Best road to create a DVD from a captured TV program

[alegator]

I have Canopus Procoder2 and I noticed that one can encode from mpeg2 to DVD VOB directly. Say I have a 7Gb mpeg2 (1.5hours) TV captured program that I want to transfer to DVD, what's then the best option? Use Ulead DVDWorkshop or Canopus? I would assume that with Canopus you cannot build a DVD Menu, but encoding quality might be better.
Thanks for your feedback.

[yoda313]

Hello,
Your best bet would be to use a lower dvd setting to fit it onto a single layer dvdr. Your next option would be to author the 7 gig file and shrink the video_ts folder with your favorite shrinker. Either way you won't retain top quaility unless you buy a dual layer burner. But that option isn't perfected yet (ie lots of compatiblity issues). Good luck.
Kevin

[jimmalenko]

I have Canopus Procoder2 and I noticed that one can encode from mpeg2 to DVD VOB directly.

We probably should clarify this: You don't "encode" from MPEG-2 to VOB, you author MPEG-2 files into the DVD structure (IFO, BUP and VOB files).

Say I have a 7Gb mpeg2 (1.5hours) TV captured program that I want to transfer to DVD, what's then the best option? Use Ulead DVDWorkshop or Canopus? I would assume that with Canopus you cannot build a DVD Menu, but encoding quality might be better.

I'll assume you are trying to fit this on a 4.7GB DVDR, and if so, you are going to have to reduce the bitrate somewhat. You could run this through an encoder, or author as per normal and transcode the output using DVDShrink or DVD2One.

As mentioned, ideally you should capture at somewhere near the required specs to reduce the amount of fiddling with your MPEG-2 files.

[alegator]

I have the ATI AIW 9800 Pro Video Card and I capture TV to MPEG2 using the ATI Multimedia Center record function. Do you know how to set MMC to capture directly to DVD single layer format so that I don't have to reencode later? (say 2 hours in a single DVD-R5)

[yoda313]

Hello,
I think you missed jimmalenko's point. As far as I know there is no card that authors the captured program directly. You have to AUTHOR the file first. This tells the dvd player what to do with the mpg2 file. The only way around this is to get a settop dvd player that plays mpeg files directly off the disc.
Kevin

[Richard_G]

Any stuff that I record from TV, I record at 1/2 D1 resolution (352 x 576 PAL or 352 x 480 if you in NTSC land) and use a bit rate of 3500kbs. This gives me an mpeg2 file that will allow just over 3 hours per disk. You may lose a little quality, but as the original was TV anyway, it won't be a lot worse than the source.

[jimmalenko]

I think you missed jimmalenko's point. As far as I know there is no card that authors the captured program directly. You have to AUTHOR the file first. This tells the dvd player what to do with the mpg2 file. The only way around this is to get a settop dvd player that plays mpeg files directly off the disc.

I'm glad someone understood what I meant.

I have the ATI AIW 9800 Pro Video Card and I capture TV to MPEG2 using the ATI Multimedia Center record function. Do you know how to set MMC to capture directly to DVD single layer format so that I don't have to reencode later?

Basically you capture to MPEG-2. There are DVD players that will allow you to burn this MPEG-2 file straight to disc as a data disc and will play it without a hitch. Others require you to author the MPEG-2 file into the DVD structure, which is made up of IFO, BUP and VOB files.

The BUP files are merely BackUPs of the IFO files. The IFO files tell the DVD player where different titles and menus start and finish, where chapters begin and a host of other information about the streams contained within the VOBs. Basically these are instructions for your DVD player. This is a lossless conversion of file types, not a re-encode. There is a difference ! It does not physically alter the video or audio content or quality in any way.

I think what you need to do is either:

Adjust the settings of your capture program so that your captured material will fit an a single layer DVDR without any shrinking,

Re-encode the MPEG-2 file to another MPEG-2 file with more appropriate bitrate settings

Or continue as per normal. Author the DVD and then transcode its output using DVDShrink or DVD2One.

You probably need to try a few things to see which methods give you the best results within an appropriate timeframe.

[alegator]

Say I choose the "Re-encode the MPEG-2 file to another MPEG-2 file with more appropriate bitrate settings" road that you suggest and that I use Canopus Procoder to this effect, how do I calculate the new audio/video bitrate to use? Can I use the bitrate calculator for this? And should I reencode using CBR or VBR? Thanks.

[johns0]

Use the bitrate calculator and re-encode using vbr,vbr will encode using better bitrate calculations where motion scenes needs more bits and static scenes need less thus giving you smaller files with same quality as larger cbr files.

[alegator]

Yes, the only problem with VBR is that it takes a very lon time to encode, specially the 2-pass VBR, but I guess it pays off in quality and saved space as you say.

[jimmalenko]

Yes, the only problem with VBR is that it takes a very lon time to encode, specially the 2-pass VBR, but I guess it pays off in quality and saved space as you say.

Everyone who works with video has to make this hard decision

[alegator]

Yes, it seems that nothing is for free...
Digressing from this thread, I have another question...what is the best program/utility to join two mpeg clips keeping the original quality?