Question for Those Who are Familiar with Nero 6 or 7 on Encoding to MPEG-2

[wayney]

I wonder if anyone who knows Nero 6 or 7 well can tell me whether what I want to do is practical. Or, if you can suggest any other good freeware tool for achieving this, I will greatly appreciate it.

I capture or transmitting video from my MiniDV Camcorder to hard disk in DV format. I would like to encode it into MPEG-2 format first. Then I may choose to burn it into DVD in multiple times in different formats: DVD-Video, DVD-Video VR, SVCD, or even just MPEG-2.

Among capturing, encoding, and buring, encoding is the most time consuming task since it may take 14 hours for one hour video. So, if the encoding process has to be repeated for each new DVD, it will be very annoying.

I use Nero to make the DVD now. But it will do the encoding, with temp files generated, and DVD buring in one shot. If I finish the project, it will delete those temp files. I tried to copy them and it did not allow me. I had to finish the project since I did not want to create the same DVD again. I wanted to burn it in MPEG-2 or DVD-Video VR or even SVCD format. For those different formats, they are all in MPEG-2 format. When I create a new project for it, it will need to take another 14 hours to do it all over again.

So, is there any way I can make Nero only do MPEG-2 encoding and save the files? I can add the files into different projects to make different kinds of CD or DVDs. I could not find out how to do it in Nero. Any hints will be greatly appreciated.

[Krispy Kritter]

Nero isn't among the recommended tools for file conversion. It is OK as a burning tool, but that's about it.

Take a look through the guides. There are many ways to reach your goals, many using free tools.

[wayney]

Nero isn't among the recommended tools for file conversion. It is OK as a burning tool, but that's about it.

Take a look through the guides. There are many ways to reach your goals, many using free tools.

So, I canot do in the way I wanted to do in Nero, right?

I have just saw a bunch of tool guides in How To - Convert. Which one is good one and recommended for good MPEG-2 encoding job (then, I dont need to try them one by one to figure out)?

[redwudz]

Here's 6 freeware all-in-one converters:

DVD Flick
Avi2Dvd
DivxToDVD
FAVC
The FilmMachine
DIKO

Any one may be able to do what you want. With the limitations of your computer, encoding will take a while, no matter which you use. I listed them in my order of preference, but others likely have their own favorites. You could try a short encode of maybe a ten minute clip and see which one suits you.

The HC encoder that works with some of them is fairly fast. Most should do a better job than Nero and still give you some room for adjustments. You will have to re-encode for the SVCD format as it uses a different framesize and audio rate than DVD. They all should have guides listed at the bottom of their tool pages.

[LJB]

You can also try SUPER for the MPEG-2 conversion.

[Mr_Odwin]

Here's 6 freeware all-in-one converters:

DVD Flick
Avi2Dvd
DivxToDVD
FAVC
The FilmMachine
DIKO

I listed them in my order of preference, but others likely have their own favorites.

FAVC fourth? Man, that hurts. :P

[wayney]

Here's 6 freeware all-in-one converters:

DVD Flick
Avi2Dvd
DivxToDVD
FAVC
The FilmMachine
DIKO

I tried the top 2. But none of them give options to do conversion to MPEG-2 only without converting to DVD. The 1st one allowed me to save intermediate temp files which included a mpeg file. But the problem was it cost a lot of disk space since it had 3 copies of the video files: vob, mpeg, and m2v files. It means the space needed will be trippled.

The 2nd one did not give any chance for saving the mpeg file and it disappeared at the end of processing.

I hoped there would be some tool which will allow me to do encoding only. I can then use the mpeg file for different kinds of CDs or DVDs.

[redwudz]

If you just wanted a MPEG file, then you would just need an MPEG encoder. For freeware there is HC Encoder, QuEnc and bbMPEG as three that come to mind. But DVD, SVCD and VCD all use different formats and are not generally interchangeable. In most cases, the video would need to be re-encoded. Then with a DVD compliant MPEG file, you would need to author it to DVD format with a freeware program like GUI for dvdauthor. For SVCD or VCD creation, maybe VCDImagerGUI or VCDWizard.

If you have already have a authored DVD (VIDEO_TS) folder, you can extract the MPEG with VOB2MPG without any re-encoding or loss. But you will need to re-encode for SVCD or VCD format.

