How to record movies and get them onto a DVD...

[darkcyber]

I'm recording movies from satellite using Power VCR II and then trying to get them onto dvd and make it work correctly. But everything I have tried...something is always screwed up.

So, will someone please explain the EXACT STEPS that you use and what software? Please only post a reply if you have ACTUALLY done it and it works...no guessing please...I've already toasted a ton of dvd's from suggestions or guessing.

I have audio problems when I record a file in mpeg2 and then use tmpgenc to edit out the junk at the beginning and end and then re-encode it The audio doesn't sync up exactly with the lips.

Someone else suggested taking that mpeg2 from Power VCR II and put it right into DVD-Lab...that will not work either. It has to demux it, then transcode it and the audio sounds really really bad and the audio sync problem is much much worse.

These are the steps I've tried:

A.
1. Record with Power VCR in mpeg2
2. Re-encode to a higher bitrate and cut out the junk with tmpgenc
3. Menu's and Chapter's and burn with DVD-Lab

B.
1. Record with Power VCR in mpeg2
2. Menu's and Chapter's and burn with DVD-Lab

Thanks!
DarkCyber

[housepig]

when you capture with PowerVCR, what settings are you using for audio? why is DVD Lab transcoding the audio?

[darkcyber]

I'm using the scheduler to record with and I'm selecting the DVD NTSC format. Under that the default audio settings show up as:

Audio Compression: Layer II
Audio Mode: Stereo
Audio Bitrate: 22 khz

That's the default Power VCR uses for the DVD NTSC format.

The audio does fine playing any of these movies on the pc, it's just when I go to burn them with DVD-Lab that everything goes crazy...

DarkCyber

[housepig]

22khz isn't a dvd-standard audio format... change it to 48khz and it will be in spec, that way DVD Lab shouldn't have to transcode it.

[darkcyber]

Ok, if I do that, then should the audio be ok when I burn it to dvd in DVD-Lab?

I'm trying not to toast more dvd's

DarkCyber

[macleod]

I havent used powervcrII in quite awhile, but I think that it does not cap audio at 48mhz. Might be wrong.

I would look at some other things aside from dvd lab and whatnot. Is you computer "man enough" to do the real time encoding. what are all of the settings on with powervcrII??????

Here is what I did wih powervcrII (however, I did CVD which is half d-1 so a lot of this should be the same).

tweaked the registry to allow for res of 352x480 (best quality blah blah blah) and then ramped up the max cap size (look under powervcrII for the registry tweaks - aka a search). Then I used TMPGENC to up the audio to 48mhz. Remuxed and burned non standard CVD (with 48mhz instead of the standard 44.1. With the sync issues, I think that its your computer (and I am too lazy at the moment to check your pc specs if you put them in your profile) . If use MF2 to do it and it works just fine.

[spectroelectro]

I record programs off TV and encode & burn 'em to DVD all the time -- tonight it's the latest Andromeda episode, which is encoding right now. It gets burned onto DVD in a a few minutes.
You will never have problems if you use standard video files formats like AVI. You will never have problems if you use standard DVD comliant settings, meaning min 2000 max 8000, 720 x 480 (720 x 576 in Europe) and 48 khz PCM audio or AC-3 audio (courtesy of BeSweet). It is NOT fully compliant to create a DVD with only aan MPEG-I layer 2 as the audio track. T he strict DVD specs call for either WAV audio or AC-3 audio, or a combo of AC-3 & MP2, or WAV & MP2.
Real-time MPEG-2 conversion is begging for problems. I've never gotten good results from encoding MPEG-2 in real time via a capture card, or capture software. There's always something buggy or hinky or non-compliant or non-standard about the resulting MPEG-2 files. DVDs I've burned using real-time MPEG-2 always have el bizarro artifacts in 'em that I NEVER get running TMPG on AVI files.
The best solution, the one that ALWAYS works all the time:
[1] Capture to DV format AVI files. They're big, make sure you have plenty of hard disk space (hard drives are cheap, fortuantely). Capture to either 720 x 480 or 352 x 240 since those are both DVD-compliant resolutions. Bear in midn that 480 x 480 is NOT a strictly DVD comliant reslution, so might cause you problems depending on your DVD players. Make sure you capture to 48 khz audio. If you can't capture to 48 khz, use TMPG to extract hte audio oprotionof your AVI file to a WAV file, then use a program like LAME or GOLDWAVE to read in your WAV file and sample-rate-convert to 48 khz.
[2] Encode using TMPG with the plain-vanilla wizard setting for NTSC DVD format. Change only the bitrate and the MOTION ESTIMATION setting to high (not highest, that prodcuces no visible imrpovement).
[3] Burn to a UDF 1.02 using NERO. Make sure you don't burn to a UDF 1.05 or higher, as some DVD players don't like any UDF type > 1.05.
Alternatively, if you have a program like DVD Movie Factory or MyDVD, use that to burn your DVD by dragging and dropping the MPEG-2 files into thep grogram and improtaing a menu you've created with Photoshop or Windows Paint.
I've burned DVDs with Nero, with MyDVD and with DVD Movie Factory and as long as the video rez is fully cimpliant and hte audio is fully compliant 48 khz (either AC-3 or WAV), the resulting DVD always plays, no rpobelsm, no wierdness, nothing out of kilter.
---
Really, you will not encounter problems with DVDs created by TMPG from AVI files. The problems begin when you try to skip a step and use real-time PMEG-2 compression or the obscure native format of some capture card.

[housepig]

Ok, if I do that, then should the audio be ok when I burn it to dvd in DVD-Lab?

I'm trying not to toast more dvd's

first things first - get some rewritable discs, they are invaluable when testing out new methods...

but yeah, 22khz isn't the dvd standard, 48khz is. And DVD Lab will have no problem accepting mp2 audio instead of AC3 or PCM - all my discs are mp2 audio, and they all work fine on my player and my friend's and family's players.