After being at this long enough for my trial version of DVD-LAB to expire and not makeing the first conversion of VHS to DVD, I HAVE started drinking, HA. I have WINDVR3, TMPGEnc, Adobe Premiere 6.0 & Nero6. Plese give me step by step instructions on how to convert or forward me to where I can find out the info I need. I only have less that 20 tapes to convert and they don't have to be high end quality transfers. I can convert DVD to DVD-R like a madman, But I can not get this process down. Mark
Let me tell you what I do. I have different equipment and software from you but my steps may still give you some help. First thing you need is a way to capture the VHS video to your hard drive. I use a Creation Station (CS). It has RCA connectors for audio/video input. I plug a VCR into the CS, play the tape, and the CS transfers the video/audio to the hard drive through a USB connection. I use the capture software that came with the CS. Newer equipment has firewire or USB 2.0. but faster speed really isn't a big deal when transferring from a tape. Since you have to play the tape to record it if the movie is an hour long it will take an hour to record/capture it. The one advantage to the CS is it stores the file in MPEG2 format (conversion done by the CS hardware). I don't have to convert from AVI or something else. My next step is to edit the video/audio as necessary. You can use Premiere for that. I use Ulead Video Studio 7 (VS7). Finish editing and you should be ready to burn a DVD. I'm not sure about Premiere but VS7 has the ability to burn DVDs. So, when I get everything like I want I just tell it to go burn the disk. If Premiere won't do the burning you should be able to save the finished MPEG2 file and burn the DVD with Nero. If you are working with long tapes you can either break the capture into several parts or use TMPGEnc to drop the bitrate down to get more on each DVD. Hope this helps you some.
I just saw you have an ATI A-I-W video card. You would plug your VCR directly into the A-I-W and capture using the software that came with it. If I remember correctly the A-I-W captures in AVI format so you'll need to convert it to MPEG2. If you CAN capture in MPEG2 you're a step ahead. Use TMPGEnc to convert to MPEG2. I have used the steps I gave you to convert about 17 tapes to DVD so far. Works fine every time.
What format is your captured video? AVI, MPEG1, MPEG2? Anything other than MPEG2 will have to be converted. Use TMPGEnc. Do you know how to use TMPGEnc to convert a file? If not, it's really pretty easy. I use TMPGEnc Plus which doesn't have a time limit on converting to MPEG2 files. Start TMPGEnc (Close the Wizard if it starts) and select New Project. Go to Video Source Browse button and select your AVI file. All 3 files will fill in with paths. Click Setting button and then Video tab. Select MPEG2 Video in Stream Type. Configure the rest of the selections (size, bitrate, etc). Click Advanced tab. Double click Source Range - another window will open. Make adjustments and OK. Source Range will now be checked. Do the same thing with the other fields. Get everything like you want and click OK to close MPEG Settng window. Back on main window now and click Start button. When its finished you'll have an MPEG2 file ready to burn to DVD. I recommend using a DVD-RW disk. If you've messed up just erase and try again. See if this helps.
My capture has the extension of: MPEG Video/audio stream I can open with PowerDVD. When I try to open in TMPGEnc to trim I get the message "Illegal stream format" Do I need to use the project wizard? MKM
It sounds like the capture file was saved in PAL format. Make sure you save in NTSC format when you capture. Also, if still necessary, try using TMPGEnc's "MPEG tools..." to De-Mux into separate audio/video files and then Mux the two files back into one. That will correct most problems. If neither suggestion works I'm afraid I can't be much more help other than to tell you to experiment with TMPGEnc. Good luck. Video work in Windows is hit-or-miss at best. If you can get a setup (hardware/software) that works well don't change it!!
If you are trying to create a DVD then you have to make sure that you are captureing to 720+480/576-Pal ,Mpeg2, 29.976fps-NTSC/25fps-Pal, 48000hz Audio in LPCM or Mpeg1 Layer 2 or Dolby AC3 audio and a Video Bitrate under 9000kbs, as Long as you capture setting are set up this way then Tmpgenc will accept your Mpeg files for DVD authoring...I have a Funny Feeling that your Audio was Not 48000hz and that is why you got the error because Tmpgenc would just Make a Pal DVD for you if your File was a Pal file and not give you any error of the sort you are getting....Cheers
