Hi, Any experts out there, would love some help, lol. I had several questions... 1. I currently record my tv shows to MPEG2 files then just burn them on to a DVD. Very simple but not too elegant. Is there a $100 program that does simple DVD authoring, is easy to use and is reasonably fast? I'm just looking for a reliable program to create a simple menu and some transition effects, nothing fancy. I heard that Pinnacle crashes often and I tried ULEAD 3 but it didn't work with my Plextor drive (it would default to my CD R/W and I could not change the drive because it was grayed out). Also when I selected auto transition it put in transition effects practically every minute even though scene shots were longer. Also, if I author a DVD does this mean the files are no longer MPEG2's? 2. Not realizing that 4.7 GB means exactly 4.7 GB I created a file that was too large. I tried some freeware to trim the end part but it was hopelessly slow and didn't work after all. How can I trim clips quickly? 3. My main concern is that technology changes are much faster now. How do I protect my media from being outdated? Is it better to use generic MPEG2's or store in other formats? I had a huge AVI library and when I installed Windows XP I could no longer read the files. When I went to get the codec I found out that Intel doesn't own them and you have to pay! I got the codec but now all the AVI clips are choppy, grr. So in essence, could I have this same problem with MPEG2's down the road? Lastly will BLU-RAY DVD's make current ones obsolete? Seems like you have to spend money every 3-4 years whether you like it or not...
As usual I forgot one issue... I am looking into getting a new external hard drive and from reviews it seems Western Digital is the way to go. However I see a lot of posts about a high failure rate on the 160, 200 and 250GB drives. I love the concept of the new Media drives that accept 8 diff. card formats and come with 2 USB drives but I can't find any reliability information on them.
There are a couple of good DVD authoring titles for $100 or less. TMPGEnc DVD Author is very simple, but somewhat limited. I can't be very specific about that because I don't use it. The other one is DVD-Lab, which should do just about anything you could need it to, and I find it to be very easy to use, although you will probably need to look at the tutorial that comes with it. Both programs have 30 day trials so you should try them out for yourself and decide what works best for you. DVD-Lab: http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_tools/dvdlab.cfm DVD Author: http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/download/index.html No, they're still MPEG-2 files. Just to make sure you're clear on this, 4.7GB means 4,700,000,000 Bytes, which your computer will tell you is about 4.37GB. Also, it's usually best to keep the size a little smaller than that just to be safe, since the outside edge of the disk is the place you see the most/worst problems with DVD media. If you have to trim the end of an MPEG-2 file, Womble MPEG2VCR is supposed to be the best program to use. I can't say from personal experience because I'd redo an encode before I'd cut it, but all the reliable source I've seen seem to agree on that program. The general rule of thumb for storing video (or audio for that matter) is to store it with as little loss as possible within your storage capabilities. I wouldn't worry about compatibility down the road for your MPEG-2 files. MPEG-2 is used for a lot of consumer electronics type applications, so there is very wide range of products that need to deal with the same or similar information. As a result, there's a lot of standardization, so you shouldn't have problems playing your files for a good long time. The only thing you can say for sure is that something will make the current technology obsolete. As far as I'm concerned the current "next generation" technology doesn't have any more chance than the stuff that doesn't exist yet. Until some sort of digital television becomes pretty standard in the average home, I don't think any big changes are likely anyway. Besides, all the big companies seem more interested in patenting the "next generation", not building it.
Cool, thanks for all the information, very helpful. PS - I do know what a GB is, however it seems manufacturers changed their standard, e.g., when they say 1 GB now they mean exactly 1,000,000,000 whereas before 1 GB was 1,024,000,000. So natually I expected 4.7GB on a DVD disc to be slightly more than that.
Exactly my point. Actually, it's always been technically true to figure it the way they do for DVDs since all the prefixes we use for computer storage (kilo, Mega, Giga, etc,...) are metric, so Giga=1000x1000x1000 not 1024x1024x1024. But of course we know that the reason they switched to doing things this way wasn't for technical accuracy, just marketing.
Reader650, I think you know what a 4.7 DVD is but you wrote it incorrectly, so for others reading this thread - While the manufactures advertise the size of a DVD as a 4.7GB DVD disc it’s not true. It’s because they calculate what 1GB is differently. A DVD will hold 4700mb but that is not 4.7GB that is 4.38GB because 1GB is not 1000MB it is actually 1024MB. Manufacturers do this false advertising all the time so you think you are getting more than you are, They do it with Hard Drives also so if you buy a 120GB Hard Drive it isn’t really 120GB it is actually more like 114GB. (I think that’s right - lol) At any rate, we prefer to calculate the available writing space on a DVD as 4.36GB to include the reverse math and also provide a bit of room for overhead Pete
Well you can try Adobe Encore....With Adobe Premiere Pro.Those are the two programs that I use for dvd authoring
