Compressing Mpegs? Ulead Files?

[turet]

I've just made the leap to video recently. Have been working with audio for awhile. What a hassle!

I made the mistake (perhaps) of trying to go for an external capture device. ADS Tech didn't work at all and they couldn't figure out why. Adaptec VideOH DVD works fine, but only with the older version of MyDVD. The MyDVD 5.0 in the Deluxe suite won't even edit the older files produced by itself. I was mostly interested in that suite because it promised to reduce file size quite a bit.

I'm mainly interested in transferring my taped TV shows, conference speeches and whatnot to DVD. Many are slightly more than 80 mins, so I need some kind of compression or I'm stuck splitting between DVDs.

Fortunately the Adaptec unit does produce good Mpegs and I've found that Ulead's Video Studio seems to be the best editor. But alas it doesn't compress.

I ended up with Roxio's Easy CD/DVD Creator 6 (after I swore I'd never get another ROxio product again after all the hassles getting Creator 5 to work with the then-new WinXP), But here I am again.

It promises to compress, but only offers an ultra-compression rate that they call "roughcut," which I don't even have the guts to burn and view because I'm sure it's awful.

I came over here to look at the DVDshrink program to see if it could handle mpegs, or something. Not that I can get Ulead's program to output an edited mpeg.

I'M SO FRUSTRATED!

U.S. Tv shows are 45 mins or so, without commercials. I'd love to be able to get two on a DVD. Or get an entire video movie on a DVD and still maintain some level of quality.

Any suggestions?

[setarip]

One set of procedures (other posters may/probably will suggest alternative methods) would be:

1) If not already DVD-compliant, use "TMPGEnc" to convert the MPEG to compliant MPEG2-for-DVD format - Use "TMPGEnc's" DVD wizard/template to accomplish this (This step may not be necessary, if your MPEG-2 filies are already in DVD compliant format)

2) Use "TMPGEnc DVD Author" (a different program than "TMPGEnc) to easily create the required additional DVD files and structure (and chapters and a menu, if you wish)


**If the combined filesize of the DVD "package" written to your hard drive is greater than 4.37Gb, use DVD Shrink (or similar) to compress


If your O/S is either Win2000 or WinXP, TMPGEnc DVD Author can also burn your DVD. Otherwise, use NERO to burn in "DVD-Video" mode
(As an alternative to "TMPGEnc DVD Author", you could use "DVDLab")


Let us know of your success ;>}

[turet]

Thanks setarip! I knew there had to be a way around this. How do I know if my Mpegs are DVD-compliant? I did download the bitrate viewer, just for so, but the manual isn't available right now and it's all Greek to me anyway. I can just try running a file through TMPGEnc and see what happens I guess. I did download that.

I assume the TMPGEnc DVD authoring program also lets you trim and edit commercials and whatnot, right?

I'll go check out DVDLab as well.

[turet]

Oh, one more thing. I have some tapes with very poor audio. Because I do have some experience w/audio, I intend to re-engineer the soundtrack and put it back on again. (I'm not sure how this syncing works and I'm sure it'll be not much fun...any advice on that?)

One thing I do like about the Roxio product is that you can remove/replace a soundtrack with the click of a button...something Ulead's Video Studio doesn't...I would have to record video and audio separately and then add the soundtrack.

Do you know how easy this would be in DVDLab or the TMPGEnc DVD Author programs?

[setarip]

"Thanks setarip!"

My pleasure ;>}


"I would have to record video and audio separately and then add the soundtrack.

Do you know how easy this would be in DVDLab or the TMPGEnc DVD Author programs?"

Both programs will readily accept separate video and audio tracks for input...

[turet]

Hey Setarip! You're the one who turned me onto DVD Lab.

Do you know how to get movies into the Connections screen? I've tried dragging and dropping on the file tree, on the Connections screen itself...there don't appear to be any drop down menus for that. Help! I'm in the middle of trying to do this and can't save the work mid-way, I guess.

Also I don't want any menus. I know it's possible to go from First Start to the movie (if I had a movie icon to connect to). Is that all I need to do? What happens to the root menu box in that case?

And how do I not have the movie extend to infinity? If I don't tell it to return to something (if I don't have a menu, I have nothing to return to), how can it not extend to infinity.

The instructions are kinda scant.

Thanks!