AVI to Verbatim Single Layer 4.7gb DVD-R

[jaeone]

Hi Guys,

Wow - this is an awesome forum... if only I'd known this place existed like a month ago hehe...

I'm using a new PowerBook G4 w/ SuperDrive, so it can't burn double layer DVDs... This means I use Verbatim (heard good things about 'em) standard 4.7gb DVD-R.

From what I understand, they hold 4.7gb or ~1:20min of video... I picked up Toast & Popcorn and have had good luck w/ Toast for burning audio CDs and what not...

A friend of mine sent me a 1:40 min AVI of his band live, so uh... that's like... 2 hour 20 minute... and Toast won't burn it onto DVD, it just says "file too big..." which yeah, it is... :]

What would be the best hassle free method of getting this burned without loosing too much quality on to a standard DVD-R, to be played on a stand-alone DVD player? I've searched the forum but couldn't find this exact issue/answer...

Popcorn is great for auto-compressing and burning things like a VIDEO_TS folder, no problems there, but it won't accept .AVI...

- I've tried opening the AVI in Toast and exporting, which gives me a .DV (Digital Video?) file that Popcorn doesn't care about at all... hehe...

- I've tried loading the AVI and saving as a disc image w/ Toast, but that doesn't seem to work right?! It wants to save it as a .toast or something... Popcorn doesn't care about that either...

If I could just get the dang thing into popcorn & compress it... I suppose the other alternative would be to 'crop' the beginning or end or some useless parts (like a crowd shot of the back of someone's head hehe) but I don't really want to cut it up... (not to mention I don't know how to do that either!) lol

Any suggestions would be sweet, thanks guys.

- Marty

p.s: the tutorial on how to properly burn a VIDEO_TS folder in Toast was excellent, thank you!

[hexxisoft]

it needs to be converted to mpeg, but at a lower bitrate than usual i guess. AVI doesnt work for DVD. it needs to be mpeg.

i don't use mac software, so someone else will have to take this one.

[jaeone]

Interesting! I somehow missed the part where AVI -had- to be converted to mpeg... :] I did read about how an AVI is really just a 'container' for a video file and a audio file of whatever format...

I'll have a look for AVI to MPEG conversion help, specifically Mac Software... Do you know if it matters whether it's mpeg2 or 3 or 4 or whatever?

Out of curiosity - I had burned a smaller AVI to DVD awhile back, it was only like... an hour long or something... I threw it into Toast and hit 'burn' but on my dvd player the playback was stuttery, like it paused for a millisecond every second or so... VERY annoying! I thought I had accidentally burned it in PAL mode or something, but I checked and it was definetly NTSC... Maybe it was just my DVD player, but could the stuttering be caused because the AVI wasn't converted?

Cheers,
- Martin W.

[hexxisoft]

yeah, mpeg2. mpeg4 is usually in an AVI container, and mpeg1 is VCD.

toast probably has an encoder, but it's probably shit. those one click solutions are usually never quality products. invest in a real encoder.

[jaeone]

I read the post just below this on recommendations for MPEG Encoders but I don't think there was really a 'concensus' on -the- encoder to get?

Digimac (spelling?) seemed good but 'finicky'... I'm very new to video, encoding, bitrates, blah blah blah - to be honust I don't have a clue what Variable Bit Rate is or anything... (I can throw around the lingo, but what does it all MEAN?! hehe)

So for me, finicky and multiple tests is not going to be the solution... What I'm really looking for is an encoder that will take my AVI - *CLICK* - pop out my mpeg2 of good quality that will fit on a standard single layer DVD-R... ready for Toast to burn... :]

Suggestions?

Cheers,
- Martin W.

[babgolis]

You can always use toast to create disk image from your avi (in the file menu). Mount that disk image then use something like popcorn or dvd2onex to shrink that puppy down to size... It'll take awhile, but you'll get it done.

[Frobozz]

What I'm really looking for is an encoder that will take my AVI - *CLICK* - pop out my mpeg2 of good quality that will fit on a standard single layer DVD-R... ready for Toast to burn... :]

Suggestions?

Well, here's a wild suggestion that may amuse some of the regulars here:
Presuming the AVI plays in QuickTime, use the feature described on this page - http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2004/12/22/video_out.html
- to export the movie via Firewire to either a LaCie FastCoder or to a standalone DVD Recorder that has Firewire input. Cool, huh?

Addendum:
I just tried some tests using SimpleVideoOut X with my standalone Pioneer DVD recorder. The video must be in .mov or DV 720X480 in order to work with the Pioneer. I suspect it may need to be that with the FastCoder too. So this method probably would require using Divx Doctor II on Divx AVIs before the video could be exported via Firewire to a hardware encoder.

[sjk]

People mention MPEG-2 encoders, but won't reencoding from DiVX/MPEG-4 to MPEG-2 going to suffer some noticeable amount of quality loss no matter how it's done? Seems that's going in the "wrong direction", as someone recently mentioned in another thread.

Frobozz: Using the "hardware transcoding" method you described, how would the quality compare (in general) with other DivX/MPEG-4 AVI to MPEG-2 software reencoding?

