Capture/burn DVD software confusion (information overload)

[arhouse]

Hi,

I recently purchased a Sony DRU500a which came with Sonic Mydvd, Arcsoft showbiz and Veritas Recordnow. In addition I have purchased Pinnacle Studio8.

My first goal:
o I want to capture video to disk in preps for creating a DVD. This video should have chapters and a simple intro screen picture.
o The video is 2 hours in length. I want the best picture quality and still be able to fit on a single DVD

Information overload:
I've been reading lots of places and I think I'm totally confused as to what software does what.

Can someone give me a quick synopsis of what TMGPenc is and when it should be used?

Can someone do the same for virtual dub?

Observations on my existing software:
Mydvd - can do capture and add chapters but not best quality. Plus the size of the DVD rendered stuff is too large due to the way it handles audio. Won't work well with my goal of 2 hours video/audio to single DVD.

Pinnacle Studio 8 - Can do capture and add chapters with pretty good quality. Crashes often. For some reason thinks DVD disks can hold about half the size as their rating. Won't work well with my goal of 2 hours video/audio to single DVD.

Oh yeah...I really really don't want to purchase any more products.

Thanks for your patience,
arhouse

[donpedro]

Some info here...

Pinnacle Studio 8 and DV home video editing

[arhouse]

Donpedro,

Thanks for the link. That answered a few questions, but created more

To summarize ...
You captured, added chapters and rendered using Studio...

When you chose "customize" at render point, did you lose much video quality?

Could you have gotten 120 mins of video on DVD?

I'm confused why/where TMGPenc fits into this process.

Of the three products I have installed on my system (MyDVD, RecordNow, and studio) which one actually did the burning?

[thxkid]

well if you have a MPEG2 ready to burn then here are some programs that will author and do menu's.

Uleads Movie Factory, 2.0 version just out
Sonic ReelDVD
Pinnacles DVDit

I like using Ulead Movie Factory, its very simple, does nice intro, Menu's and chapters. ReelDVD very professional but very advanced to use everything you do is manual, no automatic steps here. DVDit, did not care for it.

[donpedro]

OK. Here it goes....

1. When you see any info on DVD recordable media about how much of video it can hold.... it's only half true. It depends of how complex your video is and how much do you compress or what bitrate do you choose. Pinnacle Studio 8 will let you make disk with 8000 kBits/sec that wil hold about 60 minutes. You can extend time by lowering bitrate. My project was 77 min and by lowering to 7000 kBits/sec I was able to fit it to disk.

2. With MPEG2 you loos quality always when you compare to original DV tape (DV AVI file). Question is how much is acceptable to you. 8000 bitrate produces very good quality for my home im my opinion. 7000 was OK too. I would not go for 6000 however.

3. Studio 8 mpeg2 encoder is not as good as TMPGEnc since it is part of one pckage that can do everythink that you need. TMPGEnc is product developed to do just encoding. So there is an option to use it to encode your final AVI file with it. So it is just another option. I would not worry about it for now.

4. When you burn, use RW media first just to make sure that you like result. Try to burn with Studio 8, if it doesn't work, use RecordNow (Data disc and put VIDEO_TS result from PS8 on it. Empty AUDIO_TS is recomended too )

5. Per my DVD+RW media they say that you can fit from 1h (High Quality) to 8h (Super Extended Play) on one disk. So highest quality = 1h. Lower quality means more. So answer is ..... Yes. You can fit 120min on one disk.

I hope that answered all your questions.

One sugestion. If want you Studio 8 without problems, try my suggestion and create separate partition with clean Windows. For internet and all other programs use different one. I bet it will work just fine.

[arhouse]

Whew!

Are the chapter points part of the actual dvd mpeg file or is there an index file of some sort along with the mpeg file?

I've read in the pinnacle forums that the burn option doesn't make use of the full capacity of the disk. Is that true or just a misinterpretation?

Do I understand correctly that the freeware TMPGenc doesn't allow DVD mpeg encoding?

[donpedro]

Are the chapter points part of the actual dvd mpeg file or is there an index file of some sort along with the mpeg file?

You create them in SpruceUp during authoring. No they are not part of mpeg file.

I've read in the pinnacle forums that the burn option doesn't make use of the full capacity of the disk. Is that true or just a misinterpretation?

I am almost sure that it was issue in the past. As you can see in my project (link before) it was quite accurate. With my setting I had still 1min available and result was 4,219,652 KB. Since you can't predict final size at 100% it was very accurate for me and no waste space. Try it and see.

Do I understand correctly that the freeware TMPGenc doesn't allow DVD mpeg encoding?

I am not sure about that. Try it.

[Don2050]

TMPGenc Plus has a trial period of 14 days. After that you must purchase a license, I believe this is do to the fact that MPEG2 standard is not free....not sure though ? It costs $48 U.S.

http://www.pegasys-inc.com/e_main.html