Fastest from captured video to dvd?

[larrym]

I'm new to computerized video, and just bought a Hauppauge 150MCE card for my Vista computer with 2.6GHz Athlon processor and Toshiba TS-H652D writer. At first I was recording video from an analog cable connection using Windows Media Center, editing with Windows Movie Maker, and authoring/burning with Windows DVD Maker. (All of these are free except for the card which cost about $55.)

I am a little impatient and find the process too long for just an hour show that I'll watch once. So it occurred to me that much of the encoding time was because Media Center (and Movie Maker) saves video in Windows Media format, so must be (slowly) converted to MPEG2 for the DVD files. So I started using the Hauppauge card and WinTV Scheduler to save in MPEG format, thinking that it won't have to be encoded to go into the DVD files.

However, this doesn't seem to save much time and I'm wondering why. From some of my reading I find that VOB files are MPEG2's, but a restricted version, so maybe what I'm saving from the encoder card is not something that can be used directly for VOB's? Or authoring programs encode them fully anyway?

I'm thinking this might also be the case when you edit or touch the MPEG file in some way. For instance, if I snip out a few commercials, then the final video has to be re-encoded for some reason?

My dream is to capture video in a format compatible with DVD's (that is, will run on a standard DVD player), with a way to edit out commercials and keep this DVD compatibility. So I would capture the video, edit out some commercials, put in DVD format (simple authoring?), then finally burn to DVD. All very fast. Preferably with freeware.

Possible? Any suggestions?

Larry

[guns1inger]

Post a g-spot or mediainfo output of the VOBs. Perhaps you just need to adjust the settings to get something compliant. I suspect that these aren't in fact true VOBs, but renamed mpeg streams.

There are freeware mpeg-2 cutters, however they are mostly (all ?) limited to cutting on I frames, so you won't get frame accurate edits.

[larrym]

Thanks for the fast reply, guns1inger!

I didn't explain my situation well. When I record a show, I end up with a .mpg file encoded from the Hauppauge card. Are you suggesting that I could just rename to .VOB and it would burn to a DVD (assuming the rest of the file format were in place)? I thought I needed some sort of authoring software, but hoped it would be as simple/fast as possible.

What I'd like is to quickly go from a .mpg file to DVD files that I can burn to a disk and it will run on a standard DVD player.

In that light, would g-spot or mediainfo help me?

Larry

[redwudz]

MediaInfo and Gspot will tell you (And us) if your MPEG files are DVD compliant. You can look to the upper left on this page for the DVD format, specifications and structure under 'WHAT IS' DVD. Renaming a MPEG to VOB won't work, as there is more to the structure than that. But authoring a DVD video takes a fairly short time, in the minutes.

If you do have DVD compliant video after you do your edits, then creating a DVD should be a simple operation. GUI for dvdauthor for authoring and ImgBurn for burning and you are done.

Your Hauppauge files should work in a DVD without any major changes, they just need authoring.

[DereX888]

Also, there are few software capable of "recording" your captures onto DVD-R discs directly, as standard DVD-Video discs (or DVD-VR at worst), basically turning your computer/Media Center into sort of a standalone dvd-recorder.
If best possible quality isn't your concern, perhaps thats what you need - no MPEG files to edit and/or author, just "one-click" and it captures straight to the disc in your burner (or in some "smart mode" it may capture to your hard disk first, and automatically encode/recode/author to the disc later).

[PuzZLeR]

Hi,

If you want a free .mpg cutter that will do cuts (commercials, etc.) losslessly and quickly, saving quality and TIME, you can try Cuttermaran, but it involves demuxed streams if you're comfortable with that.

Some good comments already in this thread, but I will add here a few fabulous payware applications that will easily, and quickly, take you (once captured) from the cutting of your video to your finished DvD without any quality loss (assuming your .mpg file is indeed DvD compliant) with dragging and dropping and a few clicks.

VideoReDo TVSuite
Womble MPEG Video Wizard DvD
TMPGEnc products: TMPGEnc MPEG Editor for cuts and TMPGEnc Author for DvD.

