How/Should I convert MPEG-1s to DVD format?

[tluxon]

[edit]I re-read my initial post and I couldn't make any sense of exactly what I was asking :). I hope it's okay if I severely edit it to make my question more clear.

Here goes. I have a dozen or so MPEGs that I made from home movies, TV shows, TV movies, and TV sporting events. At the time I didn't have a DVD burner, so I experimented with what seemed to fit on a CD-R and be playable on my standalone DVD player. I also wanted to be able to further edit/cut/join them with TMPGEnc (which seemed to be the simplest free set of tools), so I came up with a couple strains of MPEG-1 (I wasn't quite ready to pay the $50 for T-Plus at the time) and templated them (inspired by KVCD). These strains of MPEG-1 have bitrates (typically VBR) peaking anywhere from 1500 to 2500 kbits/sec, depending on how many minutes I hoped to fit on a single CD. They also used framesizes of either 352x480, 480x480, or 704x480. But the bottom line is that they seemto play well on my Panasonic XP30, most notably MPEG-1 with 704x480 framesize and max bitrate of 2450 kbits/sec. So, I ended up with a few varieties of MPEG-1 video that all play on my standalone, so I'd like to be able to use them without re-encoding, but I'm not at all sure what's the best way for me to go about it.

I have way too many hobbies already, so I don't really want to try every path here to come up with the optimum solution. I figure I could just drag them all into Movie Factory 2 and they'd be made DVD compliant for burning. But that would certainly involve re-encoding and seems to me that it would use precious time and restrict me from getting the most efficient use of filespace?

Is there a more sensible simple method or tool (preferrable free but I'd pay for one if it's all I need) that enables me to get these to DVD? Should I just follow the SVCD to DVD guide or would it perhaps be best to just leave them as they are and burn them to CD-Rs?

Are there any free (or under $80) tools that will allow me to author discs with non-DVD-"compliant" videos? I've seen the names DVDLab and SpruceUp - how do they compare and will they do what I'm talking about in this post?

On the re-encoding side, last winter I experimented with frameserving CCE with VFAPI and really liked the resulting quality, but there are so many variables that are controllable that it seemed like it was going to be very time consuming to come up with an easy-to-use system. For a lot less trouble, I could get a bit lower performance and quality using TMPGEnc, but I haven't yet forked over the $50 to get back the MPEG-2 capability. This is because I already have Womble (MPEG2VCR), which I like for editing ReplayTV files. I feel like as long as re-encoding is going to be forced on a file, I have a lot better control over it with TMPGEnc, but Womble is much, much, quicker and nicer to use for cutting/joining video. Can someone offer an opinion about which route is the best to go for simplicity here?

Thanks,

Tim

[mudda_t]

If you want to leave them in mpeg1 your best bet is to stick to cdr.
DVDlab allows you to use non-dvd compliant sources (480-480) but doesn't support mpeg1, only mpeg2.

For simplicity if you do decide to re-encode to mpeg2 stick with movie factory. I think the default bitrate for it is 8000k, but you can easily (manually) set that to whatever you like to save space, same goes for framesizes. You'll also want to change the audio output to mpeg audio instead of the default (I can't remember what it is, I think pcm) because that will save you a lot of space.
The only downside to movie factory is its speed, or lack of.

Because you want to keep it simple stick with ulead, it doesn't get any simpler. I could tell you to do this with X-program, then do that with Y-program, oh and don't forget Z-program, but then it no longer stays simple.

So far I have not heard of anyone able to put vcds in mgeg1 on dvd without first re-encoding to mpeg2, not to mention changing the audio from 44.1Khz to 48Khz.

Good Luck

[echooff]

First: you don't need to make a new post to correct a post; just use the edit button.

Mpg1 files, while sized correctly are not dvd spec. You can change that with dvdpatcher. Find the link for that and a guide with my answer to your last post.

[oddyseus]

Well, here r the facts.

1. Your framesizes r dvd compatible, except the 480x480.
2. Your audio isn't. It must be upsampled to 48khz.
3. Mpeg1 is within specs as long as its bitrate is upto 1850kbs.

That said, reencoding to mpeg2 will just lower the stream's quality, that is already at svhs level at its best.

In fact u r facing a two path road.

i. select whatever clips r already within specs and author them with ifoedit
ii. search if vcdeasy or another vcd application, nero, easycd etc, is capable of producing a vcd image that will fill a dvd-r and arrange the rest of the clips in such a disk.

[smiller667]

Originally posted by oddyseus
ii. search if vcdeasy or another vcd application, nero, easycd etc, is capable of producing a vcd image that will fill a dvd-r and arrange the rest of the clips in such a disk. Be aware that hardly any standalone player (none?) will play back such a "maxi-vcd". Most players will do a medium check first - if it is DVD, they won't even consider playing back vcd structures from such a medium.

You might be better off with some of the new avi-capable players as they seem more flexible in terms of media type & content.