TV capture .mpa to DVD audio?

[technolog]

Hi,

I've just bought a Hauppauge Win-TV PVR250 TV card. I want the ability to burn TV shows to DVD and have them compatible with as many standalone DVD players as possible and as high quality as possible.

I'm encoding the audio as MPEG1 layer 2 (the only option), 48kHz sample rate and 384kbps bitrate (highest possible).

The output file is .mpg format (combined video and audio). I create separate audio and video streams using DVD2AVI. This generates a .mpa audio file. Unfortunately, when I try to import this .mpa file into Scenarist, it gets rejected.

Can anyone tell me

a) the best format to convert the .mpa file to (bearing in mind compatibility and quality) for import to Scenarist

and

b) what software I need to achieve this (and how to do it if not straightforward!).

or

c) is there a better way to process the .mpg file than DVD2AVI?

Thanks in advance for any help.

technolog

[robz]

Hi,

I also own a WinTV PVR-250.

The way I do this:

1 - Record the video
2 - Cut & DeMux MPG-file using TMPGenc (File -> MPEG Tools...)
3 - Encode .MPA using Scenarist's AC-3 Encoder resulting in file you can import into scenarist
4 - Import new .ac3 file in scenarist


More tips (some more usefull than others):

ad 1.
Make sure CRC-check is "On" in the Win TV advanced audio-configuration and save this new configuration as a new profile!! (otherwise your settings will be lost almost instantanious)
If the CRC-on is checked Scenarist actually will import the resulting MPA file after asking you if you want to AC-3 encode it or not.
I always encode to AC-3 stand-alone since this allows you to encode multiple files at the same time (by starting the encoder multiple time)

ad 2.
Cutting and demuxing in TMPGenc is easier than your current approach.. me thinks

I usually change the default mp2 file-extention TMPGenc suggest since this solved another problem I had... Forgot what it was...
Or maybe its just a thing I like to do ;)

ad 3.
The AC-3 encoder can be started from within Scenarist or stand-alone by finding and starting the executable.

Make sure to check the option to encode from a single 2-channel audio-file. (which is just above the inputbox for the left front(?) channel)
I can't access the encoder right now to check the exact checkbox-label, so I hope U find it... I'll update this post later.

By the way: you're chosen audio bitrate is unnessecarily high for 2.0 channel encoding. 192 or 224 will do just as fine (and save some space). 384 and up are useful for 5.1 channel encoding.

Robz

[technolog]

Thank you very much Robz - I'd almost given up hope on getting some help!:D

The first tip sounds especially useful - I had tried to select CRC On - with no success!

I find cutting & demuxing in DVD2AVI to be quick and easy - I'm not familiar with TMPGEnc (used it a little for some DIVX stuff a year so ago). Perhaps you could expand on the advantages TMPGEnc has over DVD2AVI?

Good point about the bit rate - I'll use a lower value!

Thanks again.

[robz]

I really can't say anything sensible about the advantages of one over the other...
My knowledge of the way both work is too limited for that.. all I know is I like TMPGEnc because it makes me feel I have more control over the process :)
And I've only really used DVD2AVI for creating d2v files and extracting audio and that is a while back. For backing up DVD's which needed re-encoding I believe it was.
Sorry... ;)