9 steps in DVD burning?

[presto]

What are the 9 steps? What does transcoding PGC: Dpgc mean? (I know what transcoding is but my files are compliant and are not being trascoded so what is?)

[Rich A]

Well there are a lot of things that happen during a normal DVD authoring session. Some of which are setting chapter points, converting (maybe called trans coding) the original mpeg-2 DVD stream to a proper DVD VOB file, and splitting up the VOBs into 1 GB segments. Plus the additional normal DVD stuff like burning lead-out segments and such.

The audio and video has to be demultiplexed and then converted to those aforementioned VOBs. Then you need a first play video which is in our case is the main title screen.

In short there are a lot of "steps" needed to properly "author" a compliant DVD-5 or DVD-9 disk that will play in any stand alone set top box DVD player.

I think SS is just throwing up progress points of various steps so you know what's going on. Personally I don't think it's needed. Just an over-all to completion bar graph would be enough.

[merrypig]

Originally Posted by Rich A

I think SS is just throwing up progress points of various steps so you know what's going on. Personally I don't think it's needed. Just an over-all to completion bar graph would be enough.

Agreed.

[presto]

What I want to know is what does Snapstream mean by the 9 steps of the process. If they are going to show step 1, step 2...step 9 and if I am going to see phrases like "transcoding D-wgp ..." (that's not actual, just from memory) when I know my video is not being transcoded, I would like to know what they are trying to tell me.

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by presto

What does transcoding PGC: Dpgc mean?

http://inoffice.adm.ccu.edu.tw/edu/94paper_CCD.pdf

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by presto

What I want to know is what does Snapstream mean by the 9 steps of the process. If they are going to show step 1, step 2...step 9 and if I am going to see phrases like "transcoding D-wgp ..." (that's not actual, just from memory) when I know my video is not being transcoded, I would like to know what they are trying to tell me.

Sometime too much information can cause problems. The product is designed to be a quick and easy path to building a DVD compliant disc. The "average" user doesn't really need to know what is going on, only the state of progress over-all.

Having an LCD display on my washing machine that would read,

Adding water
Water half full
Water full - starting agitation
Adding detergent.
Washing at normal speed .. 1 minute, 2 minutes 3 minutes ..

Cute but rather useless in the grand scheme of things.

[presto]

Cute but rather useless in the grand scheme of things.

Ideally it would be there to help with trouble shooting. If it was done right it would be very helpful. If it is just meant to be eye candy it is idiotic.

Anyway, it is there and I would like to know what it means.

[rakeshagrawal]

Step 1/9: Transcode Slideshow Video
Step 2/9: Build Motion Menus
Step 3/9: Build all Menus
Step 4/9: Transcode Timelines
Step 5/9: Transcode Custom Audio
Step 6/9: Transcode Streams
Step 7/9: Plan Image
Step 8/9: Make Media Ready
Step 9/9: Write Image (actual burn)

I believe these are the official nine steps of the Sonic SDK that we are using in the DVD Burning Plug-in. We don't hit all of these steps, so it would probably make more sense to make it step 1 through 7 (or whatever), but we opted to simply pass through the status messages that were part of Sonic's SDK... including the cryptic ones like "transcoding PGC: Dpgc".

[apcmiami]

I am stuck on step 6 of 9 - Progress = 0%

I have two WMI that I am trying to author a DVD with. I have changed recorders/media with no success.

Current action states: Transcoding PGC;Dpdc;Track Etrk

Any Ideas?

This plugin is starting too SUCK. I guess I am going back to the old school method.

Originally Posted by rakeshagrawal

Step 1/9: Transcode Slideshow Video
Step 2/9: Build Motion Menus
Step 3/9: Build all Menus
Step 4/9: Transcode Timelines
Step 5/9: Transcode Custom Audio
Step 6/9: Transcode Streams
Step 7/9: Plan Image
Step 8/9: Make Media Ready
Step 9/9: Write Image (actual burn)

I believe these are the official nine steps of the Sonic SDK that we are using in the DVD Burning Plug-in. We don't hit all of these steps, so it would probably make more sense to make it step 1 through 7 (or whatever), but we opted to simply pass through the status messages that were part of Sonic's SDK... including the cryptic ones like "transcoding PGC: Dpgc".

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by apcmiami

I am stuck on step 6 of 9 - Progress = 0%

I have two WMI that I am trying to author a DVD with. I have changed recorders/media with no success.

Current action states: Transcoding PGC;Dpdc;Track Etrk

Any Ideas?

This plugin is starting too SUCK. I guess I am going back to the old school method.

There is another thread discussing something similar to what your problem is. I now wonder if there isn't a bug that is showing up because people are trying to use non-mpeg (either divx or WMI) with the DVD burner to burn actual compliant video DVDs. I said in the other thread that AFAIK BTV has no native mpeg trans-coding or encoding capability. Therefore you can only use the DVD burning tool to save non-mpeg files as data discs not a playable DVD video disc.

