quality, but you'll have to have a good encoder (software), and this will add substantially to the time (between 2 and 30 hours per 2 hour recording). The quickest would be a hardware mpeg-2 encoder card, such as a Hauppauge PVR (150/250/500/USB2), which will encode the video directly to a DVD spec video, using hardware, so you can use the computer for other things while it's recording. Author the finished mpg's in DVDLab Pro. Burn with whatever software comes with your burner. BTW, dual layer burners are much cheaper than $300! Your project, consisting of multiple clips, would probably be better on single layer. Cheaper, easier, more compatible with multiple players, etc.
A single layer DVD would work? To transport an 8 hr. VHS because of the multiple clips? That seems odd to me. Lemme give this scenario of what I'm basically trying to do, though I think you understand: I have one 8 hr. tape with all of the episodes to VH1's I Love The 80s on it (first series). What I'm wanting to do is just put all 10 episodes (about 44 mins. each) on one DVD. Once done, if I put the DVD in a player (after I've customized a menu), I can just choose which episode I wanna go to right off the bat. You're saying that ALL of these episodes would fit on a single layer DVD? If so, that blows my mind because I was just thinking that the hours on VHS would transfer to DVD hours, too....if you get what I mean. I was just looking at the Hauppage WinTV adapter, and I think that may be the way to go. So as it stands now, I just need to get an extra HDD for the GBs, the Hauppage adapter, a burner and discs to start this process (plus it comes with Nero 6.3 which I've heard is good...but may get DVD-Lab Pro). I just wanna make sure I understand this right...thanks for the info, but please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong somewhere.... I'm now convinced to stop off at Best Buy on the way home to play around. ^_^
Because of the (basically) low quality of VHS, it's easy to put 8 hours on a single layer, at about the same quality. There's no reason to go dual layer for VHS, although you could conceiveably put 16 hours on a DL disk. Capture/encode the video to half D1 (352x480) instead of 720x480, and you can then use less bitrate, which reduces file sizes. You could even go to quarter D1 (352x240). Because of the smaller framesize, you don't need as much bitrate to keep the quality, and you can easily fit 8 hours. I've done as much as 12 hours per disk. Of course, this is understanding that you need a very good encoder, with many tweakable settings, and plenty of time. DVDLab is designed specifically to do menus, and multiple episode disks are easy. If you don't want to go the long way, with an encoder, you need a capture card, and software, capable of recording in the aspect and bitrate that you want. The Hauppauge PVR's will do it, with 3rd party software. I don't know if the bundled software will or not. Don't buy the WinTV Go, make sure it's the PVR 150/250/500/USB2, or you'll not get the speed and quality you want. The WinTVGO cards rely on your CPU to do all the work, rendering the computer useless during recordings. The PVR's have hardware that does all the work, so you can even play games, surf, etc., all while recording. Go for the largest drive you can afford. 250GB, or even two of them. You'll find you need the rooom for editing out commercials, and compiling your projects, unless you plan on only doing one at a time, burn to disk, then delete, before you start another. Nero is great for burning. I wouldn't use much else, as it's DVD authoring software is very basic, and unstable results happen alot. VHS realtime quality (at 8 hours per tape) is roughly equivalent to VCD quality. Nowhere near DVD quality, so there's no point in capturing/encoding to DVD quality, because it's a waste. 440 minutes of quarter D1 video, at 1150kbps, mpeg-2, (with audio at 224kbps) is almost exactly VCD, but in a totally DVD compliant file. You can probably drop audio bitrate to 128kbps, and bump video bitrate up to 1255kbps for just a bit better quality. These files will look reasonable on a normal 4:3 TV, providing it's not a big 48" projector or something. The larger the TV, the more bitrate you're going to need, to keep the quality, so you may find you're wanting to put only 4 hours per disk (8 on a DL) as your original idea, but it's probably not necessary.
Ohhh, okay, my original plan was to just put in a 6 or 8 hr tape, hit record on the PVR and just let it run until the end of the tape. Then go back in the recorded video and just edit each episode to be individual vids/mpegs. Actually cutting episodes one by one would be kinda time consuming, unless I was actually wanting to watch the episodes myself. I guess I can try trial-and-error...making a whole lotta coasters as I go along. O I only thought a 180+ GB HDD would be enough because of how the other capture devices I saw stated that only 1.5 GB is needed for 20 mins. of recording. So doing the math, only 36 GB would be used for an 8 hr VHS. The PVR I saw is not GO, so that I don't have to worry about. ^_^ Thanks for the info...the thing that confuses me a lil' now is the whole "how to maintain bitrate (or close to it or better)" thing, or the "possibly improving audio" thing. Guess I'll play with it. Any further advice is much appreciated rebootjim.
