Burning difficulties with Showbiz/Sonic/Movie factory

[StephenBishop]

Hi there,
I wonder if someone could help me with some problems I’m having? I moved to the USA a few years ago with a bunch of PAL videos I brought over from Australia. Some are personal, others are videos from my movie collection, many of which can’t be replaced on DVD. I have a special Toshiba international VCR to play them, but as time goes by the tapes are deteriorating, as would be expected, and I wanted to transfer them onto DVD while I still can

I bought a TV-tuner card for my computer and have experimented for the last few days, but I just cannot seem to get the DVD to burn. I have tried three separate programs, and each one leaves me with the same frustrating problems.

To begin with, I tried using Arcsoft Showbiz, and everything worked fine to a point. I couldn’t get it to actually take the incoming signal from the Toshiba VCR and record it though – don’t ask me why, but even though I could see and hear the image streaming in via the program, when it came to actually trying to record it Showbiz would suddenly claim that it couldn’t receive any incoming signal – even though it was displaying it on its own screen!. For that I used the program that came with the tuner card, MSIPVS, and it saved the transfer fine in MPEG-2 format. Arcsoft then allowed me to edit everything properly, but when it came to trying to burn the project things got strange – having used Showbiz before to process some HI-8 videos I know it burns directly to the disk itself, yet when I tried instructing it to create the video from the 90 minute film I’d saved, it called up Sonic-MYDVD (a program that came bundled with something or other I bought) to do the job – why? Can’t Showbiz do the job itself, like it did with my HI-8 films that were transferred to disk?

Anyway, I got nowhere with Sonic’s program. It processed the Mpeg 2 file and created the appropriate Audio and Video TS files, but that’s as far as I got. No matter what I tried, I could not get Sonic’s program to burn the stuff to DVD simply because the ‘burn’ button couldn’t be accessed. It remained faint (inaccessible) no matter what I did, as if the program was waiting for me to finish something before highlighting the button. I tried everything, making menus, whatever, but nothing would let me use the burn feature.

Finally I gave up in frustration and downloaded a trial version of Ulead Movie factory, which worked well up until (you guessed it) it came to burning the DVD. After waiting 2 hours for the damn thing to process the movie again, it spat out a message at me when it got the burn stage telling me there wasn’t enough room on the DVD and that I had to insert another one. I tried about half a dozen, all of which were fine, but none were accepted – why? It was a ninety minute video where all the respective files totaled 4.2 GB, well within the parameters of the disk’s storage space according to what I’ve read on this forum. I tried another file of personal footage I’d processed that was only 2.8 Meg, and this one burned on to disc without a problem.

This is proving very frustrating and time consuming, far more so than I ever expected. I’ve been over and over each program’s tutorials, I’ve been backwards and forwards on the net, but nothing I read seems to clarify the problems I’m having.

Can anyone shed some light on where I’m going wrong, or even suggest another way of going about this?

Any advice would be much appreciated. My apologies if some of this seems pretty basic to many of you. I did look around on the forum for quite some time trying to find the answers, but I just cannot find a clue to what I should be doing.

Sincerely……….SB

ASUS P4P800E - deluxe Mobo
Prestcott 3.0E CPU
ZALMAN CNPS7000B-Cu Cooling Fan
Thermaltake TT-420AD ATX 420W Power Supply
1024MB DDR SDRAM DDR 400 RAM
Seagate 200 GB SATA hard drive
Radeon 9600 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card
Creative Sound Blaster 128 PCI CT4750 Sound Card
Optorite DVD burner
TV@nywhere TV-tuner card

[Bjs]

One question

Can you burn cd's , but not dvd's ... I have seen this before , and it drove me nutt's figuring out what was going on .

I never tried just to burn data to dvd ... something I should have checked , but after 5 coaster's , it was war .... me or the machine was going to eat crow or a great big hammer ... most pc's see me coming with a screwdriver , and it's like nothing happen'd ... the owner's can't even reproduce the problem ... so I have too plug away , ripping cable's out , screw's ...

The drive worked on my amd , and my old p4 from gateway ... but not on this particular motherboard ... even a bios reflash didn't provide any help ... we chalked it up to "it hate's your pc" ... in the end , I installed an lg for her , and it's been gold ever since .

Your pc use's the same cpu and motherboard that this problem one had .

If the answer is yes ... I bet you have that little 4 plug power attachment connected to the motherboard (being intel it dose)

That's where the problem is happening ... a few burner's , while they work perfectly on amd system and other p4's ... as soon as they get on a p4 that use's those 4 power plug attachment ... they burn cd's , but fail everytime when it come's to dvd's .

I even swapped my power supply out , and put it into her pc , and the same result's happen'd .

If you are unable to return the unit under warrantee .... you will need to consider buying a replacement .

