What do you do to bypass transcoding with DVD authoring

[Cross673]

Ulead DVD Movie Factory4 will not re-encode DVD compliant videos by default. Its also very easy to use. Just import a video(s), set up menu(s), then burn. If you want to edit out the commercials first then try VideoRedo Plus.

I use Ulead Movie Factory 3 SE. It came bundled with my Hauppauge PVR USB2 tuner from Snapstream. Since Ulead Movie factory 4 doesn't allow deletion of commercials I use v3.0 SE. It lets me import and edit videos (cut commercials).

[bits]

Originally Posted by Cross673

I use Ulead Movie Factory 3 SE. It came bundled with my Hauppauge PVR USB2 tuner from Snapstream. Since Ulead Movie factory 4 doesn't allow deletion of commercials I use v3.0 SE. It lets me import and edit videos (cut commercials).

For speed, simplicity and the ability to cut commercials use TMPGend DVD Author ($60). TDA is GOP accurate, it only cuts at 'I' frames. It also has decent DVD burning capability. I have used this on over 300 recordings with no issues.

If you want frame accurate cutting, the ability to fix broken mpegs, to fix audio sync, to work with HD stuff then hands down go with Videoredo Plus. It also has a very good commercial finding app called Ad Detective. After you cut your commercials, fix your audio (if needed) dump it into TDA and burn away!.

Better yet buy a network media player and forget about burning DVDs.

[vibri2001]

Originally Posted by Bilar Crais

Why compress to Divx? THe DVP-642 will play the BTV mpeg2 as is, without DVD authoring.

I compress my recordings to Divx because of the sheer volume of discs I would have otherwise. I am trying to archive as many TV shows as I can and by compressing with Divx I can get a full season of sitcoms on one DVD and a full season of drama or Scifi on 2 DVDs. Burning as MPEG2 would take at least 2-3 times as many disks. It's not so much the cost of the discs but the storage of them.

[fmharr]

I Aurthered a DVD last night:

1. 24 7:00-8:00
2. Boston Legal
3. Criminal Minds

Edited out commercials with VideoRedo Plus.
Burned to DVD-RW using Nero 6 Ultra (50 minutes to complete burn).

All three shows on one dvd. Recorded using Good (DVD Ready) mode.
No reencoding was performed.

Quality of DVD was identical to BTV source video!

It's great when I can get 3 hours of video on one standard DVD!

Mike

[bits]

Originally Posted by fmharr

I Aurthered a DVD last night:

1. 24 7:00-8:00
2. Boston Legal
3. Criminal Minds

Edited out commercials with VideoRedo Plus.
Burned to DVD-RW using Nero 6 Ultra (50 minutes to complete burn).

All three shows on one dvd. Recorded using Good (DVD Ready) mode.
No reencoding was performed.

Quality of DVD was identical to BTV source video!

It's great when I can get 3 hours of video on one standard DVD!

Mike

You say that the burned 3hour DVD looks the same as the BTV source, does that mean you viewed the DVD on your computer?

The problem with your method is that if you ever do view your DVD on a large screen TV it will not look very good, it will most certainly be of lower quality than the original broadcast.

3hours on a DVD is fine for small screen TV viewing but sooner or later you will get a large screen TV and you will wish you had not sacrificed quality for saving a few DVD discs.

[gohandbz8]

From what I am reading, it looks like Ulead Movie Factory will bypass the transcoding and just burn the dvd?

I use Videoredo Plus to edit out commercials.
Also, I'm burning to DVD for other people to watch for those asking why.
Thanks for all the help

[fmharr]

Originally Posted by bits

You say that the burned 3hour DVD looks the same as the BTV source, does that mean you viewed the DVD on your computer?

The problem with your method is that if you ever do view your DVD on a large screen TV it will not look very good, it will most certainly be of lower quality than the original broadcast.

3hours on a DVD is fine for small screen TV viewing but sooner or later you will get a large screen TV and you will wish you had not sacrificed quality for saving a few DVD discs.

Did you even bother to read my system spec's below?