However, if your files aren't DvD compliant, then you'll know as these apps will issue warnings or request you re-encode. I do believe that it's pointless using any MPEG-2 video that isn't DvD compliant today. If that's the case with your capture setup, no disrespect but, you should look into something else to avoid wasting time (and quality) constantly re-encoding.

[thecoalman]

Define too long... I have a authoring app that I know is not reencoding and generally speaking it's still going to require roughly 20 minutes for a hour long video. There is still some processing involved including generating the files before it burns and the burn time itself .

Also, there are few software capable of "recording" your captures onto DVD-R discs directly, as standard DVD-Video discs (or DVD-VR at worst), basically turning your computer/Media Center into sort of a standalone dvd-recorder.

I'm pretty sure all the ulead products will do this, I haven't seen this topic come up in a while but back in the "3ghz days" reliable results were sporadic at best from my understanding.

[lantern]

Some DVD players will playback mpg files burned on a disc without authoring to DVD(creating VOB & DVD structure).

[Nelson37]

Editing, authoring, and burning will take some time, no matter what, and that's assuming your files are DVD-compatible to begin with.

One editor I like is MPG2Cut2, works well and handles HD files, also fast. This step can possibly be avoided with a program like Comskip, while I haven't used it this way it is reported to be able to cut commercials in real-time, while recording.

Biggest time-saver would be to eliminate the whole author-and-burn step by just playing back the vicdeo directly from the PC.

[DereX888]

Also, there are few software capable of "recording" your captures onto DVD-R discs directly, as standard DVD-Video discs (or DVD-VR at worst), basically turning your computer/Media Center into sort of a standalone dvd-recorder.

I'm pretty sure all the ulead products will do this, I haven't seen this topic come up in a while but back in the "3ghz days" reliable results were sporadic at best from my understanding.

Nah, I was using one on a 1.8GHz P4 and it captured fine (just when I "downgraded" my capturing box back to Win2K I couldn't use it anymore).
You must have had lots of garbage running simultanously there on your 3GHz machine if it wasn't reliable or you select the highest possible quality settings suitable for offline multipass encoding, and of course it choked or croaked during on-the-fly capture.
But in a CBR mode all of them can be used probably even with a later PIII machines ~1GHz.
I did this *reliably* on as "low end" (in today's standards) as 1.4GHz P4 / 256 RAM machine

[PuzZLeR]

I too have had bad results using the "burn straight to disc" methods. But I do believe it was due to a slower PC I had at the time, and probably all that crap-ware that was interfering with the process too so I wouldn't recommend it on slower PCs.

But back then it was a bit new for PCs. Today a processing program simultaneously working with a spinning disc may not be as much of a challenge for modern PCs.

And I agree that capturing->cutting->authoring->burning is a time consuming process any way you look at it, whether it's 20 minutes or over an hour. The goal here is to minimize it, and one sure way is having the .mpg files DvD compliant beforehand.

Some DVD players will playback mpg files burned on a disc without authoring to DVD(creating VOB & DVD structure).

This is certainly true, especially players with file features for MP3, JPG or AVI (DivX/Xvid) that will handle .MPG as well easily without need to mux/author it to .VOB. If the O/P wants to just watch them once, away from the PC, this is an ideal option if he has one such unit or is willing to invest in one. Just burn as data and watch. They may not even have to be DvD compliant either.

However, if the O/P wants to share content with others, then he's dealing with an "x factor" since it's not standard on all units.

[larrym]

Thanks to all of you for your good replies! Here are some answers and questions:

--Per guns1inger and redwudz: I ran both GSpot and Mediainfo on one of my tv video files with mpg format. Unfortunately, I can't determine from the output whether these are “DVD compliant.” Here is the text file from Mediainfo:

General
Complete name : J:\recorded tv\When_We_Left_the_Earth__The_NASA_Miss.mpg
Format : MPEG-PS
File size : 4.21 GiB
Duration : 2s 902ms

Video
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : Main@Main
Format settings, Matrix : Standard
Duration : 2s 902ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 12.0 Mbps
Nominal bit rate : 12.0 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 1.159

Audio
Format : MPEG Audio
Format version : Version 1
Format profile : Layer 2
Duration : 2s 833ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Video delay : -188ms

This indicates that I have an MPEG-PS file, which seems to be ok. The bit rate of 12 Mbps may be over the maximum I see on the What Is DVD page, but otherwise I'm not sure what to look for.

