How to import and edit material from Pioneer DVR-520H DVD-RW VR on PC?

[TripleTransAm]

Hello,
New here, and have searched for a few days but haven't really found what I was looking for, info-wise.

Here's my goal: I was wondering if there was such a PC software out there that would allow me to read unfinalized DVD-RWs in VR mode that I recorded on a Pioneer DVR-520H so that I could edit the material on my PC? I am using a registered VideoReDo Plus (which is an awesome MPEG editor) but have not figured out a way to import the video.

As a second part of my goal, I'd then want to output the editted material onto a DVD-RW (VR mode?) so as to be able to high-speed copy into my 520H.

The reasons behind this:

1) we record TV material both on the 520H and on a TV tuner card, and archive it onto DVD-Rs. Right now, the only way of consolidating material from both recording sites is to make a finalized DVD (RW, for reuse reasons) and then "real-time copy" it into the 520H, which always results in a loss of quality. It would be nice to pop an unfinalized DVD-RW into the 520H and simply copy "DVD to HDD" at high speed (ie. no loss).

2) the title options on the 520H suck pretty bad. Very lame choices. So it would be interesting to simply "high-speed copy" material onto a DVD-RW and extract it for editting on a PC to then build a completed DVD-R with decent title screens.

2a) as a secondary goal, we have some DVD-Rs that are not finalized (because we add material in increments) and therefore we have no way of accessing them outside the 520H without finalizing the DVD (which could take some time, depending on the frequency of the program's broadcast). Being able to read these unfinished DVDs (not finalized) on a PC would be a big bonus.

2b) as with 2a, another 'wish list': would be great to be able to finalize DVD-Rs using my PC on DVDs that were assembled on the 520H. This would save me one step in some cases: simply "high speed copy" the items onto the DVD-R, then take the unfinished DVDs up to my PC where I could have access to decent title options.


I've been using Ulead MovieFactory 3 SE for authoring and I understand the latest versions have support for set-top recorders. I have NO idea what this means, and I'm hesitant to spend some more cash to find I cannot achieve what I'm looking for.

Any insights greatly appreciated.

[Baldrick]

i think ulead moviefactory or ulead dvd workshop can edit directly on dvd-vr, you can try the trials.

[piano632]

I don't think anyone has yet invented a way to read unfinalized Video Mode DVD's on a PC. Certain drives with the right applications may be able to read unfinalized VR Mode DVD's however. I have been able to do this with my old Pioneer 106D drive and some sort of UDF format (packet writing) software such as Nero's InCD. It apparently doesn't work with every drive however.

[Baldrick]

i missed the unfinalized part...don't think uleads supports that...

[TripleTransAm]

I don't think anyone has yet invented a way to read unfinalized Video Mode DVD's on a PC. Certain drives with the right applications may be able to read unfinalized VR Mode DVD's however. I have been able to do this with my old Pioneer 106D drive and some sort of UDF format (packet writing) software such as Nero's InCD. It apparently doesn't work with every drive however.

Thanks for that info, this is interesting. I have DVDDecryptor and it managed to read something off a DVD-RW in VR mode that I had not finalized. However, I have no idea what to do with the resulting file! It plopped 3 files onto one of my hard drives, with the following names.

$ Pioneer DVR-04H Bases Volume $.ISO (a huge thing which should coincide with the material size itself)
$ Pioneer DVR-04H Bases Volume $.MDS (small 5kb file)
and
Default. PLS (0kb ?)

I can't figure out what to do with this output. Maybe a later version of MovieFactory might be able to read it, but VideoReDo says it doesn't support "streams" yet. Beats me...

Too bad about the unfinalized Video Mode thing. That would save me a lot of hassle (and open up some creative possibilities).

[TripleTransAm]

i think ulead moviefactory or ulead dvd workshop can edit directly on dvd-vr, you can try the trials.

I will give it a shot, thanks for the suggestion on the trial versions. I hate throwing money at some of my projects in the hopes of making things work.

I was afraid that the 520H stored stuff on the DVD-VR in a proprietary fashion. I really hate it when that happens.

Anyway, tak sa mycket for the suggestion (my wife is Swedish), I'll give it a whirl.

[TripleTransAm]

Wait a minute... isn't ".iso" just a CD/DVD image file? If so, I'm no closer to a solution with that rip... that would mean it was just a bit-for-bit rip. *sigh*

[piano632]

You need to use something like Cyberlink PowerProducer or TMPGEnc DVD Author to import DVD files which should save them on your hard drive somewhere as MPEG files. There are others I'm sure, just that these are the ones I have and I know they work. Of course, then you have to re-author the DVD with titles screens (again TMPGEnc DVD Author will do this).