I also did NOT say that the DVD was equal to the broadcast source, I said that it was identical to the BTV Recording (recorded using GOOD (DVD Ready)).

I have my computer connected to my BIG screen HDTV and my BOSE system with its DVD player is connected to the same HDTV. The output of my computer goes to my HDTV (SVIDEO) and the BOSE system goes to the HDTV (Component Video).

Playback on the bose of the DVD is IDENTICAL to the recorded video played on the computer w/output to the HDTV.

Mike

[bits]

Originally Posted by fmharr

Did you even bother to read my system spec's below?

I also did NOT say that the DVD was equal to the broadcast source, I said that it was identical to the BTV Recording (recorded using GOOD (DVD Ready)).

I have my computer connected to my BIG screen HDTV and my BOSE system with its DVD player is connected to the same HDTV. The output of my computer goes to my HDTV (SVIDEO) and the BOSE system goes to the HDTV (Component Video).

Playback on the bose of the DVD is IDENTICAL to the recorded video played on the computer w/output to the HDTV.

Mike

No I did not look at your system setup and if I had my response would have been different. My rant, which has become an automatic reflex, on cramming too much on a DVD is getting a bit outdated now that more people are using HTPC and networked media players.

I am not a fan of DivX and I agree with you that the one of the fastest best ways to reduce file size is to cut commercials from the mpeg file.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by bits

I am not a fan of DivX

Why not? Why is it anyone worse than MPEG-2?

[bits]

Originally Posted by wayner

Why not? Why is it anyone worse than MPEG-2?

DivX is not worse than mpeg2. I am not a fan of DivX, h264 ect.... for reducing file size on files that will be played on a TV. Too many people think DivX is magic and that you can reduce files by 10x and have just as much quality as the original mpeg, that is just not true. BTW DivX, h264 Xvid ect... do NOT compress the file, they do NOT work like zipping a data file, they reduce file size by eliminating video data and using algorithums to fool your eyes that the data is still there. You may already know this but I see many posts in which the poster uses the word compression when talking about video file size reduction.

I think you can reduce mpeg2 file size using DivX by about 25-30% and maintain the same quality BUT the re-encoding time, which is time that the PC is not usable is unattractive to me. Also, once you DivX the file you really can not go back to the original quality mpeg2. DivX is also a bit harder to edit and to play than mpeg2. Finally, there is a good selection of good capture cards with hardware encoding that go directly to mpeg2 but few good choices for going directly to DivX.

If there were a reasonably priced good capture device with onboard DivX encoding, that worked with BTV or Sage (good scheduling capability) and software that finds and cuts commercials as well and as accurately as let say Videoredo then I would be DivX'ing my brains out!

[fmharr]

Originally Posted by bits

No I did not look at your system setup and if I had my response would have been different. My rant, which has become an automatic reflex, on cramming too much on a DVD is getting a bit outdated now that more people are using HTPC and networked media players.

I am not a fan of DivX and I agree with you that the one of the fastest best ways to reduce file size is to cut commercials from the mpeg file.

I should also add that my purpose in creating the DVD-RW with the 3 shows was not for archival purposes, but so that my sister could view the shows that they missed while on their vacation. The DVD-RW will be erased and resued for additional catchup shows for them.

I use the GOOD setting for my recordings because I don't see enough improvement between GOOD and BEST to justify the double space requirements of my harddrive.

I almost allways delete the recordings after viewing. If I determine to save a movie to DVD for archival purposes, then I will record it in BEST mode.

Mike

[dat5150]

http://www.adstech.com/products/USBA...d=USBAV-709-EF I bought one of these suckers from Sams Club for $60 and use it in conjunction with my mini DVD player. It converts in real time to Mpeg 1, 2, Divx, Ipod vid, PSP vid and others....takes no CPU power. Usually put in a DVD every night before I go to bed.

Otherwise, I use Nero 7 ultra to convert SS recordings to Ipod vid or others. I'm getting hooked on the ADS external though.

[MickP]

For what it's worth here's what I do to archive stuff:

I've been using two different approaches to archiving depending upon the desired output.

