Need a shoring method for making dvd's

[darkcyber]

What is the shortest/best method for making dvd's from digital video? I have my digital video camera that I dump my video onto my pc via firewire. Then after that I use tmpgenc to encode it and then MyDVD to burn it.

Is there a shorter way to get digital video burned onto dvd?

Thanks!
DarkCyber

[Vejita-sama]

You can capture your video to your HD as MPEG2 data, then just author/burn it. Many people feel that the direct to MPEG2 does not give 'as good quaility' as capturing uncompressed/lostless codec, and then running a software encoder.

However, it's much faster. I only have a BT8x8 capture card for capturing VHS (and some LD) source. The VHS quaility is so-so to start with so I just capture direct to MPEG2 and consider it 'more than good enough.' Much faster and easier

[Specialist]

Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2 will capture DIRECTLY to a DVD-Ready MPEG-2 file via Firewire.

Have a look:

http://www.ulead.com/dmf/runme.htm

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

[darkcyber]

Thanks, I will check that out.

DarkCyber

[mkelley]

Also, TMPGEnc is one of the slower encoders around -- nearly any other high quality encoder is much faster, even as much as two or three times as fast.

I use MainConcept and for the highest quality settings I can encode in near real time (about 1 hour for every 50 minutes of video). As always, you get what you pay for (a standlone MainConcept costs $150).

[darkcyber]

mkelly,

Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded the full working demo on that program and had a question. Does the program offer anywhere to resize your output file? Like say my original file is 4.5 gigs and I want to change the bitrate so that the output file will be 3.5 gigs. I've looked and don't see anything to do that...like you can in tmpgenc.

I will agree though, that MainConcepts is very fast. I'm testing it out on that 2:41:00 hours of video and it said it would take 1:30:00. Tmpgenc took 4:45:00...incredible...almost 5 hours...wow!

DarkCyber

[mkelley]

While I have the standalone MC encoder I do most of my encoding with MC out of Premiere. There the interface is a little more sophisticated, telling you the estimated size based on your encoding rates.

With the standalone you need to do more guesswork, unless there are settings I haven't found yet. What you want to do is to into the advanced settings and adjust the average bitrate up and down to achieve what you are looking for -- but there doesn't appear to be any feedback on that. However, there are free bitrate calculators available all over the net that will tell you what you need to know (so you can adjust your settings to match them).

[vance43211]

u can neodvd . make sure u get the upgrade for the web site. u can burn straight to disc

bad thing about neodvd. theaudio and video are a bit off with u use it to capture

good new is neodvd use the hardware encorder on your capture card which is way faster than software

u can any other program to cature, then use neodvd to burn the dvd

it wizard also is very simple to use and u can adjust the size of the video to fit whatever u want on the disc

[jdizzy40]

I know some folks are not going to want to hear this but after buying a lot of high powered, bells and whistles software I decided to give Roxio's EZ CD Creator 6 a try after reading magazine reviews. It has alot of great features all built into one program. The quickest way I have found, that is without authoring is to go with real time recording. That is directly from my sony camcorder to DVD Burner through the fire wire cable. The program will also allow you to burn in SVCD aand VCD the same way. It will also allow reverse capturing back to the camera after you edit. And if you want alot of transitions and menus it supports that as well. Have slammed their products in the past I was really surprised of the ease and ability of this software. The program also supports audio, picture and copying tasks as well. Good luck I'm happy using this product.