Sanity Check on MPG to DVD conversion

[kashmir_singh]

Hi

I've only recently got into DVD authoring with a purchase of a burner and found many good articles and programs to assist.

However my latest project of converting video tapes to DvD has taken me deeper into this murky area. My first attempt at a tape went well with me capturing the video through my 9000 all in wonder and saving as MPG. I then DvD authored using Ulead Workshop to get a 5.5G image. I used DvD shrink to get this to fit on a single DvD. This is adequate as the video quality is not brilliant.

However on my second tape I ended up with over 6G DvD image which DvD shrink could not compress sufficiently. I therefore used AVI2DVD to try and reduce the DvD image size through TMPGEnc (DvD to DvD option selected). This has now done the trick (especially as my audio hsa been reduced from 2G to 200Mb by BSweet). However I'm left with a mess of files and no clear way of authoring into DvD as I do not have scenarist. There doesn;t even appear to be a trail version.

How do people without scenarist take the output from AVI2DVD and author into DVD format with menus intact.

Thanks

[presto]

6G DvD image which DvD shrink could not compress sufficiently

I think you would be much better off to run it through DVD shrink again then to re-encode with Tmpgenc. Compress as much as you can with DVD shrink and then run the resulting files through DVD shrink a second time. You may want to use the Deep Analysis feature which is available in DVD Shrink 3 beta 5.

[RabidDog]

Most of the other programs have trial versions ... check under authoring tools

[kashmir_singh]

Hi I like the idea of running DvDShrink twice but

I would have thought re-encoding with TMPGEnc would be better than running DvDShrink in terms of quality. Why? Not too sure Doesn;t DvDShrink strip out incremental change frames?

Also I don't think DvDShrink touches the audio. Which is a whooping 2G. As it's just home video I'm not that fussed about sound quality. AVI2DVD compresses the audio as well which means less compression for the video.

It would be great if I could demux, compress the audio, remux and then DvDShrink. Does someone know how?

Finally Rabidog are you implying that I do not have to use Scenarist. Scenarist is the only option given in AVI2DVD. Although I could use one to look at the after mess. Any recommendations for ease of use etc if I do go down this path.

Thanks for the quick turnaround guys!

[presto]

You think too much

Running it through DVD shrink twice won't take long so try it. Transcoding is always better the re-encoding.

Of course what you really should do is lower the bitrate on your caputures in the first place.

[housepig]

You think too much

Running it through DVD shrink twice won't take long so try it. Transcoding is always better the re-encoding.

Of course what you really should do is lower the bitrate on your caputures in the first place.

that's the key - a properly-encoded original, even at a lower bitrate, will generally look better than a transcoded or reencoded file.

I would start over and re-invest the 2 hours or whatever to recapture the material at the right bitrate - it sounds like you've already spent more than 2 hours trying to fix it...

[gcgreen]

I would also recommend recapturing and lowering your bitrate. DVDRHelp bitrate calculator can be found in the tools section. If you are converting over home movies you should easily be able to get 2 hours onto a single DVD at decent quality. Since you have an AIW card, I assume that you are caping with MMC. Depending on your version, you should be able to set a template to cap at the correct (calculated) bitrate and get a file that will fit without having to use Shrink.

I have found that TMPG DVD Author is one of the easiest author programs to learn and is very versatile.

Good luck.

[presto]

I have found that TMPG DVD Author is one of the easiest author programs to learn and is very versatile.

Free trial available but don't bother. Just buy it. Easy to use, fast, great results.