Need to change mpeg2?

[ikileo]

I already capture tv shows with my tv tuner card in mpeg2 format but for a half hour show is like 2 gigs. The DVDR being 4.7Gigs only. I can barely squeeze in two episodes. I want it to watchable on a regular DVD player so it's gotta be in mpeg2 rite, hence I can't like compress it to a divx or anything. In that case, how do i make it smaller to squeeze more in the disc. Any need to change format?

[johns0]

Reduce the bitrate when capturing.

[jimmalenko]

size = bitrate x running time (all units aside).

All theory aside, just use www.videohelp.com/calc.htm , input the time you wish to fit on a DVD overall, select the audio bitrate you're gonna use and it'll tell you what to set the video bitrate to (in the Calculated Bitrate field) in order to achieve this.

[northcat_8]

Depending on what you are authoring with, the software may have a setting to change bit rate for you.

Ulead DVD Workshop gives you
8000 = 60 minutes
6000 = 90 minutes
4000 = 120 minutes
or custom option.

As far as I know...if you use TDA or DVD-Lab, you have to change the bit rate before you enter the authoring software. Although, if you use TDA, you can change bit rate if you run them through TMPGenc Plus.

[non-linear]

If you have tons of hard drive space, you could try capturing in avi format (like Huffyuv codec), or you could keep capturing in MPEG2 and either use a really high bitrate and reencode (which I've done and have had great results), or you could author the existing MPEG2 files and author it as is (being too big), then use a transcoder like DVDShrink to make it fit then burn to DVD.

[frankhad]

I already capture tv shows with my tv tuner card in mpeg2 format but for a half hour show is like 2 gigs. The DVDR being 4.7Gigs only. I can barely squeeze in two episodes. I want it to watchable on a regular DVD player so it's gotta be in mpeg2 rite, hence I can't like compress it to a divx or anything. In that case, how do i make it smaller to squeeze more in the disc. Any need to change format?

ilileo, those who have posted before me may disagree, perhaps with good, sound reason. However, like you, I also capture cable TV shows through an AGP video card and burn to DVD. The following is what works for me, and it works very well. I consistently place 2-4 hours of TV-captured video on a DVD with very good quality.

I use an ATI All-In-Wonder 9600XT graphics card. Since I'm capturing analog TV shows, and since I do no real editing per se, but only the simple trimming and cutting to remove commercial advertisements, I'm of the belief there would be no value gained by capturing analog TV video in AVI and re-encoding to MPEG-2. (Those who frequent this forum may disagree with my logic and I am certainly open to hearing their ideas.) Nor do I prefer to capture at a bit rate lower than 8000. I capture in MPEG-2 with the graphics card set to capture at the following settings:

NTSC at 720 X 480 MPEG-2
Variable Bit Rate maxed at 8000, Interlaced and Upper Field First.
Audio is set to 48000 KHz, 16 bit Stereo at 224 kbps

I bring my captured MPEG-2 into VideoReDo where commercial ads are trimmed and cut. VideoReDo only re-endodes the one or two frames surrounding the cut points thus I loose no discernable quality. On those rare occasions when there may be problem with the captured video VideoReDo has the capacity to make needed repairs.

I next bring this video into TDA where several videos may be combined, menus and chapter points are created and the video is prepared (compiled) for burning to DVD.

It is a rare occasion when I place one 30 or 60 minute TV program on a single DVD but prefer to combine several videos, especially those that are related in content. For this reason, I compile the TDA authored DVD directly to my hard drive and bring that compilation into DVDShrink where the finished product can be compressed to fit on a single DVD-5.

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