10 Hours for complete process -- Any faster??

[SSTwinrova]

Just did my first capture to DVD over the weekend, and while technically it was a success, they're a few things that I'd like to know if they could be changed. First of all, my setup is with a Sony Digital8 Camcorder (the new 460) connected via Firewire to my computer. The tapes that I am getting the audio/video off of are normal 8mm tapes that were taken probably about 10 years ago.

Anyway, I hooked up the camcorder to the computer and used Windows Movie Maker (running XP Pro) to simply get a capture of the entire tape. Can't remember exactly what I told it to capture as, but it ended up being about 25 GB for the 2 hour tape. That part I know can't be sped up any since it has to capture in real time. Next, I just stayed within WMM to edit the very first (gray screen before video starts) and then saved it out to a different file once it was done. The saving time wasn't that bad, just around 30-40 minutes. Once I got into Nero to burn it (I have the Nero 6 Ultra Edition), and told it to start, it said it was going to take over 6 hours to "transcode" the file!! I assume this means changing the codec that it is currently encoded with over to MPEG-2, but 6 hours?? So, is there either A) a way to capture and do all the editing in MPEG-2 to eliminate the transcoding step, or B) a way to simply speed that step up? Thanks.

[unclebud]

It depends on the speed of you computer. Faster CPU means faster rendering.
The manufacturer of the MPeg 2 codec makes a difference also. If you use TMPGenc, it will take alot longer then Main Concept. (Personal observation) I've never tried Nero's transcoding. Is it good at low bit rates (2 hours or more of video)

[SSTwinrova]

Don't think my CPU is the problem....I have a P4 2.0 Ghz, 512 MB RDRAM, and a decent video card (Geforce4 Ti 4600). Is there any way just to directly capture (WMM and Nero are the only 2 capturing programs I have) to MPEG-2?? Of course, I'd need a program that can deal with editing MPEG-2 files, but I'd think that not ever having to change codecs would speed up my time considerably.

[SSTwinrova]

Well, after reading some other posts, it sounds like my idea may not be as good as I thought it would. This is what I gather is being the way to get the best quality on DVDs:

Capture to DV-AVI > Transcode to MPEG-2 > Split into Video and Audio Files > Change Audio to AC3 > Create VOB Files > Burn to DVD

Not sure how that's going to work time-wise, but I'll probably get around to testing it next weekend. I'll post again if I run into any more problems. Thanks for the help.

[BobK]

> Is there any way just to directly capture (WMM and Nero are the only 2 capturing programs I have) to MPEG-2?? Of course, I'd need a program that can deal with editing MPEG-2 files

There are many capture cards that will capture to mpeg-2. I use a Snazzi III PCI and like it, but there are others.

There are also many editing/authoring programs that can deal with mpeg-2 files- I use TMPGEnc DVD Author.

On my computer it used to take about 6 hours to convert an edited avi file to DVD. With the Snazzi and DVD Author it takes about 15 minutes to go from and edited mpeg-2 file to DVD.

[SSTwinrova]

I'm not really looking into getting a capture card though. We have no open PCi slots in our computer, and one reason that we decided to invest in this camcorder is that it supports passthrough from a VCR so we can also get our VHS tapes onto our computer. Seems like 6 hours is about right for the encoding step, so I guess I'll just have to deal with it. Oh well....

[sacajaweeda]

VirtualDub for finding frame numbers to trim source with AVISynth, then filter, crop or resize and frameserve with AVISynth to Cinemacraft Encoder 2.5 to produce DVD compliant MPEG2 elementary video stream. Then open AVISynth script with VirtualDub to save the WAV audio from the source file and convert to either MP2 or AC3 elementary audio stream with either TMPGEnc (MP2) or BeSweet (AC3). Author with any one of a multitude of authoring applications out there, burn authored title set to DVDr with Nero 5.5

I'm not usually in a big hurry to do this stuff, so I've never really timed myself for the complete process. If I had to estimate, I would say that if I stayed on it the whole process for a 2 hour DVD would take 1-2 hours to prep my script & run some test encodes to get everything looking right with some sample clips, plus another 2-4 hours to encode depending on how much filtering is involved, and the authoring & burning process could take anywhere from 45 minutes or so to several hours depending on how involved/fancy I want to get with custom menus I make with other apps like Photoshop, etc.

So, if I were racing against the clock....

1 hour script prep (extensive editing/trimming...if just trimming ends, this is just a matter of minutes)
3 hours encode time
1 hour to author & burn @ 2x

But that's really pushing it because I'm forever getting sidetracked, so I would say 6-8 hours just to be safe

[SSTwinrova]

Wow, looks like some great instructions there -- Thanks. Are there guides on this site that cover the things like filtering, frameserving, AVISynth script use, etc.? I understand their applications, just not sure how to use each one . ffmpeggui is a product that has been mentioned a lot in posts for WAV > AC3 converting...should that work just as well? And looks like that time is definitely shorter than what I has before, but this will definitely be much more time consuming than I originally thought.

[migf1]

Although I've never used DV, MainConcept 1.4 can capture directly to MPEG2 and MPEG-VCR can help you editing/trimming/splitting/merging your .mpg files.

It may woth giving them a try, since if they work for you they have the potential to save you a lot of time. But if your're up to extensive filtering, I think the only way is the long one: capture to AVI, filter via VDub or AVIsynth, frameserve into your favorite MPEG2 encoder -CCE, TMPGEnc and MainConcept 1.4 seem to be the favorite ones-, then author, then burn.

Best regards.