VHS to DVD - some final advice requested

[basstrap]

First- thanks to all who provided information on this site. Over the last week I have learned a lot, struggled a lot and finally had some success (over many late nights).

My goal is to create back-ups of some VHS material on DVD. I have two different types of material: stuff I created myself and VHS tapes that I own that are not available commerically on DVD. I'm using a digital video camera with a pass-through and firewire to get my source material to my computer.

I am evaluating two tools (or sets of tools):

1) Ulead Movie Factory 3.0
On the surface, this looks like the best solution for a newbie such as myself. I can get good results using a high bitrate (7000 kbps). Trouble is, I'd prefer for some of the DVDs to be about 2 hours in length. MF3 is supposed to let me adjust the bitrate, but when I do so, it ignores my settings and encodes at a high video bitrate- restricting me to 1 hour long DVDs. I'm trying to figure out if this is a bug, user error, or just a limitation of the trial version to ensure that people evaluate the package based on good quality final results. (I capture the AVI first, then I trim and create the menus, and finally I encode and burn in one final step).

2) Windows Movie Maker/TMPGenc Plus 2.5/TMPGenc Author 1.5
Using this combination of tools (with thanks to the many guides on this site), I ended up with a very acceptable quality (for my purposes) with a bitrate of 4000 kbps. (I capture and trim in WMM, encode in TMPGenc Plus, and then author and burn in TMPGenc Author.)

My questions:

1) Given that I have found a good solution with WMM/TMPGenc, should I even bother with figuring out why Ulead MF3 isn't working for me? The all-in-one package is tempting for a newbie, but given that I have these separate tools working well (with templates saved), am I better off going with TMPGenc since I may want its flexibility later? I'm looking for advice based on people's experience. Price is not an issue for me on this decision- since the tool combinations are comparable in cost (when you add in AC 3 support).

2) Are there issues with WMM that I should be aware of? So far, it has captured AVI for me very well and I haven't run into any of the problems described in the Tools section. I've captured several clips, one is an hour long. I've looked through some of the other capture tool options listed on this site- but its not clear to me which of the cheap/free ones would work with my DV camera- perhaps I missed something.

I have a pretty fast computer (2.8 GHz with HT), an 80 GB fast hard drive and 512 MB of RAM.

Thanks-

[wesmoc]

I've pretty much avoided the newbie methods because of the lack of flexibility.

I used to use Premier -> Tmpgenc -> Spruceup -> Nero in order to author the discs (taking the audio path of Premier->BeSweet->SpruceUp in order to convert the audio to AC3 2-channel.. smaller and more compatible with stand alone players).

I've started tinkering with WMM to replace Premier, and it looks to be a wonderful replacement. I thought I would also try TMPGEnc DVD Author in place of the waaaay old SpruceUp application, and that *appeared* to work well, too.

However, I just burned my first test to a DVD-RW and the results were not good. Unfortunately, the video was horribly choppy in the set-top player and, on the computer, Windows Media Player couldn't get past the menu while PowerDVD played the menu's audio but had oodles of problems displaying the video.

I'm trying it now in a different burner just to see if the burner makes a difference (hadn't tried this whole process before with this new burner).

I'm probably going to be forced to stick with WMM + TMPGEnc + SpruceUp + Nero until I find a suitable replacement for the DVD Authoring..

[hudsonf]

wesmoc; I use TEMPGEnc DVD Author all the time to author and get great results. The only problems I ever had was user error and not the program. Have you checked your files before you authored to make sure they're ok.? When your done authoring you can play the file with PowerDVD to make sure your file will play ok. If everything plays ok before you burn, try another disc and see what happens. When I back up my VHS tapes this is what I do:
1. Capture with my ATI AIW 8500 card.
2. MPEGVCR If I need to do any cutting (sometimes with dvd author)
3. Author and burn with TEMPGEnc DVD Author.