The first requires use of Cyberlink Make DVD. Make DVD needs to be purchased but has a 10ft interface that works well on the TV using a remote and is worth checking out. I have made a basic BTV theme for Make DVD as the default themes are pretty lame. PM me if you'd like a copy.

After using this for a while I realised that there was usually little reason for me to be creating DVD's that could be played in a DVD player and that a simple backup/copy of the mpeg files to DVD is all that I need. For this I use nerocmd.exe which requires that you have a copy of Nero installed on the machine. I've added a btv folder for my DVD drive and have found that BTV is happy to play files directly from the DVD. You can view the contents of such a DVD via the folder view in btv. All of the original metadata is displayed just as if it were sitting on the hdd somewhere.

The main issue that I've had with both of these approaches is how to select the files to be archived and then edit them before burning them to DVD so that I'm not backing up the padding and commercials.

To work around this I'm using the following batch file as the archive command in BTV.

The main goal that I've had when working on this process is to allow everything to be controlled via my remote without need for keyboard interaction or sitting down at another pc and dragging/clicking stuff about.

The workflow is:

Select the archive to disk option for a show and select the archive option:



Say yes to the archiving prompt...





If the file hasn't already been cut/processed by IGCProcessor then the brilliant IGCutter will be opened.

I've looked at other editors (for use in this context. I use Premier if I have a Wedding to edit) and haven't found anything that beats IGCutter (imho). Like Video Redo it preserves the BTV show metadata through edits and recognises/saves BTV Smart Chapters. Best of all it's FREE! IGCutter is also lightning quick compared to some of the editors out there as (like Video Redo) it doesn't ever transcode or re-encode video.

I've configured Girder to control most functions of IGCutter. If you're a Girder user you can find a recent(ish) copy of my .gml here. Unfortunately I don't know anything much about configuring Firefly or other natively supported remotes.



Use your remote to update any existing smartchapter data or create new smartchapters for the programme data that you'd like to keep. I often find that I don't need to make any changes. Save any smarchapter changes and exit IGCutter (hopefully with a couple of button presses on your remote).




When you exit IGCutter you'll be asked whether you would like to process the file. Selecting no will quit the process and leave the file where it is. This is handy if you just wanted to update the smarchapter info.

If you select Yes for this option (via your remote) the file and associated smarchapter .xml file will be moved to your archive folder (or whatever you choose to call it) and will be queued for processing by IGCProcessor which will automagically cut out anything not included by the Smart Chapters.

There's no need to wait for the processing to complete before editing and submitting further jobs. This means that you can get very good throughput when you have time for an edit and archive session.



To make sure that you can read what's going on I've used an excellent commandline app called OSD which you can find here. I've included this in the zip below.



If you select a file that's already been processed/cut by IGCutter (ends in _cut.mpg) the above step of opening the file in IGCutter will be skipped and the file will be copied to your archive folder.



If you select the "Burn to CD or DVD" option for a file that's in the designated archive folder the file will be copied back to your main recording foler and you'll see the message below.




Unfortunately (imho) there's a limit on the number of images that can be included in a post so I'll continue in a further post below.

Here's what the current archive.cmd file looks like:

archive.cmd:

 
@echo off
rem batch file to handle submitting archive jobs to igcutter
rem
rem If archive is selected for a show and it is not currently in
rem the archive folder then it is edited with igCutter.
rem on exit a dialog asks whether to process the file.
rem 
rem If yes is selected then the file is moved to the archive folder (set below) and 
rem is processed by IGCProcessor to expunge the commercials etc.
rem
rem If archive is selected for a file that is already in the archive folder 
rem then it is moved back to the main folder 
rem
cls 
set filetoedit=%*
 
rem ********************************************************************
rem ********** Edit the following lines to match your setup **********
rem ********************************************************************
set archivepath="f:\BurnQueue"
set cutterpath=c:\igcutter
rem mainpath is used if moving files back to a folder after edit
set mainpath="f:\shows"
rem ********************************************************************
rem ********************************************************************
 