--Per the suggestion, I installed and tried GUI for DVDAuthor. Unfortunately, when I tried to drag the mpg files into the window, I received notices “inconsistent time codes” or GDF has not found navigation packets in your mpg” both leading to “Mux OK=NO” issues.

--Per DereX888, the direct to disk approach sounds interesting, though I would probably write to the hard drive, perhaps a virtual burner? Do you have suggestions for how to accomplish this.

--To PuzZLeR, right now the idea of demuxing sounds difficult. Maybe I need to study it further. Per your last point, that non-compliant mpg capture which requires encoding is a waste of time, I fully agree. So do I need a different capture card or different settings, or what exactly?

--Lantern, tried burning the mpg video onto a dvd, but it didn't run in either of my standalone players.

--Per some of the other comments, yes I might have to break down and buy some payware, but hoping not to. Same for buying a mpg capable dvd player. And I'll try some other things, but tired now.

Thanks again! Please comment some more.

Larry

[guns1inger]

The resolution and framerate are acceptable, but the bitrate is far too high. The card captures at a high rate to allow for editing and re-encoding without doing too much damage. If you want to use the footage direct from capture you have to make sure the total combined bitrate (audio and video) is less than 10080 kbps. The safest margin would be to capture video with CBR at 8700 kbps. This, combined with the audio bitrate, is well below the DVD specification as well as the tolerance of cheaper, less reliable players.

[PuzZLeR]

The MP2 audio, although standard, sometimes irks some players, and even some apps. I personally would feel comfortable with AC3 (Dolby Digital). Then again, if necessary, it's an easy conversion.

Can you adjust your capture settings to lower that video bitrate? I know for sure that, not only DvD players, but even some apps will whine about it.

As for demuxing (and I understand you're a newbie), all it means is that you are separating the video and audio from a video file (demultiplexing). Muxing is the opposite, which means joining them into one file (multiplexing).

When video and audio streams are together into a .mpg file they are in a "program stream". When they are separate, they are called "elementary streams".

TMPGEnc does demuxing and muxing easily. But if you want free apps, Project X demuxes and Imago muxes.

Hardcores in this hobby do alot of this stuff for advanced applications.

If you want to avoid payware, Cuttermaran is the only free app that's good IMO for cutting, but it only accepts "elementary streams" for some reason. But as a cutting application I find it's incredibly the most flexible (doing different separate cuts on the same video, even overlapping, etc), while others are much more linear.

[SmokieStover]

The DVD Long Play profile will give you 1 Hr 58 minutes of Video when authored to DVD...the DVD Standard Play is right at 90 minutes per disk and not a minute more. You will find these preset profiles in the Hauppauge recording application: Preference>Movies>Quality Level.

Unless your source has very good audio quality, DO NOT convert the audio to AC3. If I had a DVD player that didn't play mpa I would throw it in the trash.

If by "Fast", you mean something that automates the process and thereby only needs your attention at the very beginning, I would recommend TMPG DVD Author (latest version). Open your file; make your cuts (frame accurate with smart rendering); fast chapter if the chapters which are automatically created at each cut aren't sufficient; create a simple, custom Track only menu and save it so you can use it ad infinitum; set the output to burn after the DVD folder is written, load your Disk, set the burn speed, hit one button and come back in less than 20 minutes and and you are done!

TMPG use a very good DVD burning engine, but I do not like their audio tools, period....so remember, leave the audio as is. If you have audio problems, tweek the card and get it right up front.

This tool is not cheap, but worth every dime they charge for it.

I must confess that one of several VCRs takes care of all my record and watch once or twice stuff, but I've done it the hard way too.

