Getting Started

[kenwak]

Hi..
I got interested in this after getting a TV card for my PC, in the belief that I would be able to record programs on the PC, create a DVD and play it back on the TV with a DVD player.

All the software I had like Nero wants me to purchase more add-ins on the internet. Following your articles, I gave TMPGEnc and IfoEdit a go, but it seems TMPGEnc is also about to expire some mpegII evaluation period etc...

My card is supposed to be recording MPEGII format anyway, and I'd like to be able to simply edit the recorded file, knocking off the beginning and the end, and perhaps concatenating two files as well, before running the result out to a DVD, presumable with IfoEdit.

As I find all these utilities a bit confusing as the terminology and processes implied by the menus is still strange to me, could someone please get me started by suggesting what software I should be trying to use in the first place to achiece the editing. Would appreciate any initial direction.

Thanks....

[CWR03]

Did your card or your DVD burner not include any software for authoring a DVD? If not, you may just have to purchase something. You can get a trial version of almost anything to see what you like. I don't often burn DVDs of TV shows myself, but when I do I use Vidomi to edit out the sections I need, then burn them with Roxio's DVD Builder (the latter is extremely simple to use).

[setarip_old]

@kenwak

Hi!

If your MPEG-2 files are DVD-compliant, you can use "TMPGEnc DVD Author" (Different than "TMPGEnc" and "TMPGEncPlus").

You can obtain a FULLY functional free 30 day trial version of this commercial program at:

www.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tda.html

[Abond]

Cuttermaran is an excelent application for cutting the commercials from recorded mpeg2. It needs elementary streams, the suggestion is to demultiplex with rejig. Both are free.
Authoring - either muxman or gui for dvd author. Also free.

[kenwak]

Thanks to all who replied, sorry I've been away. Will go and research all your suggestions.

[kenwak]

Cuttermaran is an excelent application for cutting the commercials from recorded mpeg2. It needs elementary streams, the suggestion is to demultiplex with rejig. Both are free.
Authoring - either muxman or gui for dvd author. Also free.

I have several old horse racing videos and want to cut various races from different videos and combine them into a single DVD. Being videos of horse racing, the quality is not all that good and i can't afford to loose any quality along the way.

Cuttermaran seemed to want tmpgenc with the mpeg2 licence, so I tried the following.
My TV card captures good quality mpeg2 DVD compliant files.
I then used Tmpgenc to de-multiples these, Mpeg2Schnitt to cut the races, and Gui_dvdauthor to then combine the cuts into a DVD, as it seems that Tmpgenc stills requires the mpeg2 licence to cut and merge the already mpeg2 files I have captured. I can't try Tmpgenc anyway as the eval period expired before I learnt all this and went to try it.

I find that the de-multiplexed files have lost some quality, whereas if I pass the original captured mpeg2 into Gui DVDAuthor, the quality comes through, ie there is no loss I presume due to a lack of decoding and re-encoding, which I presume would still occur if I used Tmpgenc mpeg tools cut & merge with the mpeg2 licence.
++ The crunch question ??? ++++++++++++++++++++
Is there no way to cut and then merge the cuts, of existing mpeg2 DVD compliant files, without a licence, and without decoding and re-encoding and therefore without loss of quality??
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Are there any other suggestions for a better way to achieve what i am trying to do that some of you Guru's might be aware of.

Thanks in advance, and my apologies if this question indicates a level of ignorance so vast that I shouldn't be even asking questions.

PS -- Looking at an earlier post that suggested merging with DOS binary copy, I tried that but the result was not friendly to GUI DVDAuthor. It inserted it, but couldn't setup chapters. It also didn't play very well in my DVD player software, I gues due to the repeated headers.

[setarip_old]

Is there no way to cut and then merge the cuts, of existing mpeg2 DVD compliant files, without a licence, and without decoding and re-encoding and therefore without loss of quality??

Once again, this can be accomplished by using the fre, fully functional trial version of "TMPGEnc DVD Author" (Different than both "TMPGEnc" and "GUI DVD Author"):

http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tda.html

[heideki]

With Mpeg2Schnitt (that's german for Cut..) you can cut your Mpeg-2 files right away without re-encoding. It's a free app.

http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/DigiTV/Mpeg2Schnitt071.zip

As setarip_old says, TMPGEnc DVD Author is a simple and effective way to cut and author your mpeg-2 files. But it's not free though, except the trial version. If you're not intressted in creating your own menus and such, then IfoEdit (http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Vobtools/Ifoedit0971.zip) is a free and simple DVD authoring program.

[kenwak]

With Mpeg2Schnitt (that's german for Cut..) you can cut your Mpeg-2 files right away without re-encoding. It's a free app.

http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/DigiTV/Mpeg2Schnitt071.zip

As setarip_old says, TMPGEnc DVD Author is a simple and effective way to cut and author your mpeg-2 files. But it's not free though, except the trial version. If you're not intressted in creating your own menus and such, then IfoEdit (http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Vobtools/Ifoedit0971.zip) is a free and simple DVD authoring program.

Thanks....
Tried Mpeg2Schnitt on my MPEG-2 files, but Mpeg2Schnitt says format not supported. Perhaps it's because they are PAL (I'm in Australia).
I then read that you need to change the exttension to m2v, tried that but then there was no audio, so I split with tempgenc and used the orig mpg renamed to m2v with the audio out of tempgenc, seemed to work but what a mess when I tried to load it into GUI Author.

Tempgenc DVD Author is very limited in it's menu capability, I also wanted to create additional menus to display static information, can do in GUI DVDAuthor but not tempgenc dvd author.

My mpg are created out of a compro DTV card, videomate, and I just want to split the recordings without re-encoding. Tempgenc dvdauthor does this, but the suthoring options are bery limited, what a shame Mpeg2Schnitt does not load and split the combined mpeg2 video/audio recorded file, cutting out a single new mpg file tpo load into GUI DVDAuthor.

Anyone got any suggestions?

[heideki]

Tried Mpeg2Schnitt on my MPEG-2 files, but Mpeg2Schnitt says format not supported. Perhaps it's because they are PAL (I'm in Australia).

Mpeg2Schnitt supports PAL. But instead of loading the .mpg-file you must demux it into one video file (.m2v or .mpv) and one audio file (.mp2 or .mpa). Just renaming the .mpg-file to .m2v and then load the audio won't work. You can demux your .mpg-file with TMPGEnc.