[Frobozz]

The only thing on your list that I know can be done is to record unfinalized VR-mode DVD-RW with the Pioneer and high-speed extract those MPEGs to your computer for authoring to a video DVD with better menus. I don't know of any way to take MPEGs from a PC and high-speed copy them to a standalone recorder.

I do the former all the time with my Mac using either Toast 7 or PixeVRF Browser to extract the MPEGs from unfinalized VR-mode DVD-RW discs.

[TripleTransAm]

Update: okay, I don't know if it was a MovieFactory 3 SE glitch that was cured by the many reboots since I last tried to extract unfinalized video from a VR mode DVD-RW, but I just managed to grab some chapters off the disk and include it in a project (I "burned" it onto my hard drive just to check it out). I'm almost 100% certain it refused to do so during this past week. okay, then....

So MovieFactory 3 SE at least appears to be able to grab video when it feels like it. (unfortunately, chapters came out as separate titles, which I read about previously in the s/w reviews on this site... so that was no horrible surprise)

So at least I have the capability of ripping stuff off the 520H's hard drive for editing on my PC.

As for the other direction: I wonder what would happen if I tried to unfinalize a DVD-RW on the 520H? (maybe I'm misunderstanding the whole unfinalize/VR-mode thing... the 520H manual is so dumbed down that I find it hard to really understand its true limitations).

(Anyway, I'm one step further along now... all I need to do now is find out how to prevent MovieFactory from re-encoding stuff as it's burning my DVDs.)

Thanks to everyone for the info so far, it's been great to get such detailed info after having spent weeks searching on google and on this site for clues. And if anyone else has any personal tricks on how to prepare a DVD for high-speed copying into the 520H, I'm all ears. (or any other tricks to facilitate the back-and-forth that I'm trying to accomplish here).

[ChainsawDude]

Reading unfinalized VR mode DVD-RWs on your PC is quite easy. You will need something to read the disc (generally packet writing sware like InCD) and an application that can import VR files (I use TDA).

Producing a VR mode DVd on a PC that can later be edited on the set top is tricky.
Nero Vision can do it but seems to reencode files in the process so not ideal.
TMPEG Editor can take Dvd-video files and output to VR format on disc but then only includes a tool to export to DVD-RAM (this might be a good choice if you can handle dvd-ram).
Movie Factory has support for VR mode export but I never have much look with it, takes ages.

The problem seems to be that the set top recorders write to the disc using packet writing techniques (use a single session on disc that is left open) so you can not burn a disc like you can with dvd-video. I tried writing the DVD_RTAV to a disc with InCD but my sony recorder would not accept it.

[deck]

I use a program called InfinaDyne CD/DVD Diagnostic to rip all DVD-RW that are recorded in VR mode on my LG RH7521W. It outputs the recording as 1 file that converts to vob by adding .vob at the end of the file name.

[doobre]

Here's what I know and have done in this regard

you will need to finalize the DVD in VR or video mode before taking it into the PC ( I have the LG super-multi type PC DVD drive) and it sometimes will and sometimes will not read an unfinalized VR disk from my 630... but this is not necessary a problem (see 'tip' below...) as you can unfinalize a DVD-RW.. in either VR or video mode....

the file which the DVD contains when in VR mode can be easily imported into many authoring softwres by first copying the file to the HDD and changeing the .VRO or .VR# file extension to .VOB and demuxing it thru TMPEG (trial/freeware) or similar.. perhaps DVDdecrypter can do it straight from the disk..?

Powerproducer does dael with VR mode DVD;s but it is very slow and takes forever and you loose any chapters which you did have once you rewrite in back to the DVD...

The 530 will unfinalize a video mode DVD and you can change the thumbnails but that's about all.

The pioneer will loose chapter points when recording to DVD in VR mode unless you do a high speed copy

Tip - if you use video mode, set your chapters and finalize the DVD using whatever menu you want as a temporary step, you can then use DVDdecrypter to demux the video and audio and create a text file for the chapter points which can then be used in many authoring softwares...

as for getting the files out of the PC and back to the pioneer in VR mode. sorry not tried that.. the best results can be acheived by finishing on the PC.. But I am sure that which ever mode the DVD is in when the 630 records a DVD or CD to the HDD it is done in real time...

[TripleTransAm]

First of all, thank you all for the very informative replies.

This is where I currently stand: I've grabbed TMPGenc DVD Author Pro and played with it a bit. So far, with little effort including sacrificing about 40+ minutes of PC time, I was able to output a movie I taped off the TV (Pink Floyd's The Wall) and dumped it onto a DVD-RW in VR mode, then incorporate it into a project on my PC in TMPGenc DVD Author Pro and "finalize" it with a half-decent menu (as I am still on the trial version - looking like I'll spend the money after all!).

