Burning Simpsons episodes(.AVI files) to dvd?? Please help..

[untouchableflowz]

I want to burn my collection of Simpsons episodes that are an average of 40 mbs a piece for each episode onto DVDs that work... I've read the guides, but they are mostly concerning movies from cds, but my files are not on cd, they are .avi on my computer... Do I have to convert the .avi files, or can I just burn them directly to a DVD? I have Nero, but I didn't want to just burn them directly onto a DVD, because I'm not sure if it would work... Please reply, and the burner I have is a Sony DRU-500AX 4x DVD+RW/-RW DRU-500AX Once again, any information would be appreciated...

[bugster]

I've read the guides, but they are mostly concerning movies from cds

You obviously havn't read ALL the guides, oreven all the appropriate ones. Start here

[jaxxboss]

LOL, silly people, trying to tell us that they read the guides and they dont help in their case. If they wont read the guides, what makes us think they will even read these resposes? I realize searching and looking for whatever is relevant to your case is a pain, BUT it's there really and you can find it and prolly get better info than any response left here for you.

[Gazorgan]

Let me point out your wasting your time:

episodes that are an average of 40 mbs

That's about 1/2 the bitrate you would want for a VCD resolution AVI. it's 1/4 the bitrate for 'good' quality.

I guess you mean by 'DVDs that work' you want to view them on a DVD player? You didn't actually say that.


What you want to do is a multi-step process. The quality of the source is poor at best. You need to do the encode in one of the lower DVD resolutions:

Video:
Up to 9.8 Mbit/sec MPEG2 or up to 1.856 MBit/sec MPEG1 video
720 x 480 pixels MPEG2
704 x 480 pixels MPEG2
352 x 480 pixels MPEG2 (Same as the CVD Standard)
352 x 240 pixels MPEG2
352 x 240 pixels MPEG1 (Same as the VCD Standard)
29,97 fps (frames/second)
23,976 fps with 3:2 pulldown = 29,97 playback fps (NTSC Film, this is only supported by MPEG2 video)


I suggest 352x240 MPEG 2. Use TMPGEnc. You may need to create a template, but then you can batch encode over the weekend. Audio is a problem, as PCM takes up a lot of space. You will need to do external AC3 encoding.

I think this project is beyond a beginners skill set.

You are better off doing 3 VCD's/CDR, much simpler.

[xtreemkareem]

Go VCD. For el cheapo animation like that it's the way to go and CDs are cheaper. Besides, TMPGenc does btter on lower res MPEG-1 then it does for lower res MPEG-2. BUt either way, TMPGenc's filters will really need to come into play there... 40 MBs.... it ain't gonna look good just b/c it's on a DVD!

[untouchableflowz]

Im sorry, I posted the wrong info... The episodes are an average of 110mbs a piece(I played them yesterday), but I do want to get them in higher quality, but I have no broadband connection... I just downloaded TMPGenc, and CCE, and Im trying to work with the episodes now... I didn't expect any outstanding quality, just because it is a DVD, but I was just trying to burn something on DVD since I just got my drive, and a bunch of 4x certified media, with nothing else to burn....

[bugster]

The episodes are an average of 110mbs a piece(I played them yesterday), but I do want to get them in higher quality

Not possible. Garbage in == Garbage out, sorry.

Watching them on a DVD player is possible, just the quality will be the same, or worse, than the avi's on the PC.

[untouchableflowz]

No, I didn't mean in better quality by burning them, I meant I wanted to get the episodes in better quality(ie. downloading mpgs...)... I know that if I burn them, I might lose quality, or keep the same quality...

[bugster]

In order to 'obtain' better quality copies of these simpsons episodes, without broadband, then it would be cheaper to buy the original DVD's than downloading high bitrate mpegs or avi's over dial-up!

[Gazorgan]

110 MB is adequate for VCD resolution. You can use that resolution and put them on DVD. In fact I have 15 seasons worth of Simpsons on DVD. Major Biatch let me tell you! 11-13 eps/DVDR. Quality ranges from old VHS to DVD.


Basically it goes this way:

1) Strip the Audio out
2) Convert the video in TMPG (batch encode 1 season at a time)
3) Convert the audio to AC3 2 channel in Besweet(BeSeet is about 90% compatible in most DVD Players?)
4) Author your DVD's with the resulting M2V/AC3 files

There's no 'simple' method to due this. You will have a lot of issues with the quality of the source files. You also need to check each and every file for bad frames/corruption, since this will crash TMPGEnc.

[tito13kfm]

I use the guide located here https://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/91597.php as a base for converting.
But I use CQ of 500 min, 8000 max, 85%, then I can fit about 12 episodes per DVD, 2 DVD's Per Season.

It works for my needs.

(By the way, I don't even bother extracting the audio.. and I let tmpgenc convert it to 128kbps 48000hz mp2, and then author using TMPG DVD Author, no problems yet.. and much faster.)

(This process was tweaked, tested, and manhandled throughout the encoding of all 14 complete seasons, and I think this provides the best size vs quality for the source I had.)