[Frobozz]

sjk,
I agree with you that it makes most sense not to re-encode but to simply get a DVD player that accepts Divx. Transcoding has to degrade the picture quality.

As for the quality of using a hardware encoder, there are differences between brands. My experience with the Pioneer is it produces a much better picture on lower bit rate movies - such as when I'm fitting a couple hours to a DVD - then I've seen with Toast or iDVD. Does it do better than multi-pass encoders? I can only guess the answer is no, but the fact it encodes in real time makes up for that in my opinion. A good-quality standalone DVD recorder with Firewire is a huge time saver, very versatile and has good picture quality.

The Pioneer models also output via Firewire to a computer or camcorder. However, the signal must be from the recorder's hard drive or from a DVD. So you can't use it as a pass through to capture analog video from a VCR or live TV without first recording the program with the Pioneer.

[terryj]

Hi Guys,


A friend of mine sent me a 1:40 min AVI of his band live, so uh... that's like... 2 hour 20 minute... and Toast won't burn it onto DVD, it just says "file too big..." which yeah, it is... :]

What would be the best hassle free method of getting this burned without loosing too much quality on to a standard DVD-R, to be played on a stand-alone DVD player? I've searched the forum but couldn't find this exact issue/answer...

Popcorn is great for auto-compressing and burning things like a VIDEO_TS folder, no problems there, but it won't accept .AVI...


Any suggestions would be sweet, thanks guys.

- Marty

Hello, Marty and welcome!
To get back to your original question,
( we have seemed to digress into a discussion of standalone
dvd recorders...!) there is a simple method of doing this
direct from Quicktime Pro itself.

With the proper codecs installed ( DIVX 5.21, from www.divx.com
and the 3ivx codec from www.3ivx.com),
you can view the AVIs directly in QT PRO.

From there, you want to export--> Quicktime to QT movie,
and export the file with audio at 48khz, to your hard drive.
This will output a file that Toast will naturally accept, as
it uses Quicktime to encode the file to MPEG-2.
when exporting the file to Quicktime movie,
use either the Motion-Jpeg codec or the 3ivx r.4.5 codec
to insure best quality.
Here is my answer using the 3ivx dr 4.5 codec:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=246933&highlight=3ivx

From there, drag and drop the quicktime movie file into toast,
select best, and click burn. You should have a nice outputted
DVD.

good luck.

[alph]

If you have the appropriate codecs installed and it opens in Quicktime, then Toast can read the file too, given that Toast uses Quicktime to decode.

Since you already have Toast and Popcorn, I'd second the option of installing whatever codecs you need to get Quicktime to open the file, and then using the "Save as disc image" and Popcorn option, mentioned above, to encode and then shrink the image to fit on you DVD-R.

Alph

P.S. I too like Verbatims

[jaeone]

Wow! Thanks for the responses everyone. :]

I've got Toast & Popcorn, DIVX codecs and such, but I don't have Quicktime Pro, just the regular one (I think) hehe... Sounds like the best bethod will be for me to open in toast, save as disc image & mount, compress w/ popcorn & burn.

I've also accidentally picked up a DIVX Enabled DVD player so that should help things considerably hehe... =]

Very usefull forum you folks have here ! *tips hat*

- Martin W

[NightWing]

What I'm really looking for is an encoder that will take my AVI - *CLICK* - pop out my mpeg2 of good quality that will fit on a standard single layer DVD-R... ready for Toast to burn... :]

Suggestions?

Well, here's a wild suggestion that may amuse some of the regulars here:
Presuming the AVI plays in QuickTime, use the feature described on this page - http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2004/12/22/video_out.html
- to export the movie via Firewire to either a LaCie FastCoder or to a standalone DVD Recorder that has Firewire input. Cool, huh?

Addendum:
I just tried some tests using SimpleVideoOut X with my standalone Pioneer DVD recorder. The video must be in .mov or DV 720X480 in order to work with the Pioneer. I suspect it may need to be that with the FastCoder too. So this method probably would require using Divx Doctor II on Divx AVIs before the video could be exported via Firewire to a hardware encoder.

Looks like the technicaly superior Max just dropkicked the PC again! That tool has been desired and brough up mutiple times esp when the cheep DV input DVDrecorder pop out on the PC side of the fence! WOW!

[sjk]

I agree with you that it makes most sense not to re-encode but to simply get a DVD player that accepts Divx.

That seems to be the informed consensus.

In my case, burning DVDs for non-computer playback had become a pita (especially for one-time viewing) so getting a DivX-compatible DVD player was recently just a short-lived temptation. Instead, I justified buying a more expensive EyeHome last week and so far it's handled every supported video file I've tried, including a few flavors of DivX. Aside from UI issues, I'm quite satisfied with it. The spontaneity of wireless streaming to the living room is soooo much nicer than burning a DVD.

Transcoding has to degrade the picture quality.

Somewhat analogous to MP3 to AAC audio transcoding.

Thank for the info re: the Pioneer DVD recorder, etc.