Should I make a VCD or a DVD?

[randyannie]

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. Following is my equipment profile:

DVD Stand alone player: Sanyo DWM-395
DVD+R/+RW drive: Lite-On LDW-851S
CD+RW drive: Lite-On CD-ReWriter 52x32x52x ATAPI/E-IDE interface
Motherboard: ASUS A7N266-VM
Processor: AMD Athlon XP2000+ 1.67 Ghz
RAM: 256MB
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar 20GB
FireWire/1394 Card: Adaptec FireConnect 4300 3 ports PCI card Sonic MyDVD version 4.5.2 video authoring software included
Digital Camcorder: JVC GR-D30

Now to my dilemma. When I try to burn video I’ve captured using Sonic MyDVD, it keeps giving me the error: “Wrong media type. Please insert a recordable CD.”. I was trying to make what I thought would be a DVD so I kept feeding it DVD+R disks to see if it would record the bit of video that I’d captured from my digital camcorder. I thought the software had to be mistaken, but, eventually I inserted a CD-R and it took off burning (imagine that ), however, when I put it in my Sanyo stand-alone it didn’t recognize it as a disk.

Anyone know if I can make a true DVD disk with Sonic MyDVD, or is VCD the best way to burn data from a digital camcorder/VCR, in the first place?

Thanks for your input, Randy
PS: I’m just now learning about VCD and other formats, I’m definitely a newbie to this area.

[FulciLives]

1.) Get a second HDD that is as large as you can afford. Right now 120GB drives are rather inexpensive. Even an 80GB drive would be worth it. A single 20GB drive is not enough to work with.

2.) Make sure you transfer the video from your digital cam to your computer using a FIREWIRE connection ... this will create an identical copy of your video from the tape to the computer. This will be an AVI file which will be in the DV format. One hour of video is about 13GB in size. Hence the need for a larger HDD

3.) Process your capture using something otherthan Sonic MyDVD such as a good video editing program ... which is something you probably will need to do (edit your videos). Many choices here.

4.) Convert to MPEG-2 DVD spec using a program made for that. Here I suggest TMPGEnc Plus 2.5 or CINEMA CRAFT ENCODER though TMPGEnc is much easier to use.

5.) Forget the VCD format. It is crap quality. You want DVD quality. Your digital cam creates a digital video with a resolution of 720x480 which is what DVD uses. VCD uses a much lower resolution.

6.) Once converted you can use Sonic MyDVD to author yourself a DVD disc. Most of use here on this website though prefer DVD-Lab or TMPGEnc DVD Author as our authoring programs.

Hope this helps.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[randyannie]

Thanks for the tips.

I downloaded DVD Lab and TMPGenc and started trying to work with both. To be honest, I was overwhelmed at first. It felt like the first time I tried working with Photoshop - it took me about a year to get comfortable with that program - then along comes something like Photo Deluxe (the rookie version of Photoshop) and withing 4 clicks your producing something pretty cool.

I wonder if there are any easier softwares to work with. One that does it all for you . . . or should I take the time to learn the DVD Lab thing. I know I could learn it but it's a whole new world for me. Is it worth it?

Best, Randy

[johns0]

Try tmpgenc dvd author first,its easier to start with and you can be authoring dvds in no time.