My DVD 8 Re-encoding MPEG2 Complient Files?

[ganymede]

Recently I've used MyDVD 8 (part of Roxio's Easy Media Creator) to author a few DVDs and I've observed that it takes more than an hour, much longer than any of the other authoring programs I've used. I'm wondering if the reason it's taking so long is that the program is re-encoding my files which are already MPEG 2 complient. I've looked for an option in the program to prevent this but so far I can't find anything. Does anyone else here use this program and if so, have you experienced this same problem? Any help would be appreciated.

[redwudz]

Sorry, I don't use the program, but it does sound like it's re-encoding. Nero is bad for doing that also. If you are sure your videos are DVD compliant, (See 'What is' DVD to the upper left.) then there is no reason to re-encode and it will likely cause quality loss. I would suggest using a different program to author. You could try TMPGEnc DVD Author or the freeware DVDAuthorGui.

[trhouse]

I have version 6. If 8 is like 6 then you can edit off the beginning and end but if you try to edit out of the middle ( for example a commercial ) it will transcode the whole video.

[Krispy Kritter]

Most software also asks you to choose a template during the setup process. The template controls the video specs. Typical settings are usually similar to a VCR, standard play - 2 hours, long play - 4 hours, super long play - 6 hours, or something similar. The template is then used to adjust the video specs. Any videos you add that don't match the template you chose, get reencoded.

Some software allows you to make custom templates. You can then create a template that matches your input video and no encoding will take place.

[ganymede]

Hi All,

Thanks for responding to my post. I think I may have solved the problem but I'm not 100% sure yet. After reading Krispy Kritter's comments about templates, I searched through the program again and found 'project settings' which include things such as aspect ratio, TV standard (Pal or NTSC), quality settings, video size, video and audio bit rates, and type of audio. I noticed that the default settings were quite different from most of my files so I changed the settings to match the type of files that I usually burn. Based on the one DVD that I burned after making the changes, things seemed to have gone a lot faster (about 26 minutes) but the file used was only about 1.6 GB. I'll have to wait and see how long it takes for the program to prepare a 4 GB file for burning.

Redwuz, thanks for the info on the TMPGENC authoring program as well as DVDAuthorGUI. I'll look into both of them. Have you used the free program? Is so, what about the quality of the resulting DVD? OK on the re-encoding problem with Nero. Yeah, I have Nero and use it once in a while but not very often. However, it seems faster than MYDVD. Up to now I've used Ulead's Movie Factory most of the time. It's pretty fast since you can tell it not to re-encode compliant MPEG files. And yes, all of my files are MPEG compliant. Movie Factory rejects any files that are not MPEG compliant. I've had that experience a few times.

Trhouse, I'm not sure whether version 8 responds to editing the same way as 6 does. All of the files I bring into MYDVD have already been edited by a stand-alone MPEG editor (VideoRedo). It's a great editor. I can't imagine doing video without it.

Thanks again for all of your suggestions and comments.