rem move to igcutter path to make sure dialog thingo works
cd %cutterpath%
echo.
echo file to edit is %filetoedit%
echo.
echo archive path is %archivepath%
echo.
echo path to cutter stuff is %cutterpath%
echo.
rem check to see if archive command has been called for a file already in the
rem archive directory. If not we edit it with the igcutter thingerer
echo %filetoedit%|find %archivepath% /i
if not %errorlevel%==0 goto editfile
:moveback
rem burn has been selected for a file that is in the queue directory. Assume that there is too much in the archive 
rem directory or something and move back to main show folder
echo.
echo Moving back to main folder %mainpath%
echo.
osd text="Moved file back to %mainpath%" ftrans=10 fsize=24 hpos=center vpos=middle
move "%filetoedit%" "%mainpath%"
if exist "%filetoedit%.chapters.xml" move "%filetoedit%.chapters.xml" "%mainpath%"
goto endaction
:editfile
rem check to see if file is already cut. If so then there's no point editing
rem as the processor won't run on any files that end in _cut.mpg anyway
echo %filetoedit%|find "_cut.mpg" /i
if %errorlevel%==0 goto alreadycut
echo.
echo Running editfile
echo.
call "%cutterpath%\igcutter.exe" "%filetoedit%"
rem ask if we want to process this file with cutter
start /wait BatchQry /Type=YES_NO /Message="Cut file %filetoedit%?" /Caption="Cut file?"
if ERRORLEVEL 2 Goto endaction
rem we must have answered yes so move the file and process directory
osd text="Moving file to to %archivepath% for processing" ftrans=10 fsize=24 hpos=center vpos=middle
move "%filetoedit%" "%archivepath%"
rem also move any associated chapter file
if exist "%filetoedit%.chapters.xml" move "%filetoedit%.chapters.xml" "%archivepath%"
rem Call igcproccessor to process all files in the archive directory
"%cutterpath%\igcprocessor.exe" /stealth /deleteoriginals /exitwhendone "%archivepath%"
rem exit so we don't steal focus inapropriately
exit
goto endaction
:alreadyCut
rem burn has been selected for a file that is not in the queue directory but
rem has already been cut. Move it to the burn directory
echo.
echo File already cut. Moving to burn directory
echo.
osd text="File already cut. Moved to %archivepath%" ftrans=10 fsize=24 hpos=center vpos=middle
move "%filetoedit%" "%archivepath%"
goto endaction
:endaction
rem make sure that btv has focus back
"C:\Program Files\SnapStream Media\Beyond TV 3\BTVD3DShell.exe" /mode fs

Mick.

[MickP]

(contd)...

To check out what you have queued you can select the "view by folder" option and locate the archive folder:



You'll need to check out the size of files that are in the archive folder befor proceeding with burning options. You can select the "Burn to CD or DVD" option for files to move them back to the main recording folder if there is too much to fit onto a disc.



I've added some links to Beyond Media for burning shows. If you don't own BM then you should scold yourself harshly and run along to the SS store to buy a copy asap :P. The first link is to a batch file that launches nero.cmd to burn the files in the archive folder to a dvd. This is the most common method that I use to archive files.

Here's the contents of the file:

"C:\Program Files\Ahead\Nero\nerocmd.exe" --write --real --iso BTV_Archive --drivename D --underrun_prot --speed 16 --create_iso_fs --dvd "f:\BurnQueue\*.*"

If you create a BTV folder for your dvd drive BTV is happy to display the files on the currently loaded dvd along with all of the original metadata so that it's just like viewing files that are still on the system.



NeroCMD is a console style app that does what it's told without any pesky button presses etc. If you wanted I'm sure you could get something like DVD Decrypter to do the same thing. I have about 5 complimentary copies of Nero that came with various DVD and CD burners tho so won't be attempting this soon.





To be continued...

Mick.

[MickP]

Archive stuff part three...

Cyberlink MakeDVD2 is a pretty decent program for creating dvd's on an HTPC. In addition to creating DVD's it can also burn picture slideshows and audio cd's. I've found the audio burning thing particulary nice when friends are around for a visit (I didn't say that).

Here are some pictures:



















Mick.