DVD format
720 x 480 pixels MPEG2
352 x 480 pixels MPEG2
352 x 240 pixels MPEG1
48000 Hz 32 - 1536 kbps DD (Dolby Digital/AC3), DTS, PCM(uncompressed audio), MPEG-1 Layer2

SVCD format
480 x 480 pixels
44100 Hz 32 - 384 kbit/sec MPEG-1 Layer2 or MPEG2 Audio

VCD format
352 x 240 pixels @ 1150 kbit/sec MPEG-1
44100 Hz 224 kbit/sec MPEG-1 Layer2

[towtruck]

HCenc is great! Generally gives some of the best quality encodes, rivalling that of much more expensive commercial software. And AviSynth gives lots of options. I'm not sure why one would want to make SVCD's if you can make DVDs, but I'll not question your motives.

For high quality, the following freeware is specialized to do its small part of the overall process very well:

ffmpeggui - audio encoder (ac3 or mp2, 48000 Hz please!)
HCenc - great MPEG2 encoder
GFD - very good authoring tool
ImgBurn - great imaging and burning tool
GSpot - essential anayses tool

I did tons of reasearch before I settled on these. I'm working on a 'miniDV to DVD' guide, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so it'll take a bit more time.

[wayney]

But DVD, SVCD and VCD all use different formats and are not generally interchangeable. In most cases, the video would need to be re-encoded.

Wow! Is that true? The MPEG-2 formats needed for DVD and SVCD are different?!

What about MPEG-2 for DVD-Video and DVD-Video VR? Are they different for these two types of DVD creation? Is it also different for HD DVD creation in the future?

So, what I wanted do by saving one MPEG-2 file for all types of CD/DVD creation is not realistic at all. Will re-encoding of MPEG2(for DVD) into that for SVCD cost about the same amount of time as it for encoding DV into MPEG2 for DVD? If it is about the same, I guess my approach will not save me anything.

The reason I came up with the idea was because it took 13 hours to encode DV into MPEG2 for DVD on my slow system. I wanted to create the video into different CD/DVD format (actually mostly for DVD-Video and DVD-Video VR, or even leave a room for creating HD DVD in the future). But for each type, it will take 13 hours again. I thought I could reuse the MPEG2 file encoded for all creations because almost 90% of the time in this video making business was on encoding.

[wayney]

[quote="towtruckI'm not sure why one would want to make SVCD's if you can make DVDs, but I'll not question your motives.
[/quote]

It is in case that some of my "audience", especially seniors who do not know new technologies, may still be using old fashioned players which can only play SVCD.

But mostly, I wanted to make it for DVD-Video and DVD-Video VR. I thought saving the MPEG2 files can also save me time in making HD DVD in the future (Actually I dont even know if it is feasible if the different formats come into the business. I thought MPEG2 file is MPEG2 file. It seems HD DVD can also be from MPEG2.).

The tools I used, including Nero 6, will simply make it into DVD-Video. When I wanted to make it also into DVD-Video VR so that I can edit later, it will simply try to the whole thing over again.

Another question: for making DVD-Video VR, will it has to be DVD+-RW media or DVD+-R is good enough?

[EddyH]

a thought:
what you can try doing is either -

only making SVCDs, after doing a test to see if your DVD players are compatible with them
making CVDs and half-resolution DVDs, after checking to see if your SVCD players are compatible
just making VCDs

the first option only requires making one video, with a resolution not easily told apart from DVD (480 vs 720) and very similar sound - provided the DVD players are compatible

the second one allows you to tailor the type of media you use, from just one video stream and two audio streams (44 + 48khz, select from one or the other depending what type of disc you are making and mux it for burning ... a bit heavy on the disc but not as bad as having to keep or encode two different video tracks), though the horizontal resolution will be obviously reduced (352 vs 720) -> on the flipside this means less encode time and less disc use.

the third will really kill the resolution and encode quality, but may be your best bet if compatibility and small disc usage / compression speed are major issues rather than ultimate picture fidelity

unfortunately there arent a lot of easy routes in this particular game. if you want speed, save up your money for a year then get the best pc you can afford - they'll probably encode 50% as fast again come summer 2008. when messing with video, particularly DV and DVD, you can be almost guaranteed of three things: very heavy, slow cpu use; lots of disc thrashing as it's entire capacity is filled; and a headache

good luck to you in making it work though