Recent recorded hom evideos to DVD now in Mpeg2 format... what to do?

[tehfreeman]

I understand that there is some basic protocol to forums and reading a cross section of the threads and posts is extremely important, but i don't have the time to sift at the given moment because i'm attempting to take 30+ "home video" dvds and make copies of them, so could anyone take a look at this and give me a hand?

The wife and I decided to help out her parents by taking three boxes of VHS media (home videos from past 25 years) and record it to DVD with an older Panasonic DMR-E60. We have recorded on Taio Yuden DVDs (if that matters) and I recently attempted to use a 'duplicating tower' (an acquaintance of mine) with like 3 dvd burning drives to just make copies of all the discs (perhaps my ignorance and lack of knowledge is shining through now).
Due to various issues of which some of you might be aware the "full" DVDs could not be copied.

I moved in a different direction by using Ulead Video Studio 11.5 to import the DVD's (have imported 7 of the 30+) and after importing them into the work/project area, I encoded them as mpeg2's (but I suspect that is just an unnecessary extra step because I could just rip them maybe with say "Mac the Ripper"? I'm unsure)

Bottom line is that the mpeg2 files i encoded them as have come out as file sizes: 4.47 gb, 4.59 gb and 4.80 just to name a few. Additionally if I go to burn a DVD video disc through Ulead it appears to recognize the mpeg2 file that is 4.50 gb (according the properties tab) as actually like 5.13 gb on the Ulead side. Really i just am attempting to do one of three things (depending on the choice that retains best quality really):

1. Made a direct copy of the recorded home video DVDs

2. Rip it o/ encode each DVD (?) into Mpeg2 and then do something with the file despite the fact that each file is generally larger than what a DVD can contain (is DVD Shrink of any value here and if so can you offer your insight into this freeware)

3. Rip o/ encode in another standard (Mpeg-4? perhaps loss of quality?) and the applicable software to do so)

Again I apologize for the sense of urgency at the expense of more "research" on forums, but I have been reading for few hours scattered in forums and I'm trying to take these discs (or a significant number of them) and somehow replicate them to some degree by Christmas (yes I know I should have started this process earlier, but this is where we're at).

By the way I have both a Core 2 duo T5500 1.66gh, 2gb ram, 8ogb hdd laptop with an ATi Mobility Raedon X1400 card and a 2.2ghz Core 2 duo Imac with 4gb ram and a 250gb hdd, as well as some external hdds too if any of that helps...

[aedipuss]

use imgburn (free) to make an iso of each disc. start the program put it in read mode, insert disc, give it a destination on your hard drive and copy it. then you can use it in write mode to burn as many copies as you like.

or - just use windows explorer and copy the video_ts and audio_ts folders to your hard drive and burn them onto new discs. dvds are just data discs.

[LJB]

Please do not double (triple) post.
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic361251.html
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic361248.html