No apparent loss in quality over what was taped, I've compared how things look between the 520H's stored content and what I burned on my PC after extraction from the DVD-RW. So that part of my quest appears a total success! Easy 520H-to-PC transportation of recorded material.


As for exporting from PC into the 520H, I guess I'm probably going to lay that one to rest for now, if not for good. Elsewhere on this site, I read something that explains why the 520H is able to maintain good bit rates even at 4hr/disc mode: at LP or EP it drops the resolution by 1/2! I think it's ingenious (although I don't know what this does for compatibility with older set-top players), especially considering nearly all my material is recorded from analog cable TV. So in reality I have no need for the full DVD resolution given my analog source.


So now I must investigate the same strategy for my PC's recording setup (PVR-350 card with editting in VideoRedo)... if I can manage to burn an entire DVD on my PC with 4 hours of TV material at bitrates comparable to what the 520H does on its own at the 1/2 DVD resolution, then I can't possibly imagine a scenario where I'd be wanting to move stuff from PC to the 520H. The 520H's menus are rather lackluster.


Still, if anyone ever does successfully figure out a way of making this a truly bidirectional communication path between a PC and a 520H (ie. making use of the high speed copy INTO the 520H - no decoding/encoding), I'm definitely interested.


Thanks, all, for helping me take all this up a notch or three!

[Frobozz]

The 520 can only high-speed copy from Disc to HDD from an unfinalized VR-mode DVD-RW it recorded itself. Your experience with having to do real-time copying is the only option for other discs.

If your PC's TV tuner card can capture in DV video format you can connect your PC to the 520's iLink port and send the video in real time to the Pioneer. This will prevent the picture quality loss you are experiencing when real-time copying from DVD to the HDD. You would have to use an application that is capable of exporting DV video from the PC to a camcorder. In this case the 520 would act as the camcorder. The trick is to choose DV as the Pioneer's input setting and not use the Pioneer's DV menu.

But if you don't have the PC's video in DV format this method won't work.

[TripleTransAm]

Latest update: wow, I had no idea how much fun this could be. Thanks to the info gained from this thread and some awesome reading on this site, I am having a blast combining stuff from both my 520H and my PVR-350 and authoring some nice looking stuff on my PC using TMPGenc DVD Author Pro after editing in VideoRedo. Best money I've ever spent on software, everything is so seamless and effective (ie. no pulling my hair).

And now that I understand the whole relationship between the 520H and resolution/bitrate tradeoffs, I am applying the same philosophy to my PVR-350's material and putting together stuff at similar quality levels! ( the PVR-350 is recording analog cable material). Truly enjoyable experience, and I'm now making the best of my recordings off the 520H!

Cheers to you all!

[TripleTransAm]

Is it just me or are chapter markings lost when transporting material between a 520H and a PC using TMPGenc DVD Author Pro (2.0)? If so, any way around it? My wife has some material on the 520H that she's broken into chapters and we'd like to move that material to a PC for some custom menu engineering.

[ChainsawDude]

There is good news, when importing from DVD using TDA, there is an checkbox option to import chapter markings. If you check this option then chapter markings are kept.

[TripleTransAm]

Interesting. I had not seen that option. I don't suppose there is any way to include individual jumps to chapters on a menu screen? I guess they would have to be broken out as individual titles?

(I'm still trying to figure out the relationship between tracks and titles on TDA).


edit: wait, all of a sudden I'm seeing individual chapters as clips under the main track... which is what I was looking for. Hold the replies, I may just figure this one out myself.

[TripleTransAm]

Yep, that check box did the trick. TDA recognized all the chapters my wife set up on that title, and they ended up as individual clips under the main track, in the menu. Took a long while to inch through 19 chapters and individually thumbnail and title them (it was a PBS music presentation) but the end result looked logical enough.

One can make some nice looking stuff fairly easily with TDA! I'd say my purchase of TDA and VideoRedo has really enhanced my enjoyment of the 520H. Not only am I free of those lame preset menus of the 520H, I also learned a lot about saving precious video space with the clever trick of halving the resolution while keeping the bitrate healthy!

At this moment, I can't think of anything else that I'd be limited by, with the 520H and these 2 tools.


At the risk of slightly derailing the thread (but hopefully just to put a final asterisk on my whole adventure): if someday I want to rebuild a new DVD with material pulled from the 520H but with different menus/structure, will I be able to simply import the material from my TDA'ed DVD or am I best off going back to a fresh output straight from the 520H to DVD-VR? Assuming no changes in video (resolution, bit rate, etc.) or audio, can I be sure that no re-encoding will occur? Otherwise, I'll need to keep VR copies of all the stuff off the 520H that I *might* be inclined to re-author on a new DVD one day...