Can someone help me? Maybe I missed something...

[etecnifibre]

I just got my DVD burner installed today. My system is:
Gigabyte 7-VRX MB (266 FSB)
AMD Athlon XP2200+ (1.81Ghz)
1GB PC2700 Kingmax RAM
Sony DW-U10A DVDRW
I captured the Indiana-Purdue basketball game from last year at the RCA dome at 8Mbps (audio 44100). The file was 5.5Gb. I opened the file in Ulead Video Studio and rerendered it at 6.2Mbps to come in at 4.27Gb. I installed my NTI software (with Ulead DVD Movie Factory) and imported the new file to be burned to DVD-R. I started at just after 5PM today, and it started "converting video", and now it is in the "Video/Audio multiplexing" phase. It's 8:30PM here now. Why is this taking so long? What steps can I take in the future to avoid this problem? I would think that taking an MPEG2 file and burning it to DVD would take a lot less time.
Thanks so much for any help. It is very much appreciated, not only from me, but from Hoosier fans worldwide (no kidding!)

[Ejoc]

Did you capture to MPEG or AVI? You might want to try TMPGEnc DVD Author, it makes making DVDs pretty easy, and they results look good.

[etecnifibre]

I captured to MPEG2, at 8Mbps. The DVD Movie Maker just finished up as well. It converted my game that was 4.27GB into something that is now 4.5Gb, and therefore it is too big for the disk. AGGHHH! WTH?

[Ejoc]

Try TMPGEnc DVD Author. It'll be slow, but should work. and if by chance the resulting data is > DVD capacity, run it thru DVDShrink.

[etecnifibre]

OK, I figured this part out. It changed my audio from 44100 to 48000. So I know that now. Is that it hopefully? The next time I will capture at 48000Khz (audio) and be able to skip the conversion step hopefully. Am I on the right track?

[Ejoc]

Sounds like you are.

Did you caputre in 720x480 or 352x480? If not it would have had to convert that too.

[Gees]

You captured very high (8000) and with non-DVD compliant audio. It has to 48,000, resulting in the long re-encoding time.

If you are able to capture 48,000 audio, next time you can do the same, author at the original setting of 8,000 and use a transcoder to achieve the right sizing for a blank DVD.

That's one option. Second is to use a bitrate calculator (there's a good one right on this site in TOOLS section https://www.videohelp.com/tools#VideoBitrateCalculators ) and attempt to adjust your capture settings to what will fit from the start. But you will still need the 48,000 audio. You did not mention what type of audio your using.

edit - I see you've got the audio covered in the time it took me to type (and correct typos!) :c)

[FOO]

I would add a small addition. Capture at a rate that will allow the
video to fit on a DVD without doing ANYTHING to it.

I find that 4500 kbps is enough to match what the source
quality is capable of

Edit: sorry Gees , I'm redundant , You said it.

[etecnifibre]

Ejoc: Which one am I supposed to be capturing at?
Gees: Transcoder? I used the bitrate calculator from here on this site, and then used Ulead Video Studio to render the file at a size appropriate for DVD. Not sure what you mean as far as what kind of audio. I originally had 44100, and the audio is just from TV, a basketball game.

[etecnifibre]

FOO: 4500Kbps (48000 audio) at what resolution?

And once again, thanks to everyone for taking the time to help.

[Gees]

Are you in PAL land or NTSC.

If PAL you can use mpg audio which takes less space than LPCM, leaving more for video.

The transcoders are "shrinkers" like DVDShrink, DVD2one, etc. Reduces the files down to fit - but obviously some quality is lost. But they'd enable you to use your files without re-encoding at this point.

I used the bitrate calculator from here on this site

Use the calculator before you even capture. It's an estimate but should get you closer from the start.

[etecnifibre]

I'm in the US. NTSC.

[Gees]

Some NTSC players handle mpg audio fine. What are you left with from your encode?

[etecnifibre]

I'm left with a 1:33:50 basketball game that is 4.5Gb at 6000kbps.
And about the DVD shrink, it wouldn't open a file on my hard drive. Maybe I did something wrong there too.

[FOO]

I'm beginning to lean towards 352 x 480 lately.
for huge captures it's essential.

The TV video is incapable of bandwidth above that, but sometimes
oversampling helps the encoders. Thats why I used to always do
720 x 480.

The player expands either 720 or 352 to the same size on the TV.
and if there really isn't 720 worth of detail then 720 is a waste

[etecnifibre]

And Gees, one more thing, since I'm doing basketball games, I never know how long they are gonna be. I have one that is 2 hours, and one that is 1:12 (both are straight games, no halftime, no commercials) so I never know what bitrate to capture at. I want the highest possible quality for each game.

[Gees]

No, what I meant was - what type of audio do you now have? LPCM?

Regardless, if you don't want to start over, there are excellent guides on all of the tools on this site that may help. :c)

I don't use DVDShrink, so I couldn't walk you through it, but there's a couple of steps inbetween that you need to do.

You are nearly there. :c)

[Gees]

And Gees, one more thing, since I'm doing basketball games, I never know how long they are gonna be. I have one that is 2 hours, and one that is 1:12 (both are straight games, no halftime, no commercials) so I never know what bitrate to capture at. I want the highest possible quality for each game.

Yes, I had that in mind when I said it'd be an estimation. :c) But you could get much closer from the start than you initially did this first time.

If the length is undetermined, as it will be in sports, perhaps always transcoding will work best for you. In which case - author the DVD at the too large size - then transcode.

[etecnifibre]

OK, thanks for all the help guys. I've got the VCR hooked up, the Indiana-Duke game from the 2002 NCAA tourney in, and I'm gonna try some different things. (This game is always fun to watch!)
THanks!!

[Gees]

You're welcome. Good luck. Have fun. :c)

[FOO]

I want the highest possible quality for each game

If the process exceeds the incoming bandwidth, it is as good as
it will get. Do you think that going to 10000 kb/s will improve
the picture. Of course not.

So you might be able to pick a reasonble rate and just stick with it.
If you go over occasionally you can shrink it with DVDshrink