Whats the best way for Mini Dv to DVD

[iyaaah]

Whats the best way to convert straight mini dvd tape to dvdr so I can watch it on my home player. I followed the steps from the tutorial on this site about using Tmpg to convert the avi>mpeg, and then burn it with TMPGEncDVDAuthor. But that takes so long on my slow computer. Is there an easier or more efficient way to converting it?

-Thanks in advance.

[jimmalenko]

first stage - "capture" (I prefer transfer) to AVI - done at 1:1 so no possible way of speeding this up. There's a number of other MPEG encoders that are known to be quicker than TMPGEnc, but essentially it's only this encoding stage where you can cut the time down. Check out this link for a number of different MPEG encoders. Authoring pretty much takes the same time (give or take a couple of minutes AFAIK) no matter what package you use.

If you want to stick with TMPGEnc, there are a number of ways you can speed things up:

1. Don't use your computer while it's encoding. It will run much quicker if it can focus 100% on the task at hand.

2. Set your idle and non-idle pirorities to high. This will donate almost all CPU cycles to your encode.

3. Set your Motion Search Precision to Motion Estimate (fast). DV source should be very high quality to begin with. This will be fine.

4. Use CBR instead of 2-Pass VBR. This may mean dropping resolution to half D1 to compensate.

5. DOn't use TMPGEnc's filters - they add waaaay too much time. Look at using either virtualdub or avisynth filters (There's a great guide by FulciLives that incorporates editing and noise removal here).

That's all I can think of ATM, but that should get you started.

[guns1inger]

If you don't need/want to edit the footage, the easiest way is to buy a standalone DVD recorder with firewire/i-link/DV-in port. Plug in your camera, record to disk, play disk. It all happens in real-time, in a single pass. At one hour per disk you are unlikely to notice any quality drop.