Converting HDTV (ATSC) TS to DVD: A Struggle

[knarf829]

Please be gentle with me. I've been reading here for a long time, and have searched this and other forums endlessly and have read the DVB to DVD guide to no avail.

I want to take some HDTV .ts files and cut out the commercials, then transcode them and put them on a DVD-R to play in a stand alone player. It sounds simple enough, but I'm finding it isn't.

Here's what I'm doing so far. Why is this not working for me?

1. Open the .ts in PVAStrumento and Demux (I tried HDTV2MPEG, but the audio always goes out of synch - on AVS forum the current developer indicates it's not really a cutting tool).
1a. I tried to make a PVA in PVAStrumento, but it always crashes out on me
2. Open the mpv and ac3 from step one in either MPEG2Schnitt or Cutermaran and cut out the commercials, giving me a new cut mpv and ac3 file

This is where my problems start. I know I need to get the frame rate down to 30 (when using a 720p 60fps source) and the resolution to 480 (something my DVD player can handle) but I am lost on how to do this. The guide and I part ways here.

If I load these files into ifoedit, it immediately tells me there are too many frame drops and dies on me. Any other tool I've used at this point (DIKO or DVD2SVCD) chokes on these files, so I know they're not right.

DVDPatcher will fool IFOEdit into processing the file, but the result is all screwed up and I've got to go back to MPEG2Schnitt to re-cut everything and start over.

Is there a freeware tool that will bridge the gap between the mpv/ac3 HDTV resolution files that MPEG2Schnitt gives me and the file type that IFOEdit can use to make a DVD I can play in my stand alone player?

[jrmann1999]

Be more specific: Are you trying to take 1280p material and make a DVD at the same resolution? or are you truly recoding the material to DVD spec 720x480(or 476 for you PAL folks). If it's the latter you're going about it all wrong. You need to look into the following software(in order).

1. ProjectX(Absolutely the most useful HDTV processing tool available)
2. If PX fails, dvd2avi, the newest version supports TS files.
3. Avisynth + Virtualdubmod(to both calculate accurate frame cuts, and to process a cut ac3 file)
4. CCE or QuEnc to actually re-encode the video.

Plenty of tutorials exist on the individual properties of all those apps so I won't redo them here.

[knarf829]

Thanks for replying...

I'm trying to take 1080I or 720p resolution HDTV material, take out the commercials, and convert it to the 720x480 DVD-standard resolution.

ProjectX hasn't been kind to me because I've had trouble installing the Java module. I'll look at it again.

By the way to anyone interested...I've had luck with using TMPGenc to bridge the gap and create the 720x480 29.97fps MPEG2 files from the 1280x720p source.

It worked great, actually, when I just fed in what PVAStrumento gave me (uncut). I was able to burn a DVD off of it and it works great in my stand alone player.

When I put the mpv file that came out of MPEG2Schnitt (commercials cut) into TMPGenc, processed it the same way, and then remuxed with the AC3 file (commercials cut) from MPEG2Schnitt to create an iso, the audio gradually goes out of synch to the point it is unuseable.

The moral of the story is I will probably use PVAStrumento ---> TMPGenc to create DVDs of these files with commercials still there and just create chapters at the point where the show comes back from commercial.

Unless anyone can suggest why I'm having the audio synch problem with the cut files and not the raw file (ie is MPEG2Schnitt my problem in this respect and would Cuttermaran work better or the same).

[sjchmura]

EVE (www.mainconcept.com) is $40 and simply works. Loads the TS, converts to very very high quality MPEG2 for DVD after chopping out commercials. How much easier could you get?

[knarf829]

Originally posted by sjchmura
EVE (www.mainconcept.com) is $40 and simply works. Loads the TS, converts to very very high quality MPEG2 for DVD after chopping out commercials. How much easier could you get?

Thanks for the reply. I'll give the trial version a run overnight one night.

Funky thing about it is, sometimes using cuttermaran to cut out the commercials leaves me with a great, in synch file and sometimes it leaves me with a very screwed file that I can't use. I can't figure what causes the difference.

I'll try eve. Thanks again for the tip, and any others would be appreciated.

[kolak]

Originally posted by knarf829

I'll try eve. Thanks again for the tip, and any others would be appreciated.

Hi

You can use ProCoder2 to convert HDTV material to DVD standard material with very high video quality. You can do this directly: load to ProCoder2 Hdtv file (e.g. with "ts" extension) and set DVD output (if You want high quality set "mastering profile") with 16:9 proportion. You'll get (good proportion) dvd authoring compilant stream. One note: ProCoder2 dosen't allow Yoy to cut stream. It is rather slow encoder especially in "mastering profile" and it costs
500$

Ac3 You sholud extract from Hdtv stream using ProjectX. ProCoder2 can do (if you want) 2 chanel Mpeg2 stream from your AC3 stream. You shoul keep original AC3 stream (main opinion).
If you have problem with Java download leatest version and open ProjectX.jar with "Java(TM)2 Platform Standard Edition binary". That should work.