Capture to DVD Questions??

[reubenray]

I am still in the process of perfecting a capture from my satellite receiver to my hard drive and have a few questions before I take the next step. Which is buying a DVD Writer such as the Sony 500AX. My system has Win XP, AMD XL 2000, A7N8X Deluxe MB, 120 GB Hard Drive with the Xcapture card, the MyHD card with just a DVD-ROM drive now.

1) What is the best mode to capture to (ie avi, mjeg, etc) for later transferring the captures to a DVD? I will not be doing this all of the times, just to save some special shows.

2) How long does it take to transfer to a DVD? I have read that to transfer a 90 to 120 minute show it takes 20 to 30 hours. Surely there ia an easier way than this.

3) What is the best way to do all of this together? Of course I am concerned with the best PQ I can get. I also know there is a lot of different software to do this.

I am now to the point of deciding to stop this process now or to go all the way with it.

Thanks,

Raymond

[yg1968]

You probably need to read and experiment more on this before deciding. The quickest way to capture to DVD is to use an mpeg capture card. For example, the Hauppauge PVR-250 or 350.

However, the quality will be better if you use a DV capture card such as the Canopus ADVC-100 (or a digital camcorder with a passthrough feature). Encoding from DV avi takes a long time with TMPGEnc but is much quicker with the Mainconcept encoder.

Some programs such as Ulead Video Studio or Ulead DMF will convert DV avi to mpeg on the fly. This is quicker but quality suffers.

Perhaps, you should experiment with VCD or SVCD before deciding on this. The process to make DVDs is similar to making VCDs or SVCDs. You can try the trial version of Ulead DMF to see if you like it. It allows you to make VCDs, SVCDs and DVDs.

[reubenray]

Thanks for the response.

With the Canopus do you have to use the firewire. None of my equipment has this. I will inputting the signal from my satellite receiver via s-video.

Also you said the PQ will be better with the Canopus than the Hauppauge, but which is still easier to transfer to DVD. You also stated that one will take longer to do than the other. How long are you talking about?

[jtoolman2000]

I use a standalone DVD recorder such as the Phillips and Panasonic models to directly record to DVD+r ( Phillips ) and DVD-r ( Panasonic ) on the fly. Records from ANY source including Firewire. Works well for stuff without commercials such as classic movies from TMC. Introduce commercials in the situation and you have to be quick on the trigger to pause and restart between the commercials. Just like a VCR!