Encoding TV shows questions

[smoki]

First of all hello everyone and congratulations on this awesome community we have here

I am visiting these forums for a couple of years, from the vcdhelp.com times...i registered recently since i bought a DVD Burner (Pioneer A106) and it's time to get more active in here...

I borrowed a TV capture card from a friend (WinTV GO - BT878 chip) since i want to experiment with it before i decide on buying a similar card or go for a more expensive hardware MPEG2 encoding one, like the Pinnacle PVR250/350.

Ok, now onto my questions:

- the Hauppauge software is kinda sad, i installed the wincap drivers instead.
- capturing is done with WinDVR3 and burning with EasyCD/DVD 6 (the only one which works, i tried Pinnacle 8 and Nero 6). VirtualDub doesn't work...

Are the above solutions the best or could i try some other software that does it better? My goal is to fit about 3.5 hours of material onto a DVD-R, should i go for standard SVCD quality? Do the DVD recording programs need to re-encode the material then before burning it? Is the video resolution more relevant than the bitrate, or should i say, what influences most the size of the final video? I have the feeling that lower res with decent bitrate (around 4000) doesn't look blocky on the TV....

Many questions, eh? I hope that some of you could help me out on this one way or another...and yes, i read all the comments on the WinTV GO, as well as plenty of guides on capturing & co.

Cheers and thanks...

[bottle-necked]

Heres a link to a site of one of our trusted members. I've tried the capture templates from his site with alot of success. This is a very good place to start. Although these templates are for ATI Video Cards you can still use them with your device.
Lordsmurf.com

Good luck

[smoki]

Thanks for the quick reply...i found Lordsmurf's lair and read it as well...
Another question: what's a quick and painless "ad chopper" program, it's not exactly "editing", just want to cut TV ads and split a file in two if it contains 2 separate episodes...

Also, can i use multiple mpeg files under a DVD "menu entry" or should i merge them in one and then have it under a menu? Like for example:

Option1 - Game 1 (2 or 3 mpegs)
Option2 - Game 2 (2 mpegs)
etc...

(since i used SVCD quality, WinDVR3 splitted the mpegs at 600MB)

PS - i noticed a lot the 352x480 resolution, but this is NTSC right? For PAL i only see 352x520 or something...is this right?

PPS - I am cutting comercials and stuff using TMPGEnc, it works ok. But i still would like to know if i can use many "little" mpegs under a menu entry (without skipping or pausing when playing next)...or should i go safe and merge the little ones into 1 big mpeg? Hmm...

[lordsmurf]

I have a removing commercial guide. I use WOMBLE MPEG-VCR.

[smoki]

Awesome site Lordsmurf

Question:
I have captured around 3 hours worth of material using WinDVR 3 with the PAL SVCD preset (480x576, 25FPS, 2200kbps video, 224 kbps audio 44KHz, 16 bit). It automatically splitted the files at 600MB, i ended up with 6 of them...after "editing" i have only 2 hours 21 minutes of video in 2 files: one is 1.9 GB, the other is almost 1 GB.

Now if i use Ulead DVD Studio2 or Roxio CD/DVD 6 they all report that the total project size is OVER 6 GB !!!! How is this possible, when the 2 mpegs are not even 3 GB altogether??!! I'm stuck

[bottle-necked]

If your MPEG files are not in the proper format (framerate, framesize, bitrate) the program will 'do you a favor' and re-encode the files to it's 'BEST' settings for that type of project (regardless if you want to or not). The program is not being mean to you, it's just trying to make a compatible DVD project out of this.

Creating DVD projects should first start in the help file for the authorizing program you intend to use. That help file will state therein what file types are compatible. Once you know that then capture and produce in that format template.

Good luck.

[bottle-necked]

According to Ulead VideoStudio V6 your data rate was off causing the reencode. (?)

PAL (25 fps)
Field order A
MPEG files
24 Bits, 480 x 576, 25 fps
(SVCD-PAL)
Video data rate: 2097 kbps
Audio data rate: 224 kbps
MPEG audio layer 2, 44.1 KHz, Joint stereo