DV -> DVD Any guides?

[hoops10]

Are there any guides or does anyone know of a process that will take an uncompressed .avi captured for a DV or Digital8 camcorder and make it into a DVD? Thanks.

[orionware]

Hey Hoops.. Here's what I did.

Captured the video to HD using Ulead's Media Studio. Any tool that you can find will use for this. It was dumped and kept in it's native uncompressed format, DV, at about 14 gig per hour.

You might be able to find a hardware/software package that will actually save DV to MPEG2 ready for DVD but I like the ability to have more control over the compression.

I then used a video editing app to add music and subtitle overlays.

when I had it done, I saved the edited final production to the HD.

I decided which chapter points I wanted to make and created a menu in Photoshop. I was using Sonic ReelDVD as the authoring program and it will take multilayer PSD stills and create menu items from them.


I stripped the audio from the video and then used CCE to encode the video.

After the video was encoded I pulled everything into ReelDVD and authored chapter points and the menu..

ReelDVD wrote the vobs to the hd, I checked the project in WinDVD and tthen used PrimoDVD 2.0 to burn the disc..

Does this sound time intensive? It is... But it's all worth it when something you shot is on DVD with menus and chapterpoints...

If you have any questions, just ask. It seems we DV people are pretty scarce in this forum!

O

[theReal]

I guess the biggest problem for most people will be that (most) DV-editing apps save to type 1 DV, while for further usage in other Windows applications you need type 2 DV with PCM audio.
Additionally, you usually need another codec (not DirectShow like the MS codec, but VFW). This could be either Mainconcept or the (slightly inofficial) Panasonic DV codec.

I have written a description of where to get and how to install the Panasonic DV codec some time ago on this forum. I'm doing a search for it. I guess a general guide to DV conversion should start with this - it was the first problem I encountered with DV to Divx conversion.

It seems the original link to the Panasonic site is dead, but I found a new source for it, plus an .inf installer (so my installation-description becomes obsolete)
It is here:
http://bokova.bokova.lv/~daliv/video/down/codec/

[hoops10]

@ orionware

Here is what I've managed to do so far. I capped as a raw, type-1 .avi file and then used Edit STudio to convert it to type-2 .avi. I frameserved it into CCE using Avisynth to do the video. My question is this, how do I do the audio? Do I use VDUB to save the .wav of it and then tmpeg to convert to .mp2 or something? IF so, will dvd authoring software accept that type of audio? Please help me with the audio part of this. Thanks.

[bb]

The software you used to capture your type-1 DV AVI, doesn't it have an option to save the audio as a WAV file? This would save you the extra type-1 to type-2 conversion step, as you can use type-1 input for AviSynth.

Don't know for sure regarding DVD (I create SVCDs, here I have to use MP2), but you should be fine with BeSweet's conversion options...

@theReal:
If you need to decode DV only, where is the step where you need a VfW DV codec? AviSynth can use the DirectShow filter (DirectShowSource command). Thanks for the link though, it's still very useful, of course.

bb

[theReal]

bb, I thought avisynth can only read the video, not the audio through the directshowsource() command? I'm not sure.

hoops, I thought dv type 2 can only be saved with PCM wave audio (at least in all applications I used this is the only option). If you have PCM audio, every application must be able to read it.

[bb]

@theReal:
true: AviSynth's DirectShowSource will process the Video only, not the audio. That's why I recommended to save the audio as a WAV file using your DV capture application (these apps usually have something like a "save to WAV" option, like MGI VideoWave or the Ulead soft).

Just a brief explanation: type-1 contains video and audio intermuxed in the vids stream of the AVI container, but no auds stream. type-2 adds a copy of the audio data to an auds stream (for that reason type-2 files are larger than their type-1 equivalents). Typically VfW applications like VirtualDub expect the audio data in the auds stream; therefore they can process type-2 files, but not type-1.

Of course you can save the audio data from the auds stream of a type-2 file through VirtualDub's "Save WAV" command, and then convert it to MP2 (e.g. using BeSweet). But the conversion to type-2, and then saving the WAV is an extra step compared to saving the WAV directly from the captured type-1 AVI (which can NOT be done through VirtualDub).

bb

[hoops10]

@TheReal

So if I split the audio from the video (using either vdub or the capping software), and save the .wav, I don't have to do anything else but input it into my dvd authoring software? Is that .wav already in PCM format? If it is, will the dvd authoring software accept it?

[theReal]

Is that .wav already in PCM format?
I guess so, but can't you see what format it will be saved in in the save-options of your capture program?

When it is demuxed, play it in Winamp and look at the file-info tab. It will tell you very quickly what kind of wave it is.

If it is, will the dvd authoring software accept it?I can't tell, it depends on the software - however it would be very weird software if it didn't accept PCM wave audio :)