cramming tv shows on a dvd

[longshot5000]

okay I have a family member that only has a dvd player they want to watch some of my tv shows I have on my hard drive that are in avi format. I use to convert these shows to vcd format and cram around 9 shows onto a dvd, but I wasn't really happy with the fact that I was forced to 4:3 screens. I want to be able to keep the 16:9 but the quality of vcd - so i can put about 7-9 episodes per dvd I make. I found that when I selected the resolution of a vcd but kept 16:9 on a mpg2 that tmpg dvd plus says that is not an accepted format.

I have read about changing the bit rate and have set the maximum too 6000 - average too 3500 and min too 300 and tried to set cq to 70 but on Main concept it would only let me change it and it is set to 10. Anyway main concept doesn't conver the file properly comes with no sound and is only part of the video. I have tried tmpg but it wants to take 9 hours to do one episode. Please can anyone help me with this

[Matthew]

The low-resolution DVD options (e.g. Half-D1) are only compliant with 4:3 aspect ratio - although that's not to say some dvd players will not play them. So AFAIK if you want to stay compliant and use 16:9, you need to use full-D1 (720 x 480/576). But that of course is a problem when packing so many mins onto a DVD (if these are 45 min episodes).

Also keep in mind that the moment you switch from 4:3 letterbox to 16:9 the required bitrate to maintain quality goes up. This is because the hardcoded blackbars go bye bye and they don't require much bitrate compared to "real" video.

[longshot5000]

thanks for the reply,

but I new that I wouldn't be able to do the lower resolution at 16:9. That I have to keep the resolution at least 704x576 - but what I want to know is what program can I use that isn't as slow tmpg but that can let me convert my AVIs into mpeg2 - quality can be ok.


I have tried it on Tmpg with adjusting the bitrate max. and min and average but 10 hours per 45 min. episode is long. I have a P4 2.8 with 1 gig...so i was hoping for faster.

I have tried a program called Main Concept - and it does it in 37 minutes...but messes the video up - no sound and only partial video

[Peter1234]

longshot5000,
If you know how to use AviSynth and mux audio you can use FreeEnc with only one pass. It converts my 720x480 DV files to 720x480 mpeg2 at 3000 kbps in almost real time on a 3GHz P4. Results are good. You can also use QuEnc 0.56 in constant Q mode and get almost the same speed without the need to mux audio (although there seems to still be some minor bugs in it). This is only the conversion to mpeg2, you will still need to author the DVD.

[Matthew]

mmm okay, well my point was you can't keep vcd quality because you can't use low resolution. They go hand in hand. vcd bitrates at full dvd resolution looks, well, awful.

Main Concept is pretty good apparently but it's primarily a video encoder. To get best results with audio you should always process it separately (e.g. using besweet for mp2).

avisynth+CCE is another thing to try. Faster than tmpgenc.

You might want to look into using DVD2SVCD (with authoring disabled, obviously).

Given how low your average bitrate is going to be, I doubt a freeware mpeg-2 encoder will cut the mustard.

[longshot5000]

thanks for the replies I will try out a few things - I really don't care if the quality is subpar - just watchable without artifacts - I have tested the quality of one that I did on tmpg and it look decent on a standard tv set. Unfortunely here in Australia most tvs are just standard - high quality tvs are just way over priced. A decent quality plasma screen is around $5,000. Maybe one day:) - plus this is for my in laws who just want to watch some tv shows I have backed up, and I used to do them on in vcd quality and get 9 episodes. I would be happy with 7 episodes for now. The most I have been able to get is around 4, and that is doing a lot of work - converting with main concept then creating the dvd and it is usually larger thant 8 gigs - then using dvd shrink to compress it by 51 percent. So far no artifacts, but I would like to cut down my time of processing.

[Paulcat]

This might be easier than you think. Just use TMPGEnc (or Plus or Xpress) to make a vcd compliant MPG file.

Under SETTINGS -> ADVANCED, Source Aspect Ratio select 16:9 Display
Under SETTINGS -> ADVANCED, Video Arrange Method select Full Screen, Keep Aspect Ratio

This will create a VCD compliant MPG1 file. If you use TMPGEnc DVD Author to make a dvd, it will convert the MPG1 files to MPG2 automatically. And if you want to use CD Roms to make a few VCD's, the files are ready to go.