Best simple solution for multiple formats -> DVD?

[Dougmeister]

Have VCD-compliant MPEGs, SVCD-compliant MPEGs, unknown MPEGS, unknown AVIs, lots of ASF files, and lots of home video that hasn't been captured yet.

I see the guides listed https://www.videohelp.com/convert here, but is there *one* solution that would solve all of these? Ideally, I could have one program to do quick & easy conversions, but if that doesn't provide a quality solution, I could have a 2 or 3 step process for others.

Regarding the guides, it seems to start with "What program do you like to use?", then you pick the corresponding guide. I'm looking for recommendations as to which program(s) to use in the first place.

Have used TMPGEnc, VirtualDub(Mod), and a few others. Please advise. Thanks.

[bugster]

I see the guides listed https://www.videohelp.com/convert here, but is there *one* solution that would solve all of these? .

If there was, there would only be *one* guide and Baldricks badwidth costs would be a lot less

No, there is no single program or process that will handle all video formats and all situations to create any sort of playable disk.

[Dougmeister]

Thanks, bugster.

There should be, though, a simple program that would handle *most* formats, right? I'm thinking that it would handle at least VCD and SVCD compliant MPEGs, and if it handled other MPEGS and AVI's, then I'd be one happy puppy.

(I'm thinking like: drag 'n drop files, walk away, come back, and I can pop the DVD out of my computer and into my DVD player)

The ASF's I would be willing to monkey around with.

Any suggestions?

[FOO]

I wonder if VS7 or Premiere would accept different
types of clips. I don't have either installed right now or I'd
check.

[bugster]

Nero will accept quite a few formats to convert to VCD or SVCD, as long as the playing time isn't too long for the format. But quality sucks.

Don't know if the latest versions of Nero will do the same for DVD ?

[Dougmeister]

Thanks. Will try Nero later tonight (hopefully).

Didn't Nero have something called Nero Express or something like that a while back that was specifically for video?

If I want to play around with the "better quality" conversions to DVD, what would y'all suggest, VDubmod? TMPGenc?

[bugster]

If I want to play around with the "better quality" conversions to DVD, what would y'all suggest, VDubmod? TMPGenc?

Personally I use Tmpgenc for most stuff. Many others swear by CCE but it is a steeper learning curve and requires external assistance such as avisynth scripts in many cases. Faster than TmpGenc though.

[Dougmeister]

Again, thanks.
Found many "how-to" guides using TMPGEnc. Will check them out tonight.

1) What is CCE?
(Edit: nevermind. "Cinema Craft Encoder".)

2) A friend who is much more into this than I am suggested using: AVISynth, TMPGEnc, and VirtualDub as a frameserver. Whaddya think about that? Is there a guide/how-to that uses these? (Looked and couldn't find one...)

3) If I have a file that says it is already VCD/SVCD compliant, I *should* be able to burn it straight to DVD, right?

If so, does it matter what program I use? Is Nero okay?

[bugster]

1) you answered that.

2) I sometimes use virtualdub to frameserve to TmpGenc. Never used Avisynth directly, only with the help of DVD2SVCD which does it all for you. I only frameserve to Tmpgenc if it helps to overcome a particular problem with the souce video. Frameserving to CCE is almost a must as it doesnt't resize, has no filters and is VERY fussy about source formats.

3)SVCD is NOT DVD compliant. VCD Video is DVD compliant but the audio is not. It needs to be resampled to 48Khz. Once you have the DVD compliant video and audio prepared, it must be Authored to DVD-Video standard. This is what creates the .vob, .ifo & .bup files. These are the files you can the burn with Nero to your DVDr