Editing MPEG streams and then onto DVD-R

[imekon]

I've been considering video editing for a while, and debated which solution to go for. I thought of a hardware solution, but decided with my experience with my TV capture card, hardware was an unpredictable solution, so I went for software instead. Slower, but more likely to work!

I have a couple of sources for MPEG video - my TV capture card downstairs grabbing video from my Telewest set top box, and DV cam corder upstairs through firewire.

I started first with Power Director editing MPEG but found it slow to use, and occaisonally would crash.

I bought Sonic Foundry Vegas 4.0 which is great for real time previewing, and awfully slow for rendering!

I also bought DVD Architect which burnt my first DVD coaster! It took 25 minutes to burn a 90 minute video at single speed... which I then descovered was unreadable!

I tried Nero with DVD-Video which failed due to some problem with reallocating the files. Somewhere I descovered that UDF/ISO V1.02 format should work, so I've burnt my first DVD-R with a working video.

Unfortunately, my Toshiba DVD player is old and doesn't recognise DVD-R's - ho hum. On my PC WinDVD 4.0 works fine with it. A friend's Panasonic DVD player worked with it, then I descovered the "safe playing area" on a TV screen - and my menus were sitting right on the edge! Ouch!

Lots of interesting things to descover in this whole process. I guess the editing process starts with Vegas, then moves to DVD Architect to create the DVD contents, then finally to Nero to burn the DVD.

I do like the markers feature in Vegas, dropping text markers at points in the stream when something interesting is about to happen. Importing to DVD Architect, and these markers become chapter points for a scene selection menu.

[TheWolf]

Hi imekon.

Let me tell you, how I do these things:

1. Encoding videos with TMPEGEnc by holding the original resolution. I use the DVD-Template and only change the templates resolution to that from the video.
2. Using DVD Patcher to change the resolution (without any re-encoding) to -lets say: 720x480 and 16:9, entire file for a NTSC-movie
3. Authoring with DVD Architect. The only reencoding-process inside DVDA is the audio-reencoding. Due to the patching, DVDA "thinks" the given resolution is correct and does'n want to re-encode the video.
4. Again using DVD Patcher to patch the resolution of any vob-file back to the original values.
5. Burning is done with DVDA too, cause DVDA builds up a little bit larger filesize (vob-files) than some other authorin-prog does. Therefore i.e. Nero comes up with an error on these files.

That's my way. It works fine without taking too much time and without toasting any DVD untill now.

cu

[imekon]

Hi imekon.

Let me tell you, how I do these things:

1. Encoding videos with TMPEGEnc by holding the original resolution. I use the DVD-Template and only change the templates resolution to that from the video.
2. Using DVD Patcher to change the resolution (without any re-encoding) to -lets say: 720x480 and 16:9, entire file for a NTSC-movie
3. Authoring with DVD Architect. The only reencoding-process inside DVDA is the audio-reencoding. Due to the patching, DVDA "thinks" the given resolution is correct and does'n want to re-encode the video.
4. Again using DVD Patcher to patch the resolution of any vob-file back to the original values.
5. Burning is done with DVDA too, cause DVDA builds up a little bit larger filesize (vob-files) than some other authorin-prog does. Therefore i.e. Nero comes up with an error on these files.

That's my way. It works fine without taking too much time and without toasting any DVD untill now.

cu

How do you do steps 4 and 5 if you're creating a DVD from capture DV footage? How do you know the "original values" if you're creating from scratch?

I ask as I'm curious to know what the fault with Nero is.

[TheWolf]

Hmm, I realy don't know anything about DV footage, but for authoring any kind of video, you'll have it on your hard-disc.

My describtion was based on AVI or MPEG-Movies on my harddisc.

Now, Step 4; patching the vob's is as easy as patching your source-video. vob's are located in the VIDEO_TS-folder.

Step 5; inside DVDA is the point "Make DVD" where you just "Prepared DVD". On that point you are able to "Burn" the created folders.

Maybe we are talking about to different things?

[imekon]

Step 5; inside DVDA is the point "Make DVD" where you just "Prepared DVD". On that point you are able to "Burn" the created folders.

Maybe we are talking about to different things?

That's what I did and created a coaster. I tried using Nero and got a working DVD-R.

[jsnkc]

Also don't forget to NOT edit with Mpeg files, you will lose a lot of quality, you need to edit with uncompressed AVI's. As far as Vegas goes, it is a great program better than Premiere, and Avid, and any of that crap from Pinnacle and Ulead. The only reason it renders slow is because you have a slow computer, try to get a faster processor, hard drive, and over 1GB of RAM and you will see the true power of Vegas.