[larrym]

Thanks! I'm doing some experiments: recorded 2 5 minute videos and 2 30 minute videos using Hauppauge "DVD Std Play" and a custom with faster bit rate, so long and short at each setting.

Results so far are not so good. Everything I've done with GUI for DVDAuthor has failed. When I drag the long vids into the window, a warning pops that there are inconsistent time codes. After accepting that, the "Audio + Video Files" window shows MUX OK NO in red. When I ok that, I get the warning that GFD can't find navigation packets. Accepting that and pushing the Create DVD button lead to a continuous loop notice “skipping sector, waiting for first VOPU” then I killed the program.

The short videos don't cause the inconsistent time codes warning but everything else is the same.

GFD didn't seem to work in this case, so I then just authored/burned using Windows DVD Maker to see if these more DVD compliant mpg's would go faster. The 5 minute files took 5 to 7 minutes start to finish and worked ok on the standalone DVD player. The 30 minute videos took 45 to 50 minutes.

The audio was not synced on any of these videos when played on the standalone DVD player. It is synced when played on the computer using Windows Media Player. I did download the trial for TMPG and will try that.

Any ideas?

Note to SmokieStover: I miss the VCR days. Resolution wasn't so good, but it was much easier to deal with. This might be more interesting, though.

Larry

[johns0]

I gave up the capturing route and went to dvd recorder and now do all my tapes to dvd that way,if i want to edit i just copy to my harddrive and burn to permanent dvd after.

[larrym]

Thanks, and some more questions:

PuzZLer, You mention muxing and demuxing, and I'm interested in learning. I can imagine splitting the streams, but after editing, how do you get them back together and synchronize them properly? Do you edit the elementary streams (audio and video) at the same time, for instance in Cutterman?

johns0, this whole project started when I found that my DVD recorder (which I bought to replace my broken video tape player 2 or so years ago) doesn't record more than 1 hour at good resolution. This was no good for movies and especially for sports. I tried double sided DVD's, then realized that you had to "finalize" in the middle, so that was no good. Do you have a DVD recorder that can handle 2 hr plus at higher res?

Anyone, In my experiments described previously, can you explain the following, please:

1. Is GUI for DVDAuthor failing due to the MUX OK=NO and or the nav packets? Any way to fix these?

2. What are some of the possible causes when I find that my DVD plays fine on my computer, but the audio is out-of-sync when played on my standalone DVD player?

Thanks in advance.

Larry

[jagabo]

If you're only going to watch the MPG file once, try burning it on an ISO data DVD. See if your DVD will play it. Many players will play Hauppauge PVR MPG files without any authoring.

[johns0]

johns0, this whole project started when I found that my DVD recorder (which I bought to replace my broken video tape player 2 or so years ago) doesn't record more than 1 hour at good resolution. This was no good for movies and especially for sports. I tried double sided DVD's, then realized that you had to "finalize" in the middle, so that was no good. Do you have a DVD recorder that can handle 2 hr plus at higher res?

The toshiba d-r6kc dvd recorder i bought does 2 hour modes at 4.37 gb and looks about as good as my 2 hour captures from my old capture cards.

[thecoalman]

I did this *reliably* on as "low end" (in today's standards) as 1.4GHz P4 / 256 RAM machine

I'm assuming thats with a dedicated hardware encoder? My post was in reference to doing it with software encoding. With Uleads program the recommended CPU for doing this is a 2.6 p4 if you expect to do something like 720x480 at 6000kbps and even that's really pushing the limits on a streamlined machine.

[PuzZLeR]

PuzZLer, You mention muxing and demuxing, and I'm interested in learning. I can imagine splitting the streams, but after editing, how do you get them back together and synchronize them properly? Do you edit the elementary streams (audio and video) at the same time, for instance in Cutterman?

You don't have to do the video and audio cuts separately. I don't blame you if you think that would be awkward.