1 :Sony or lg (support's all media type's) are reliable , and cheap now , other brand's do have issue's ... noting both a recent sony and lg unit's where tested on this motherboard , and had no issue with burning dvd's .

2: Nero might come with it , ask vendor first ...

If not , nero in ebay cheap ... just make sure it's above version 6.3 , and having the dvd-video / dolby digital encoding plugin's is handy (nero showtime complain's if it's not installed when 6 channel ac3 is played back)

3: Continue using ulead as your dvd authoring product (mine is a mixed of freeware) .

4: Download and install imgburn - cover's you for dual layer burning (nero is crap)

5: Handy tool - folder2iso , just incase (I cant recall if ulead dose output as iso , folder , yes )

From here , you should nolonger have any issue's , apart from media (not all media is genuine , some is complete rubbish)

PS : Use the old unit for dvd (you know what) ...

[StephenBishop]

To answer your point about the DVD burner, no, it works fine. I use it all the time to back up my photographic work (CD's just don't have enough room when you're backing up 50 - 100 picture files averaging 25MG each).

So I'm still stuck with the same problem of why the programs I mentioned won't burn to the DVD. It's a software issue, or mw with the steps I'm taking.

Cheers......SB

[canadateck]

Try to just create the VIDEO_TS Folders and use DVD Decrypter or DVD Shrink to burn it.

Also what file system do you have? FAT32 or NTFS?

[StephenBishop]

In answer to the question, they're NTFS.

As a quick follow up to what I wrote at the beginning, I did manage to get Sonic's MyDVD to write a DVD, but only by using the 'without menus' option. Why it won't do the other I don't know...like I said, it seems to act as if it's waiting for me to do something when I select the menu option. Baffling!

SB

[jay1028]

Since you have made Audio and Video_TS, you should be able to use those folders and use Nero 5.10 or later to burn dvds. I have done this without any problems. I has been my experience that the MYDVD app is pure junk.

I also use Showbiz to do editing and I think it is a great free bundled app. After Showbiz, I use TMPGEnc Plus to encode from AVI to Mpeg2 or mp2 & m2v whichever I may need for the particular authoring app and burning.

[StephenBishop]

Hi Jay,
I must be going around this the wrong way. Part of it is the fact I think I'm being forced down that eroneous path by problems I keep encountering with each program I have at my disposal.

This is the way I've been going about things!

1) I input both Hi-8 video and old video's from Australia via the TV-tuner card, using the software that came with the card, Intervideo MSIPVS to record the data in Mpeg-2 format in 640-x480 size. It does not have an AVI option for saving. I have tried using both Showbiz and Movie factory to do the same, but both come up with errors when I try. Showbiz tells me that it can't connect to the video device, while Movie factory generates an error message 'Invalid video aspect ratio/display horizontal size (720) combination for DVD. Display size should be 540. Cannot set Mpeg parameters'. (I have monkeyed around with the settings and cannot make it work!) The odd thing out of the two programs is that while Showbiz tells me that it can't connect to the video device, the moment I set it to record in AVI format, rather than Mpeg, everything's fine. Why it acknowledges the incoming stream in one format, and not the other, is beyond me! But I must be missing something somewhere, because the AVI files thus created are huge. I've read elsewhere on the forum that people do use AVI to work with the whole process, but I don't understand why - I thought the point was to save in Mpeg2?

Anyway, to cut a long tale short, I use MSIPVS for the process as the problems I'm enbcountering elsewhere don't give me any other option.

2) I then use Showbiz to trim up the videos or to edit my Hi-8 films. For the latter I find it marvelous. As a professional photographer well versed in the use of Photoshop, Showbiz is the closest I've come to feeling comfortable with a program that allows me to work with footage in a way that feels familiar. Not something I can say for something like Adobe Premier, which a friend of mine has. I took one look at it on his computer and thought it would take weeks to get to know - a little like Photoshop when you first start playing with it I guess.

3) Because of the problems I mentioned in my first post, I've found that the only way I can create the finished product is to use Showbiz to burn to the disks without any menus. It's a pain, as I would much prefer to be able to include menus, but everytime I try that option on Showbiz I encounter the aforementioned problem of Sonic's MyDVD popping up and not allowing me to burn because the burn button is grayed out.

I know there has to be a quicker and more efficient way of doing all this, and of getting the menus included. As things stand it takes me about 6 - 7 hours to process one 90 minute film - the time the film actually takes to play and save on my hard drive, plus the 4 - 5 hours it takes for Showbiz to convert and burn it to disk.

I do have Nero by the way, but when I tried using it to burn the TS files the burn button remained greyed out. I have since read somewhere on this forum that the way to trick Nero into accepting the files is to include some sort of innocuous files like a word document, but I'm not sure if that's right.

