How to take 'large' home video mpeg2s and burn to DVD?

[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...

[Captain Satellite]

You shouldn't have had any problems copying the discs you made on the Panasonic in the first place. Did you finalize them? Also, rush through any project and you will reap the rewards.

[tehfreeman]

The discs finalized perfectly once I located decent discs (unlike some early TDK's that produced 8 coasters when finalizing). I have produced 30+ discs (all unique). I now need to make 2 copies of each unique disc to give to both brother-in-laws so they have their own set of this home video project.

I understand that shoddy work will be a problem later on so I'm doing my best to acquire the appropriate information to reproduce the set of discs I've made. Thanks for the help in any manner.

[tehfreeman]

Perhaps I should add that the discs have all finalized without question. Whatever the problems may have been with the duplicating tower I meesed with, after two hours I wasn't able to spend more time with it. So I have decided to try and take another route. Unsure if I should be trying a direct copy method (which is dubious now that I don't have access to that tower) or taking say the video into the mpeg2 and creating new discs. As mentioned my mpeg2 discs are just a hair too large.

[Captain Satellite]

You don't need a tower. If you don't have a second burner you can rip the disc to your hard drive and copy it like that, that would be time consuming though.

I'm usually the one asking questions so I'll sit back and let the pros chime in.

[tehfreeman]

Appreciate the response. I guess the issue I'm having is even the ripping process. I haven't ripped persay. I've imported some of the home video dvds into Ulead as a project and then encoded them/ saved them as mpeg2s (generally takes like 3 hours to do this) and then I have this mpeg2 file but it may be 4.gb. 4.5gb or even slightly higher making them just slightly too large to fit onto a standard DVD+-RW. I'm just a little lost. If I were to "rip" one of these home video dvds would I be best off using a particular software or does Mac the Ripper work adequately? Perhaps someone knows which software I should use if I'm going to rip onto my hdd and then what it takes to get that "file" onto a working DVD to make a DVD video.

[LJB]

Please do not double post.
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic361248.html

[redwudz]

EDIT