gulikoza
13th March 2003, 21:20
Here's the situation: I have a PC (2200+), TV tuner, Pioneer DVD-RW drive and a DVD player connected to 29" TV. Thought it was about time to throw the old VCR to where it belongs, so I've started experimenting with Digital VCR. I've got some pretty good results with PowerVCR and mpeg2 compression (about 5.5Mbit..."DVD Profile") and it plays fine through TV Out. The problem is how to make a watchable DVD from these (or some other programs) files.
Most authoring programs will accept only m2v and ac3/mpa streams. I don't really feel like tossing 4GB three times (demux, mux, create image) across my disk, since I don't have the time nor will to do it. Surprisingly Sonic MyDVD that comes with a burner accepts .mpeg files as input and will even transcodes audio to 48khz (PowerVCR only records at 44.1). Other than that, the program is useless. I don't need any fancy menus or other stuff, just a disk that will play (and hopefully have some chapters to skip commercials) in my DVD. Files created in PowerVCR are usualy split in 1.8GB chunks, getting them together in MyDVD is unfortunately impossible (Maestro can append video files rather nicely...but as I've said, I don't wanna spend several hours authoring). The ideal program would of course burn the movie directly on DVD-RW, but if that's not possible at least something that could be done quickly before watching.
To sum up - So far I've tried:
- IV WinDVD Recorder - doesn't record directly to DVD-RW for some reason (it's capturing, but not recording anything!?)...in the end it crashes with DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS OR EQUAL
- Ulead Movie Factory - no scheduler for capturing (??), tries to reencode my existing PowerVCR files
- Sonic MyDVD - it accepts mpeg and transcodes audio...can't append (only create a different movie), chokes on some files with bitrate too high error (5.5Mbit mpeg+PCM sound hugh?!?!)
- Dvdit! - after accepting my mpegs, creating the chapters it suddenly wants 4.3GB on drive C:...no way :)
Any more ideas? I'm willing to trade quality for simplicity (something my mum could do ;)) and speed (schedule to record, come home, throw dvd into a player and open a beer can :)) to get something useful. How's everybody else doing the recording while you're not home?
Most authoring programs will accept only m2v and ac3/mpa streams. I don't really feel like tossing 4GB three times (demux, mux, create image) across my disk, since I don't have the time nor will to do it. Surprisingly Sonic MyDVD that comes with a burner accepts .mpeg files as input and will even transcodes audio to 48khz (PowerVCR only records at 44.1). Other than that, the program is useless. I don't need any fancy menus or other stuff, just a disk that will play (and hopefully have some chapters to skip commercials) in my DVD. Files created in PowerVCR are usualy split in 1.8GB chunks, getting them together in MyDVD is unfortunately impossible (Maestro can append video files rather nicely...but as I've said, I don't wanna spend several hours authoring). The ideal program would of course burn the movie directly on DVD-RW, but if that's not possible at least something that could be done quickly before watching.
To sum up - So far I've tried:
- IV WinDVD Recorder - doesn't record directly to DVD-RW for some reason (it's capturing, but not recording anything!?)...in the end it crashes with DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS OR EQUAL
- Ulead Movie Factory - no scheduler for capturing (??), tries to reencode my existing PowerVCR files
- Sonic MyDVD - it accepts mpeg and transcodes audio...can't append (only create a different movie), chokes on some files with bitrate too high error (5.5Mbit mpeg+PCM sound hugh?!?!)
- Dvdit! - after accepting my mpegs, creating the chapters it suddenly wants 4.3GB on drive C:...no way :)
Any more ideas? I'm willing to trade quality for simplicity (something my mum could do ;)) and speed (schedule to record, come home, throw dvd into a player and open a beer can :)) to get something useful. How's everybody else doing the recording while you're not home?