[newbie] Storing MPEG-2 files on DVD

[Carbon14]

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here but I'd appreciate any advice I can get....

Using an ATI card, I capture material in DVD compliant MPEG-2 format. I would like to simply save these files to DVD for set-top playback without all of the hassle and time involved in normal DVD encoding and authoring.

My set-top DVD player (Afreey 2060) has the ability to play back audio files (MP3) through a file browser interface. It displays a list of files and folders on the TV and I can scroll through them to pick the file I want to play.

Are there any set-top players (or player/recorders) that would allow me to achieve the same thing with MPEG-2 files?

[Carbon14]

Okay, everyone I talk to pretty much says the above (browsable file system) is not going to work on a set-top box. So, I figured I'd bite the bullet and see what sort of a DVD I could make with the tools at hand. The end result works...but there's gotta be a simpler way - please jump in and correct me where I go astray....

First things first - I'm trying to do this with free (or at least inexpensive tools).

So the process I hit upon is as follows:

1) Capture MPEG-2 video using ATI AIW card.

2) Use Womble MPEG-VCR to edit out commercials - not free but the user interface is so much better than TMPGEnc and its fast.

3) Use TMPGEnc MPEG Tools - Simple De-multiplex to split audio and video files

4) Use IFOEDIT - DVD Author to re-mux into a VOB and generate IFO.

5) Use DVDShrink - Re-author to add video segments (separate VOBs from each capture) into a single Disk.

6) Use ImgTool Classic to generate an ISO image.

7) Use DVD Decrypter to burn ISO image to disk.

Voila, a working DVD disk (mind you it is sans menu).

I imagine there are commercial tools that would simplify this process but I'm cheap. If there's a recommended inexpensive tool that would combine these steps I'd be glad to hear about it - provided its fast and doesn't make coasters.

Still, are there any obvious shortcuts or ways to combine some of these steps? For example, the de-muxing only to turn around and re-mux seems to be a waste of time. However IFOEdit was the only tool that I could find that would generate an IFO file and matching VOB and it (as far as I could see) only accepts a separate video and audio stream.

[ormonde]

I believe you could ultimately simplify the steps down to the following two:

1) Capture MPEG-2 video using ATI AIW card.

2) Use an "Authoring" application such as "TMPGEnc DVD Author" (different than TMPGEnc or TMPGEnc Plus) or "DVD Lab" to create a DVD-related file structure (.IFO, .BUP, .VOB) from the DVD compliant mpeg-2 file(s).