Very Simple, or very hard question. . .

[Terrykrueger]

Ok I have been doing video stuff for ~ 4 years so I know some of the lingo and have a lot of tools. All I want to do is:

Capture from my Mini DV corder (Sorny)
I want to KEEP THE CHAPTERS (the only way I have been able to do this is with Ulead and split it into multiple AVI's - I usually forget the check box and end up doing it twice)
I want to encode (TMPGEnc)
Author . . . Burn

TMPG sucks to do all of these different AVI's. Does anyone know a better way? So far my TMPG (although its the best encoder) has the most bugs I have seen and crashes a lot- and its a GUI is still hard to use (with multiple AVI's).
Terry

[zworg2]

Author . . . Burn

Your path to the future depends on the sight that you are aiming.

Wish for DVD do you?
Wish for VCD do you?
etc

Check on the left for coversion guides..
Or click here

Do you want a free converter or are you happy to pay for it...?

Both Winavi and dvdSanta can cope with multiple AVI's and seem to have a very simple GUI.

Zworg2

[jimmalenko]

How about do the transfer from MiniDV using something like WinDV or scenalyzerlive, edit if necessary in virtualdub, encode in TMPGEnc, author in one of IFOEdit, dvdauthorgui, gui for dvdauthor, TMPGEnc DVD Author or dvd-lab and then burn with your favorite burning software ? If that sounds like a plan, this guide can assist with the editing/encoding stages and combine them together very nicely IMO.

IMO you're making things harder for yourself by trying to enforce your chapter points too early. I'd leave the chapter splits until the authoring stage if it were me. That said, if you want frame-accurate chapter points, maybe TMPGEnc's Batch Encode functionality is for you.

WinAVI and dvdsanta leave a lot to be desired in terms of user control IMO, FWIW

[reboot]

Batch encode with Mainconcept mpeg encoder, or batch encode with probably any other encoder out there, including tmpgenc.

[mienguy39]

the converter i use is cucusoft it works pretty good

you can use merge and join or jus batch

[guns1inger]

DV doesn't have chapters, so I assume you mean scene changes, as this is what most transfer programs use to break up the clips. This is a very ineffiecient way to generate chapter stops, as you have discovred. For my money, transfer as one file. Edit if required. Encode as mpeg-2. The cheapest quality encoder is CCE Basic, otherwise consider tmpgenc or Procoder Express (don't know the price on that though). Load into DVD Lab and set the chapter points. DVD Lab can do this automatically, based on scene change or number of chapters, or you can set them yourself. If you want absolute accuracy, set 'em yourself. Create a menu, scene selection etc, compile and burn.