Okay, I now have all of the hardware and software needed to make the DVDs. Overnight, I recorded one 8 hr. tape on WinTV PVR, and the task now is editing the mpeg down to be individual mpegs per episode(s). I was originally going to use VirtualDub, but it gives an error and doesn't incorporate the video. Is this editing process done in WinTV, or is there some other method of doing this? Also, I managed to record the mpeg using the configuration you suggested rebootjim: D1 video, at 1150kbps, mpeg-2, (with audio at 224kbps). The thing is, I've noticed that the video and sometimes the audio tends to be ever-so-slightly skippy. I'm not sure if it's because the mpeg is ~6 GB in size and it's just eating at processor power (despite me having a powerful system), but I'm just concerned that it will record this way on disc.... Have you or anyone experienced this issue?
You need VirtualdubMOD to edit mpg's, but then you'll have to re-encode. Not what you want. There's a couple of ways to get your video to disk. 1) (the easy way) Author the full 8hrs as one movie, setting chapter points at the start of each episode. If it's too large to fit on one disk, use DVDShrink on it, then burn. 2) (the more complicated way) Edit the video to separate clips in something like Cuttermaran, Womble, VideoReDo et al. Author each clip, using a playlist function in DVDLab Pro. "Skippy" video could be a few things. What software are you using to play it with? I would author one, to a DVDRW, and test it in the player to see if it skips then. What capture card did you get? Hauppauge comes with an editor, called Nanopeg. You can use it to edit the videos, although there are better ones. I demux everything in PVAStrumento, then edit in Cuttermaran, and simply import the elementary streams into DVDLab (which is what it prefers anyhow). Try a recording at 1255kbps, audio at 128, and see if it's as skippy, or the quality is better. Full D1 at that bitrate is not recommended. Try half or quarter D1 instead. This may cure the "skippies" If WinTV2000 doesn't do it, try some 3rd party software like gbpvr.
Hm, okay. I'll try to follow your example and Demux (?) it with PVAStrumento, and then edit with Cutteraman. I'll try out burning a DVD and see if it's still skippy. Like I said, it could just be the fact it was hogging power, because I played the mpegs back in WinMedia Player, but after I closed the player, other things not video related were skipping a little, like Windows sound effects and even the mouse icon jerked a few times before I terminated it in Task Manager. As for what capture card I got, I got the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 (1045). I saw the Nanopeg thing, but I didn't understand what to do with it when I brought the program up. I'll test this out when I get back to the desktop and see what the result is, and will definitely ask again if things don't turn out that good. :-\
PVAStrumento takes the mpg, and demuxes it into it's separate components, video (mpv) and audio (mpa). It also keeps track of dropped audio frames, and keeps audio sync for you automatically. Make sure you put a tick mark in the "Output .info file for Cuttermaran". Open Cuttermaran, and select file, open, and find the .mpv It will load the audio automatically. Find the first frame of the part you want to KEEP, and hit the Mark In button. (after the commercials) Find the last frame of the portion you want to KEEP, and hit the Mark Out button. (before the commercials) Click the Add Range to Cutlist button. Go to the next bit you want to keep, and repeat, until the cutlist contains all the portions of the recording you want to KEEP. You now hit the Cut Video/Audio button, and save the new file. It's now edited, with no commercials, and saved as a filename_cut.mpv and filename_cut.mpa Import the mpv and mpa into DVDLab, or whatever. Nanopeg works a bit differently. Here, you open the video, select the part you want to CUT OUT, instead of KEEP, but works similar to Cuttermaran. It does not require demuxing, but does not allow frame accurate editing either, and can be slow and tedious to use.
Arrrgh!...I don't think I'm gonna be able to deal continue this. Been trying for 3 days now, and it's just not coming out right. Can't seem to make menus, or chapters properly, not to mention the videos are comint out too large each time I record 'em... I think I'm just gonna take my purchases back and invest in a stand-alone DVD recorder. I appreciate the help rebootjim, but I can't get the hang of this thing... I posted a new topic in the DVD recorders thread, so if you have any info from the questions I asked there, I'd appreciate the help. But recording the mpeg and trying to edit stuff down is causing things to slow down and making it much more complicated than I expected. Unless you have any other advice, I'd appreciate it...but chapter creating, menus, and the sizes are giving me a headache with encoding, decoding, demux.... *laugh*
*sigh* I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. But I tried to do these steps that rebootjim has given, and while most of it works, I'm still wondering something...maybe you could answer, rebootjim. But I've just been trying to do a simple test of burning one DVD after recording the 8 hr VHS. I then just tried burning it with Ulead Movie Factory, but it is taking like 6 hours to just get to 40-something percent completion...and that doesn't include the top bar for video coding or something. Does it usually take 6+ hours to make just one DVD? Also, I was gonna use Nero 6 to try burning the DVD, but it has 2 folders (Audio_TS & Video_TS), and I have no idea how to split, or if you can split a vid up to make it compatible. Any help?.... *lost and confused*
Nero will do all the job among others.I had tried with succes unless you need hollywood standarts in quality or SF. I mainly use the Adobe EncoreDVD as it has a 'Don't Transcode' option if captured at 720/576 PAL or 720/480NTSC.It will let you create menus and submenus, all the chapters even a playlist but no special effects. You could pass from editing to burn (disc,image or DVD folder) without a second of transcoding. Nero will transcode and take some times let say something like 20 min for 90min video but I accept this when I need some special effects or titles on my movie. There are many alternatives.