Cuttermaran (note the easily mistaken spelling which probably has German roots) inputs elementary streams: your demuxed video, as well as more than one audio stream. It gives you the choice of what you want for your video and audio track(s). You input them all, make your cuts to all at the same time, and it will output it in one muxed file.

With a little practice demuxing and muxing is very simple. (You can demux with Project X.)

Cuttermaran is also easy. Input your streams (video and audio). Make your cuts with the In and Out. If you have more than one different combination you can just add them to the cut list with the "+" button (a nice feature above some payware items).

You can even preview your cuts. Then when you're satisfied you can export them:
Actions -> Cut video/audio -> Muxing tab -> Cut (& Close)

Among the output should be a finished version of what you want.

It's kind of difficult to go through all the features here, but I assure you after 10 minutes of poking around with it, you'll get the hang of it and it becomes super easy and fast and very productive.

Cuttermaran is the only really nice MPEG cutter that I know of that is free.

[larrym]

Thanks, PuzZLer! I will try tomorrow and report back.
Larry

[DereX888]

I did this *reliably* on as "low end" (in today's standards) as 1.4GHz P4 / 256 RAM machine

I'm assuming thats with a dedicated hardware encoder? My post was in reference to doing it with software encoding. With Uleads program the recommended CPU for doing this is a 2.6 p4 if you expect to do something like 720x480 at 6000kbps and even that's really pushing the limits on a streamlined machine.

Oh yes, of course youre right.
That particular machine I had in mind was using old (well, very new back then) ATi A-I-W Radeon 7200 capture card. Although it weren't "pure hardware" encoding cards (personally I used to say "hardware-assisted" encoding cards), it worked - the theater chip did most of the mpeg encoding load IIRC.

I don't think any 'software' encoder on a 1 GHz could do it at all, probably not even just I-frames.
That reminded me of some curiosity from about same time:
I have tried once the very first ATI A-I-W capture card (the 8MB PCI "A-I-W Pro") on a... don't laugh: 233 MHz/128MB box
running last beta Windows 2000 with one of the first 'leaked' beta versions of the ATi's driver and software (I'm not sure now was it MMC, probably not yet).
Unbelievable as it may sound, it *did* captured using MPEG compression in I-frames only mode, apparently using its puny chipset (was it Rage?) as hardware encoder... I was in shock.

[larrym]

I put it all together and it (mostly) worked! No obvious encoding, but it is a little clunky using all these separate programs. I see why most use the full package programs.

Anyway, I captured the Euro 2008 finals to mpg, 3 hours at 8600 bit rate with the Hauppauge card. I then demuxed with Project X, cut out pregame, halftime and postgame with Cuttermaran, automatically was remuxed with Imago. Built the DVD files with GUI for DVDAuthor and finally burned to disk with ImgBurn.

The main problem I had was that Project X seemed to mangle the file. When I played it in Cuttermaran, the video skipped from the 30th minute in the game to the 80th minute. It seemed like the audio did not skip thus was way out of sync. I went back and looked at the Project X log and found many error. I'll paste the first part and some representative error lines here of the log:

-> Input File 0: 'J:\recorded tv\Euro_2008_Soccer_0629_1330.mpg' (12,427,210,304 bytes)
-> Filetype is MPEG-2 PS/SS (PES Container)
-> demux
-> found PES-ID 0xE0 (MPEG Video) @ 38
-> found PES-ID 0xC0 (MPEG Audio) @ 2062
-> video basics: 720*480 @ 29.97fps @ 0.6735 (4:3) @ 8600000bps, vbvBuffer 112
-> starting export of video data @ GOP# 0
!> dropping useless B-Frames @ GOP# 0 / new Timecode 00:00:00.000
!> missing startcode @ 3756552192
!> found startcode @ 3756552256
!> ID 0xC0 (sub 0x0) packet# 76632, big PTS difference: this 26043, prev. 289692842
!> missing next startcode @ 3756564544 from 3756562510 (PES-ID 0xE0), dropping packet..
!> found startcode @ 3756566464
!> startPTS of GOP# 6431 is earlier than the end of last GOP.. (exp. 289714425)
!> dropping GOP# 6431 @ orig.PTS 00:00:00.333 (30031), errorcode: 10
!> Pics exp/cnt 15/15, inGOP PTS diff. 0ms, new Timecode 00:53:38.651
!> startPTS of GOP# 6432 is earlier than the end of last GOP.. (exp. 289714425)
!> dropping GOP# 6432 @ orig.PTS 00:00:00.834 (75076), errorcode: 10
.
.
.
Not sure the problem--any ideas?

