Help with recording settings

[SiteWolf]

I'm new to all this and am not all that familiar with the various formats, etc.

One of my main reasons, at this point, of getting into this is to record my favorite TV shows....and burn them to disk.

For example, I'm a Monk fanatic and there's a marathon going on today. I'm currently recording, but don't know if my settings are optimal for being able to later burn these files in a format my standalone DVD player can play on my TV. I believe I was originally on 'Good' for quality...and the default mpeg-2 format. But that file was 1.75 gigs for a 1 hour show so even after eliminating commercials, it's not gonna fit on one disk- let alone the 2 episodes per disk I thought I might be able to do. I have since changed back to the default 'Fair' quality.

Recommendations? Stay with fair quality? Change to another format rather than mpeg-2?

Additionally....am I missing a setting that would eliminate commercials? Or..how would I do that after the fact somewhat painlessly?

[Terminal]

Well if your going to burn to DVD so it can play on a standalone DVD player, you really need to use a DVD compliant profile.

Here are a couple of good threads to read through.

http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15697

http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=16140

[Eric3a]

I don't have a DVD burner or stand alone player.... But aren't data DVD 4.7GB? So your 1.5GB would fit easily.

Eric

[Cal]

Don't forget about using something like dvdshrink. I record at 3.25Gig/Hour. 3 shows with comercials cut out can be shrunk down to a single dvd and still look great. I have'nt tried 4 hours yet.

[Terminal]

I don't have a DVD burner or stand alone player.... But aren't data DVD 4.7GB? So your 1.5GB would fit easily.

Eric

Yea a DVD can handle 4.7GB. I didn't really catch that on my first read. Are you trying to burn to a DVD or to a CD? Not familiar with any Standalone DVD players that can play a video file on a CD. Perhaps it plays AVI files? If so then you will need a program to convert the MPEG to AVI

[SiteWolf]

I'm not aware of any standalones that play avi files- some play mpgs, tho.

I don't have a DVD burner (at least at the moment) so what I was really asking was how best to burn these mpgs to disk. Using fair quality and mpeg-2 one hour of TV was still 975 megs...which doesn't fit on one disk.

I'm guessing, then, that I'll have to convert to a lower screen size or resolution 'cause I don't think commercials are taking up enough space to get down to 1 disk either............or maybe I should just break down and get the DVD burner.

[Terminal]

When you say disk you mean CD-R or CD-RW then? I think you will be hard pressed to get a MPEG file on a CD. You will have to use a really low quality. Wouldn't think it would look very good.

[Eric3a]

The best way to save mpegs to CDs is not to do it!.... And to convert them to Divx using Dr Divx or other software.
You can easily fit a movie at very good quality on a CD using DrDivx. It's time consuming and CPU intensive but the results are great (I have tons of movies on CDs)

BUT I don't know how many stand alone players can cope with Dvix. I know some do, but I wouldn't get involved because codecs change all the time.

If you're starting from zero now, DVD is the way to go.
Eric

[dvd_maniac]

I own both (cd-rw and dvd--+rw drive) and before I started using BeyondTV I recorded some of my favorite shows in VideoCD (cd-r) which CAN be played on MOST dvd players. Beyond does not record in VideoCD format however. So to finish off the shows I wanted to complete I would record them in Best quality, then use TEMPGenc to convert them from DVD to VCD, then use TEMPGenc to cut out commercails and Nero to burn on cd-r. I would definitely reccomend buying a dvd burner though, as the quality is superior. I usually put 5 1hour episodes onto a dvd-r so you'll save money on storage and use less discs for around the same price.

I hope this helps