Start Up Advice Appreciated

[johng17]

Hi,

I am new to the art of VCD & DVD production.
My set up is

Capture
Cannon MV 600 DV Camera with Firewire

Hardware
XP Prof SP1
256M RAM
Matshita DVD RAM LF-D310
Firewire Interface

Software
Preferred
MovieStar 5.3.0.25 & DVD Complete (Standard) 2.06 & OnDVD 2.1
Photoshop 7
Photoshop Album 2.0

Other software available
ULead Video7
Windows Movie Maker
Instant CD+DVD
Nero

DVD Players
Denon DVD-3000
Panasonic DVD-RV31
Sony PS2

TV
Sony Wega 28” Widescreen

I have succeeded in making a VCD which plays on the Panasonic DVD Player, although the picture quality is not as good as played from tape to the TV.

I now want to make a DVD and am very confused by the vast number of DVD Media Formats & types of Media available.
Can anyone put me in the right direction as to what media to purchase?

Any advice on my set up would be most welcome as well.

Thanks

[daamon]

Hi johng17,

I'm not familiar with all of your software, so I won't comment on those areas. What I will do is try to give you some guidance in the right direction.

Before anything else, what I will say is read, read and read. There is loads of useful info in the Glossary and the guides. Then you can search the forums. Then, when you're stuck, explain what you're trying yo do, the steps you took and the problem you face. People on this site are knowledgeable, but help those who want to help themselves.

I have succeeded in making a VCD which plays on the Panasonic DVD Player, although the picture quality is not as good as played from tape to the TV.

It won't be, as VCDs are at 1,150 kbps whereas the info stored on a DV cam is something like 25,000 kbps.

I now want to make a DVD and am very confused by the vast number of DVD Media Formats & types of Media available.

Making DVD's is a little more involved than making VCDs, but that's a good grounding. Quite a few people (myself included) will suggest to use different tools for each stage of the process:

1. Capture / Transfer - Loads, see the "Tools" section. Yours will too, but preferrably save to your PC as DV AVI and not MPEG (it's much easier to edit AVI, and encoding to MPEG later is better than doing it on the fly - more time to give better quality).

2. Editing (optional step) - Adding fades, background music etc. Making it look and sound how you want it to. I use Adobe Premiere (it captures too), it may be that one of your apps does the editing... See "Tools" section for more.

3. Encode - Getting your work in a DVD compliant MPEG2 file. TMPGEnc (good guide), Cinema Craft Encoder or Mainconcept MPEG Encoder & others.

4. Author - Create menus and chapters, then produce the VOB, BUP and IFO files that store all the final info. TMPGEnc DVD Author (TDA), DVDLab, Sonic ReelDVD & others.

5. Burn - TDA has it's own burning utility. Or there's Nero and any other burning software that does DVD's.

6. Enjoy - You'll need a comfortable armchair, a few beers and a good take-away... Or, alternatively, a swear-box.

The reason being that (I believe) if you use the best tool for the job (depending on budget) then you're more likely to get a better end product than when compared to an "all-in-one" tool. Others will disagree. Your choice.

Can anyone put me in the right direction as to what media to purchase?

Check the "DVD Players" link to the left for each of your players. If they're listed, it'll tell you whether it'll accept DVD-R or +R or both (see the "Glossary" (in blue, top left of the page) for details of these formats). Also, check to see if your stand-alones play re-writeables DVD-/+RW. Definitely get a re-writeable disc - it means you can check your work before committing it to a disc that can't be re-used, and so possibly wasting it. You can play these on your stand-alone and / or on your PC.

Any advice on my set up would be most welcome as well.

1. I'd up your RAM to 512DDR - Video work (editing and especially encoding) can be very resource intensive.
2. Firewire is good.
3. You don't mention your hard drive. I'd say get a second drive (for purely capture only) of at least 40Gb (depends on how much your reckon to capture). Work on approx. 13Gb per hour of DV AVI footage. You'll also need room for the encoded work. Your primary hard drive is for your OS etc., with the second just for capturing means that you're less likely to drop frames (and loads of other good reasons).
4. "Quote: Matshita DVD RAM LF-D310". Not sure of what this is. If it's not a DVD re-writer you'll need one. There are loads to choose from, but a rough guide is 4x speed and dual-format (does both -R and +R). I've got a Pioneer DVR 106D from http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk - Good price, good service, and good prices on media (Riteks seem popular).
5. You mention Nero, but not what version. The DVD bugs were (should've been) fixed in version 6.3 and later.

Hope that helps for starters... Good luck.

[Kolosus]

Use the media that you're burner supports. Not all drives support all media. If I am reading you're post correctly, you'll need dvd-ram media for your burner. You'll have to check the manual to see if it supports any other. dvd-ram is rewritable. So just do some experimenting with the guides on this website. If you mess up, erase the disc and use it again.

[andyp1]

What people seem to have failed to notice is that in you have a Duron 1G processor. If you are planning to get into videos of any kind be it VCD or DVD any encoding software you use will probably run at a snails pace . Any encoding is heavily reliant on the processor speed . I would say you need maybe 1.8GB or above at least if you plan on creating DVD's.


Anyone else agree?

[daamon]

What people seem to have failed to notice is that in you have a Duron 1G processor.

Good spot that man. Yes, I agree.

[Kolosus]

Although it can be done with what you have. andyp1 is right.
A much faster CPU and a lot of RAM will definitely reduce the frustration factor.

[johng17]

Thank you all very much for that advice so far.
It was very much appreciated.
I am aware about my processor speed & lack of RAM, but wanted to see how I got on with it before investing in the upgrade. So for now speed is not an issue.

The media advice I wanted was to do with the type of media I should by. My DVD Writer can write DVD-R disc's & from reading on this site my DVD Players can all accept that media.
However, when I go to look at various sites to purchace the media I see Red, Orange and many other types hence the confusion.

[Kolosus]

There is a large section on this site about media. You'll probably learn more than you ever wanted to know. I personally like Fujifilm DVD-R's made by Taiyo Yuden. Haven't burned a coaster yet.

[zworg2]

6. Enjoy - You'll need a comfortable armchair, a few beers and a good take-away... Or, alternatively, a swear-box.

LOL

However to be helpful...(i do try)

I would have to agree up your processor speed, but ram at least as that is quite cheap now.

Also work with a small clip (5 minutes or so) to test all the software and the hardware, prior to investing hours and hour of processinf the full thing and finding out that somewhere along the line something f*ucked up.

As to which media to use;

1) try and find out which media the manufacturer of your drive recommends
2) be warned not all standalone accept all media (fact, pain in arse but fact)
3) DEFINITELY get at least one RW (rewriteable disc) to practice on.
4) lots of people here seem to recommend Ritek. (i use verbatim as recommended by my drives manufacturer and i havent had any probs)

Zworg2