My only other issues were that the authoring and editing/muxing programs seemed slower than I was expecting. I thought if no encoding was necessary for the authoring it would go lightning fast. Instead, it sort of slowly wrote hundreds of VOB's according to the log and took 9 minutes for an hour final video. Demuxing was 22 minutes from the 3 hours mpg. Cuttermara/Imago editing/muxing took 23 minutes

Let me know what you think.

Larry

[guns1inger]

I have seen slower, and I have seen faster. Your machine isn't exactly a powerhouse. Also, if you are working with a single disc, things will be slower as you are reading and writing to the same device, which sends the heads all over the place. Better if you can have you source and targets on different devices, and if possible, the temp space on a third.

Finally, it does take time to demux, author and remux. Where ever possible, author with already demuxed streams. However this is not an instant art, even on a fast machine. Demuxing and authoring are all single thread tasks. Even on my quad core, authoring a full disc (single movie) using demuxed streams can take between 5 and 10 minutes depending on the complexity of the menus. More if there are multiple titles and menus.

Your demuxing seems to be taking longer than I would expect - Womble usually takes around 5 minutes to demux a 1.5 - 2 hour film - but if you are working on a single drive, it will be much slower.

So make sure you use multiple internal drives if possible (not partitions, different physical drives, on different controllers), or an internal drive and a USB2 or e-sata external drive.

[PuzZLeR]

Anyway, I captured the Euro 2008 finals to mpg, 3 hours at 8600 bit rate with...Let me know what you think.

I captured it too and wouldn't blame you if you had problems because the correct team lost due to a garbage goal. I suggest if you can get a copy of the Euro 1972, 1980 or 1996 finals you will get much better results.

[larrym]

Good tip, guns1inger. I tested Project X using a captured 1hr video. Same disk input and output, demux time was 8 minutes; different disks for in/out, 5 minutes, so big improvement. I think the other programs run much faster with this technique also. I only have the main hard drive and a USB drive now, so can't split in/out/temp, but maybe soon with a new drive to handle all this video.

One issue is bugging me. I was hoping I wouldn't have to demux if I didn't need to edit with Cuttermaran. However, when I input the captured, unedited mpg file in GUI for DVDAuthor, it doesn't like it. When I take the same file, dmux in X, touch it in Cuttermaran then remux in Imago, it works fine in DVD Author. It also works if I demux in X and then immediately remux in Imago. Seems like unneeded steps. Why can't I use the original mpg?

Larry

PuzZLeR, it might have been a garbage goal, but at least it was a goal. What a snoozer. Shouldn't there be more action in a Eurocup final?!

[olyteddy]

(from another thread)...(https://forum.videohelp.com/topic352739.html#1862600)...I record using WinTV2000, demux and fix using PVA Strumento and author using GFD in MuxMan mode. I'm too 'lazy' to edit so I just put a chapter mark at the end of each commercial break, allowing me to hit the 'next' key on the DVD player's remote to skip the ads. I leave the MPEG2 audio, all my players seem fine with it. It takes about 45 minutes for a one hour show.

[DereX888]

I have not seen yet any R1/North American dvd-player to have problem with MP2 audio. Not even once, I'm almost 100% sure of it.
And I worked briefly in a division where they all get standards certification, obviously I had many toys to play with even though I worked there for not too long

If any such exists, I'm guessing it probably will be a Sony model - with deliberately disabled option of playing back MP2 audio... same way as they deliberately disabled VCD playback on some of their early players, same as they deliberately disabled -R/+R "burnt" media playback on some of their players and so on...