Multiple different AVIs to DVD?

[crouton23]

I've been searching for more than the 5 day waiting period and haven't found an answer to this specific question. I initially thought this would be more appropriate to the Newbies forum, but the big hang up is probably going to be in the DVD authoring part of this process. So here we go.

I have multiple AVIs of different resolution and framerates. I would like to be able to put them onto a DVD that would play in a DVD player (specifically my PS2, if that makes any huge difference.) I've come up with a method that I think works, but can't check for reasons that will become obvious. If I can get confirmation that this does work and I can (eventually) verify it myself, maybe this could be a useful FAQ for others looking to do the same thing.

1) Open Movie1.avi in VirtualDub and save the audio track to an uncompressed .WAV file. Repeat for each movie I want to put onto the DVD. This preps the audio to be recoded from 44kHz to 48kHz which is what the DVD format wants, avoiding any MP3 issues. (like VBR)

2) Open up Besweet and recode the various .WAVs into an AC3 format at 48kHz. Now, our audio should be prepped. We're done with it for now.

3) Open up a MPEG2 converter. (I'm using TMPGenc.) Load up the .AVI in question, change the output setting to be an elementary MPEG2 stream (.m2v) Change the resolution to 720x480. Set a bitrate. Do for each .AVI I want to convert. OK, here is where I get stuck. Do I really want to convert to 720x480? What kind of bitrate do I want to ensure I can put multiple movies on the DVD? And why does it take 30hrs on my 1ghz Athlon? (per movie?)

4) Now we have elementary MPEG2 video and audio streams. Open up TMPGenc again, go to MPEG Tools. Multiplex the video and audio streams into a .MPG file. The options for MPEG2 are Program and SVCD. Which one is the better format for a DVD?

5) Now we (hopefully) have DVD compliant MPEG2 files. This is where things get hazy. According to the IfoEdit authoring guide, we want to somehow get the MPEG2 files into a .VOB format, as well as editing/creating an .IFO file to point to the right movie(s). Since I'm trying to do multiple movies per DVD, I imagine I would need multiple PGCs. Or, somehow combine all the MPEG2 files into one, and simply have menu buttons that go to a chapter marker at the beginning of the 2nd, 3rd, etc movies. However, AVIs of different framerates can't be merged, and I doubt MPGs can overcome this issue.

6) Profit! Really, hopefully after all this hand waving we get a series of files that are ready to be burned to DVD. And with even more luck, the DVD will be actually playable in a DVD player like a PS2.

So there it is. If I'm waaaaaaaaay off-base, please let me know. But since I have .AVIs and a DVD-burner and a PS2, this came up and I thought I would at least give it a good try.

[maa]

Well I'm sure there are as many ways to do this as there are authoring programs but from your #(4) you can go straight to IFOEDIT and menu /DVD author /Author new DVD, enter your stream names in the boxes (choose show all files) and it will make a VOB SET per film.
After thats finished for each film, copy or move the second film to the first film directory after re-naming it to vts_02_0.IFO/VOB.
Delete the Video_ts.ifo that is created each time. When you have them all together open DVD Fab and hit "Create Video Manager (Video_ts.ifo)"
Now you have a set of films in VOB form that you can burn to a test DVD.
The disadvantage however with this method is; the navigation afterwards, because you have no chapter points in the film the "next" and previous buttons don't work.

[echooff]

You realy should run some test for bitrate. If you keep your video under 2000 It should be ok. You also might get smaller audio file sizes if you encode to mp2. I use avi2wav to pull the audio out. This leaves me with a mp3 with a wav header. I go strait to mp2 from that file with BeSweet. I always test the audio to ensure a proper file. Use the template (under load) in tmpgenc for dvd. It works well. I agree with maa has for the streams. Why bother to mux? Go strait to the authoring tool. IfoEdit is free and there are excellent guides on this site for its proper operation. Go to the Doom9 guides. Everything you asked and we answered is covered in much greater detail. If ypou are uncomfortable with IfoEdit There are a number of others in a wide price range. There are far more experienced people on the forum, but if you have any questions you think I could help you with feel free to contact me.:D Remember, always test your DvD before you burn.

[crouton23]

Going to the Doom9 guides got me to this point. As well as 5+ days of reading the forums for anything remotely pertaining to the subject at hand.

Still trying to find out if TMPGEnc should take that long on the recode from AVI to .m2v.... 30 hours seems overly excessive, based on my limited knowledge.

[auenf]

tmpgenc isnt the fastest program around, and 30hrs sounds like you are using 2 pass vbr.

for DVD, you want to use 720x480 for NTSC, and choose a bitrate that makes the file(s) fit on the disc.

best thing to do in tmpgenc is select 4:3 on the general tab and 1:1 on the advanced tab, and choose 2pass if you want a specific bitrate, or use constant quality if you want to take pot luck on files size.

cce will be faster, but you'll have to learn avisynth to do the resizing and letterboxing.

Enf...