Dvd Burning For A Tv Series

[crampz]

Hi There

I Have A Tv Series On My Windows Xp Laptop. The Series Is 21 AVI Videos . On One 4.7gb Disc Must be 12 Epidsodes and The other 4.7gb Disc Is 9 AVI Videos. As I Said They Are All .avi . I need Help Burning These to a Standard 4.7GB Dvd So They Can Play On Normal Dvd Players Which Take DvD-/+R Dvd's. Preferbly I Would Like To Have A Menu At The Front End. And I Need To get Them Done Before Christmas . Can Any One Tell Me Of Any Software Where I Cann Do This And As Quick As Possible.

Thank You Ever So Much

[kschang]

The problem here is quality. I am "guessing" you have 30 minutes (w/o commercial, more like 22 minutes?) episodes. 12 episodes... 160+ minutes, possible, pretty close.

THe way we'd suggest is you use a bitrate calculator to calculate the bitrate you want, then plug that into a MPEG2 encoder to trancode your AVI to MPEG2. Then when you got all of them converted to MPEG2's of appropriate sizes, use an authoring program to create the menus. Same for the other disc.

We have several to choose from each of those categories.

It would also help if you read some of the guides available.

[toonfan]

Use ConvertXToDVD

[crampz]

They are 1 Hour Long and Have No Adverts Etc. They Are Around 350MB Each.

[toonfan]

I've used ConvertXToDVD to put 2 Dr Who eps and 2 Confidentials onto a DVD. That's about the limit for a DVD at normal quality. I've also managed to fit 10 (28 minute) episodes of Eastenders on a disk too. On a 2.4G HT machine it takes about 1 1/2 hours to encode from AVI to VOBs using ConvertXToDVD. Then about 15 minutes to burn on DVD-RW. The software creates basic menu. You can customize the menu screen slightly with your own background and fonts. But it's quick and you said that's what you wanted.

With your series you're looking at 6 maybe 7 disks on DVD.

[kush]

I Have to agree..You are asking to cram WAY WAY too much onto each disk. I'm not sure how UK caps/TV shows work, but here in the States a 1hr show averages to about 44mins sans the adverts. With 12 eps you're looking @ ~8h 48m, 9 ep - 6h 36m..And plugging those numbers into VideoCalc, you're coming up with appx 1030k and 1416k respectively. And that is with a single 128k audio track (I never go under 192k). Personally, I think even if you burned to DL DVDs, and went 1/2 D1, that you're still not allowing for sufficient bitrate for the video.

If you went 3 disc (7 ea) you're looking @ 1857k, *maybe* acceptable @ 1/2 D1 (352x576), although I'd say not (at the least do a small clip first to test if you want to try).

5 discs (4x4 eps, last @5), you're looking @ 3347k for 4 eps, 2652k for 5ep disk. Personally, 3300 for me is ok for full D1 (given a GOOD source), but not 2652; I'd consider 1/2 there again.

6 discs (1/2 @ 3, 1/2 @ 4 per), ~4505k, and ~3347k..Looking better number wise.

7 discs, 3 ea - 4505k ea...

..again all those numbers are with a SINGLE 128k audio track, NO menu space allocated, and pretty much filled to the brim (4480MB). Then again there's also plenty around here that won't do full D1 below 6000k, although I can go quite a bit lower given a good source. But then again, my DVD viewing sources are a 27" SDTV (RCA), and my 19" CRT PC monitor..With WS/HDTV televisions becoming the norm, those high bit-rate guys may be sitting pretty (prettier?) when it comes to viewing upscaled SD DVD's on new tech. Lastly, you have to consider what it is you're trying to convert..If the show has alot of pans, quick movements, action scenes and the like, you will want to keep the bitrate high; if it's one of my usuals (I know it's not but - ie: Simpsons Digital/"HD" feed from my Fusion5 card) you could get away with less.

[edit] And if your Brit shows are like my faves are (ie: 28min+ for 1/2 hour show), you'd have to adjust your encode rates accordingly..In which case your overall bitrate would be even lower. I guess what I'm trying to say after all this is so - don't bother going with less than 6 discs, it probably will not turn out good.