So if you were able to select to burn a Video DVD disk and you selected for the source file, something like a Divx or Wmx or anything not in the proper Mpeg DVD program stream, then BTV should put up a warning that you can't do that.

I've never been able to take a non-mpeg file and change it into an mpeg file -ever- using any BTV version. If I'm wrong please tell me how.

Showsqueeze takes an already encoded (during capture by the capture card) Mpeg and re-encodes it to your choice of some Windows media file, or Divx file. It will do that for any normal mpeg generated by the capture card as well as any captured digital transport stream captured to the hard drive as an mpeg transport stream. Both are just different forms of mpeg.

But you can NOT (afaik) go from a non-mpeg file to an mpeg file. Nor can you change any mpeg file parameters post capture. Why? I think BTV doesn't have any native mpeg encoder. Does this make sense or am I off base here?

Anyway, SS should look into their wording in the feature explanation on their web pages to be a little more clear. And it might make things easier to understand if they just said that BTV doesn't have any kind of post capture mpeg to mpeg encoding/trans-coding capability.

But it CAN transcode existing mpeg to divx or Windows media.

Bottom line, people are thinking they can take a divx or other non-mpeg file and use the DVD burner to make a DVD compliant Video DVD. You can't. If you want to make a "real" dvd video disk you have to feed it a proper mpeg.

[Kilrsat]

The burning process can transcode WMV and DivX files to dvd-compliant mpeg-2, prior to burning. When doing this, it can take a long, long time.

[nanook105]

Originally Posted by Kilrsat

The burning process can transcode WMV and DivX files to dvd-compliant mpeg-2, prior to burning. When doing this, it can take a long, long time.

I did this for about ten DVDs a couple of weeks ago and it did take a long, long time. Has made me think twice about showsqueezing recordings.

[Rich A]

Originally Posted by Kilrsat

The burning process can transcode WMV and DivX files to dvd-compliant mpeg-2, prior to burning. When doing this, it can take a long, long time.

Wow .. that'a news to me. When I tried I thought it was just hung up taking so long. I stand corrected. I guess you CAN take a Showsqueezed divx and have it re-encoded to an Mpeg DVD program stream during the DVD burning process.

I could see why it would take a long time though. Not really very practical.

So I guess to take a digital transport stream and turn that into a valid video DVD, you'd have to first do a showsqueeze on it, then let the burning engine change the Divx (or what-ever) to Mpeg-2 DVD format.

What we need is an encoder that will encode TS streams to mpeg-2 DVD streams so we could at least skip one time consuming step.

[Striz]

Originally Posted by nanook105

I did this for about ten DVDs a couple of weeks ago and it did take a long, long time. Has made me think twice about showsqueezing recordings.

Yeah, I stopped showsqueezing my Scrubs recordings, since my intention is to make DVD's (once plugin comes on rebate). There's no sense in taking the time to showsqueeze if you will be burning, then deleting your recordings. Wasting time and wearing down your harddrive is all that is accomplished, it would seem.

[Bigbird999]

VSO makes a program called ConvertXtoDVD ($40) that does the same thing as BTV claims/tries/does??, that is, it converts any video file (avi, divx, mpeg2, mp4 etc) to a DVD video disc. It works great. Converting a BTV Mpeg 2 recording is about 25-30 min per hour of video. avi-Divx to DVD is a bit faster at about20 min per hour. The Divx to dvd function is clearly targeting people that acquire avi/divx files on their computer by "other means" and want to be able to watch them on their TV from their standalone DVD player.

The resulting DVD files are excellent quality (if the divx file was excellent) but, not as good as the original DVD. Most of the files people acquire by "other means" are DVDs or mpeg captures that are compressed to avi/divx. When you convert mpeg 2 to divx the compression codec throws away data. The discarded data is stuff that you don't notice but it is still discarded. There is a loss of data thus a loss in quality, It may be imperceptible, but it is still a loss. When you want to convert a divx to a video DVD you have to reencode the divx to mpeg2. The codec does this by "making up" the data that is not present in the divx file (ie the stuff that was discarded when the divx file was created from the mpeg2 file). The "made up" data is not as good as the original data so there is another loss in quality. For the most part I don't see the quality loss, but in rapid motion scenes like a long shot of somebody running, the runners legs jump kind of like in a strobe light. So it is noticeable, not a deal breaker but noticeable.

The point is, why would you take a DVD compliant mpeg, compress it to divx and then reencode it back to mpeg2 so that you can burn it to a video DVD. Like striz says you are just wearing out your hard drive, not to mention reducing the quality of your DVD.

Everybody says that BTV takes a very long time, to do a divx to DVD conversion, but not how long. How long is long?

BB