Want to convert four Barney videos to a single DVDR

[kpoman]

I have four "Barney" VHS videos that are all about 45-50 minutes long and I want to capture all of them and put them on one DVD-R with menus to select each video. I've captured each one using my ATI 8500DV card and each file came out to about 2.2 gigs (I used DVD Mpeg2 at 720 X 480 resolution). Was this a mistake? I think these file are way too big. I've tried making a DVD with menus in Pinnacle Studio 8 and everything went well until it was time to actually make the DVD disc files when Pinnacle choked and claimed the disc would not fit. I then tried TmpegEnc DVD author and it would let me start the process of making the disc but then would choke half way through and also claim that the disc would be to big.

Should I have captured these using the VHS setting in the ATI software?
Any suggestions on a better process without have to encode anything?

Thanks.

[indolikaa]

1) Is your audio PCM, MP2 or AC3?
2) What bitrate did you use on the video?

[kpoman]

The video bitrate was set at 6.00M Bit/second and the audio I believe is PCM.

[indolikaa]

Two suggestions:

* Go with Half-D1 (352x480) with a VBR of 3.52 target/4.00 maximum. See if you like the results; they should be good given the source is VHS.

* Compress your PCM audio to AC3. PCM is 1536 kbps, while AC3 can be as low as 192 kbps. ffmpeg can do this, or the AC3 ecnoder plugin for TMPGEnc DVD Author can do it also. That should help a lot with your filesize issue.

You could also use DVD Shrink, but you'd need to run it multiple times.

[kpoman]

Thanks! Okay, I did what you said for the video settings and now my mpeg file came out to 1.1 gigs. Still quite large but a lot better and the quality is great too.

Here is the information on the audio (used AVIcodec to get this info):

Audio : 79 MB, 256 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, 0x51 = Mpeg-1 audio Layer 2 [0xc0],

How do I convert that to AC3? Do I have to demux the mpeg and deal with the audio by itself? Sorry, newbie here. Thanks for your help!

[Supreme2k]

Most author programs will let you create oversized project (you would usually choose the "ignore compliance" function). After you have authored the DVD, say in TMPG DVD Author, use DVDShrink with the deep analysis feature turned on.

UPDATE: Yes, you will have to demux, convert to ac3 (Besweet), then remux.

[indolikaa]

Yes, a demux is in order at this time...

I always capture PCM with my ATI card and let DVD-lab demux the stream for me. Bear with me, I have to work backwards to figure out your solution...

Two options here.

1) Your DVD player may accept MP2 audio. If it will play VideoCDs then your chances are excellent. If you have a -RW or +RW disc try authoring it and see if you get audio with the MP2 stream you already have.

2) You have to convert from MP2 to either PCM or AC3. If I was doing this I would use BeSweet to go from MP2 to WAV and then ffmpeg to go from WAV to 256k AC3. Kind of a pain in the ass, but my mind has drawn a complete blank on this option.

[kpoman]

@Supreme:

I was just going to use DVD2One to squeeze the authored DVD but I couldnt even get to that point. The files were waaaaay too big.

@indolikka

Ok, I'll wait...thanks!

[indolikaa]

You could also probably transcode the audio straight from MP2 to AC3 in BeSweet, as Supreme has suggested...

[kpoman]

Thanks for your help guys. I actually transcoded the MP2 straight to AC3 using ffmpeg. Now I have an mpeg file and an AC3 file. I have to have a MP2 file AND and AC3 file to remux right? Dang....

[indolikaa]

No. You remux your m2v file and your AC3 file. The MP2 file is no longer necessary, as AC3 and PCM are the de facto standards for NTSC DVDs.

Just don't delete the MP2 file quite yet...

[kpoman]

Im sorry..I orginally meant m2v instead of MP2. What is the easiest program to DEMUX the orginal mpeg to create my m2v file? Thanks.

UPDATE: I used TmpegEnc mpeg tools to demux. Thanks for all your help. The project is looking great!

[indolikaa]

Good to hear. Now if we can just work on your NFL allegiances...