[mwkurt]

If you must go this route, convert the episodes to VCD mpeg files and put them on the DVDs. The bitrate for VCD is 1050. They should fit on your DVD's, I think.Quality won't be that great but way back when, this is what was used quite often.
Once you convert them I wouldn't use ConvertX2DVD as it will re-encode your mpeg files causing you to take a quality hit. Instead I would use SVCD2DVD. You can put your mpeg files on a DVD and add a menu all without re-encoding your files.
As other have said, if I were you I would put no more than three hours on each DVD.
Mark

[crampz]

Thanks for responding . Lol you wouldn't belive it though , i have 6 Seasons !!!!! thats 126 episodes that i have to put on dvd LOL. Dvds isnt a problem as i have around 200 hundred of them . but i need as many episodes per dvd.

[toonfan]

If you must go this route, convert the episodes to VCD mpeg files and put them on the DVDs. The bitrate for VCD is 1050. They should fit on your DVD's, I think.Quality won't be that great but way back when, this is what was used quite often.
Once you convert them I wouldn't use ConvertX2DVD as it will re-encode your mpeg files causing you to take a quality hit. Instead I would use SVCD2DVD. You can put your mpeg files on a DVD and add a menu all without re-encoding your files.
As other have said, if I were you I would put no more than three hours on each DVD.
Mark

His caps are avi, not mpeg, so re-encoding would be necessary anyway. Let ConvertXToDVD do it once.

[Webster]

Thanks for responding . Lol you wouldn't belive it though , i have 6 Seasons !!!!! thats 126 episodes that i have to put on dvd LOL. Dvds isnt a problem as i have around 200 hundred of them . but i need as many episodes per dvd.

If this is the case, I would encode them (in batch of 10-20 episodes at a time) to 1/2 D1 or MPEG1 with TMPGEnc and author them with TMPGEnc DVD Author (with episodes menu) and burn to DVD. This way you will get more episodes per DVD.

P.S. at MPEG1 (VCD) bit rate, you should get roughly 8hrs of video per DVD.......

[guns1inger]

I would buy a Divx capable player and put 12 episodes to a disc in avi format, burned as data. It is the only way you can maintain the quality you have and have the number of episodes you want.

If you are going to convert them to VCD quality (or less) you might as well record them to VHS in long play mode.

[AlanHK]

Thanks for responding . Lol you wouldn't belive it though , i have 6 Seasons !!!!! thats 126 episodes that i have to put on dvd LOL. Dvds isnt a problem as i have around 200 hundred of them . but i need as many episodes per dvd.

Considering how much work it will be to convert all these to MPEG, both for you and about 2 hours/episode for the PC, even aside from the quality hit (I've done 10x43 min episodes/disc, but not for something I wanted to keep for posterity); I think you should consider getting an AVI-capable DVD player. You could burn the entire collection to data DVDs in an afternoon.

[crampz]

the dvds are for my sister and i dunno what dvd player she has got.

[mwkurt]

His caps are avi, not mpeg, so re-encoding would be necessary anyway. Let ConvertXToDVD do it once.

But ConvertX2DVD will automatically set his resolution to 720x480 making the conversions even worse looking. At least if he goes to VCD he can set the proper resolution for that. The SVCD2 DVD will take them as is.
Mark

[lacywest]

the dvds are for my sister and i dunno what dvd player she has got.

The Philips 5960 ... plays Divx AVI movies ... on DVD disks very nicely.

If not ... use ConvertX2DVD for 5 episodes ... adjust it for DVD-9 specs ... 8.5 Gigs or bigger if possible.

Then shrink it with DVD Rebuilder using the CCE encoder ... about 5 passes should work nicely.

If it doesn't look good ... then go from 5 episodes to 4 episodes per DVD Disk.

[crampz]

Hi

We Finally Found Out How It Can Be Done. After 2 Weeks Of Downloading Different Software . 4am Bed Times And Endless Dvd's Wasted. We Went To Pc World And Brought This Software For A Cheap Price of £19.99. It Is Called " Easy DVD Copy 2 Premier " Developed By Roxio. Well We Installed It At 4:30pm after we figured it out and picked the designs and settings we started the burning process at 6pm. At 12am it finished. It converted 6 avi files to dvd format and burnt it to the disc. Then came the moment of truth. Would it play on the dvd player. Well we put it in an old dvd player and then the moment of glory it WORKED. So we are now in the process of burning 6 seasons each with 21 or 22 episodes to dvd this will work out at 28 dvd discs which isnt bad for 6 seasons.
The Link To The Software:
http://www.roxio.com/eng/products/dvdcopy/premier/overview.html
On Their Website its $49.99 (american)
or £19.99 (uk)
Other Prices Are Available

I Would Like To Thank Everybody For Their Help And Comments
And Hope That Anybody With The Sameish Problem Will Be Able To Read This.

Best Regards

Alex Crampton