Sorry to be so long winded, but they do mention in the stickies to be specific so that people can understand the problems clearly in order to offer the right assistance.

I hope readers can be patient with all this. We're all newbies in one form or another. I offer my photographic expertise and other knowledge to people on various forums elsehwere, and I came here hoping people might be able to offer me their own expertise to help me out of this bind.

thanks.........Tim

[jay1028]

Tim,
You are half way there since you are able to capture with your video card and edit with Showbiz. I output from Showbiz to an AVI and not one of their forms of MPG. I use TMPGEnc Plus to encode the AVI to MPEG2 and also compress down to 4.3gb to fit on a DVD. Then if I want to have a menu with chapters, I ouput from TNPGEnc Plus in MPEG2 format and use TMPGEnc Author to author and burn the DVD.

If I want to just burn a DVD without authoring any menus, I output from TMPGEnc Plus in the form of mp2 & m2v. I use Ifoedit to convert the mp2 & m2v files into a Video_TS folder that Nero requires to burn a dvd.

[StephenBishop]

Hi again Jay,
I think I understand what you're saying, but I must be missing something in the process. Why would you save something in AVI format, than process it into Mpeg form afterwards, when you can save in mpeg format right from the getgo? Why go through two stages, when you can do it in one as I've been doing so far? Like I said, I must be missing something here. Is there a quality issue to saving in AVI initially and then compressing down afterwards to mpeg?

Sorry to sound so dumb over this!

Thanks

[MysticE]

Hi again Jay,
I think I understand what you're saying, but I must be missing something in the process. Why would you save something in AVI format, than process it into Mpeg form afterwards, when you can save in mpeg format right from the getgo? Why go through two stages, when you can do it in one as I've been doing so far? Like I said, I must be missing something here. Is there a quality issue to saving in AVI initially and then compressing down afterwards to mpeg?

Sorry to sound so dumb over this!

Thanks

Well you can't save it as mpeg2, as it seems that your app wants standard resolutions.

Allowed Resolutions

* 720 × 480, 704 × 480, 352 × 480, 352 × 240 pixel (NTSC)
* 720 × 576, 704 × 576, 352 × 576, 352 × 288 pixel (PAL)


I don't think there will be a quality issue if you start with an uncompressed AVI. Why not try an AVI capture and see how it goes? As you have Nero pop the AVI into NeroVision (express in ver 6) and see how it goes. You can use it to create chapter stops and menus. Although slow it's easy to work with and the results might suit you.

[jay1028]

Tim,
I find that Showbiz handles an AVI file a lot easier than an MPEG2. Then after editing with Showbiz, I output the edited AVI to a folder. Then I use TNPGEnc Plus to take the AVI to an MPEG2 format. With TMPGEnc you can compress as little or as much as you want to fit the video on a DVD and also vary quality. The less you compress the better quality the DVD will be.

I was once in the same boat that you are in now. Probable all of us once were.

1. I figured out that AVI was the format to capture in and for editing.
2. I found that TMPGEnc Plus was the best app for converting/compressing (transcoding) to a format (MPEG2) for DVD burning.
3. I found that Ifoedit in the 'author mode', can be used to take the MPEG format (m2v & mp2) from TMPGEnc and create the Video_TS and Audio_TS that Nero requires for DVD Video burning.

It's a process that I learned by trial and error. I used a DVD-RW (erasable) to proof my initial results to eliminate make coasters.

[StephenBishop]

To Jay and the others who offered advice, thank you. It's been very much appreciated. As of this evening I have started having success with burning DVD's with menus - don't ask me why, but all of a sudden MyDVD decided it did want to start responding to the burn request after Showbiz had accessed it for creating menus - why it wouldn't work before is anyone's guess.

Still Jay, I am going to take your advice on board and try saving in AVI first to edit with. As I seem to have found my first steps into the medium, I can at least fall back on that while I'm learning the ropes in other areas such as AVI.

Again, much appreciated to everyone who stepped in to offer their help. This experience takes me back to versions 3 & 4 of photoshop that I learnt on, back when the program seemed such a nightmare to work with and to try and master!

Thanks

PS - one little point. I followed the link from your post to read up on TMPGEnc plus and read a few comments on it. A number of them kept making the point that quality is best of you encode in PAL, which made me laugh. As a few people seemed to argue it backwards and forwards I have no way of knowing what is true or not, being a newbie, but I had to smile at it all given that I'm using a specialist VCR to convert my PAL videos from Australia into NTSC before streaming them into the computer for the benifit of the DVD's I want to burn, yet I'm reading that I may be potentially doing myself a disservice by not keeping them in their original PAL format. I can of course input them in as PAL if I want to, question is what's the answer to the argument?