Need Help making DVDs!

[Crowdx42]

TOTALLY agree, the vcd help site is VERY poorly laid out, best way is to do a search, always found the same, hard to find the guide BUT when you do it is easy and very helpful.
Patrick

[stanger89]

might want to look for vfapi also.

[BigGator]

is that the utility that tricks Tmpgenc into thinking something is an AVI?

[stanger89]

It's kind of a "driver" that makes an MPEG look like an AVI. You save a project in DVD2AVI and then have the vfapi app make a fake avi out of the d2v file.

[mangriotis]

I have a related question. I have made several DVD's of recorded shows, all using full frame source material. That is, all shows were recorded from cable and encoded at 720x480. I had to re-encode at 640x480 to get standard 4:3.

I recorded a movie from IFC (D*) which was letterboxed. This source material is pillar boxed (but recorded as such by Sage, meaning the black bars on the side are part of the recorded frame), then letterboxed on top of that, so that there is a black border around the entire picture. I would like to make this a DVD but without the border... does anyone know of an editor that can do this?

[stanger89]

That doesn't sound right, Sage, or more correctly the 250 just records whatever the incomming signal is, it doesn't add any bars. My guess is that you are watching on a 16:9 display and that Sage or whatever player, sees the file as a 4:3 source and is pillarboxed in the player.

What you will have to do is crop the bars, resize the remaining picture to 720x480 and then mark the file as Anamorphic. You should be able to do it with TMPGEnc.

[falchulk]

I am not real sure why you want to encode to 640x480 anyway. Unless this is due to file size restrictions, 720x480 will give you are 4:3 picture as is.

[mangriotis]

To clarify, the input to the 250 is via S-Video from a Samsung SIR-TS160 box, which is outputting a 16:9 frame (the display is a widescreen RPTV). The program was shown in letterbox. Thus the output of the Samsung box was 16:9 with both pillar box and letterbox.

Essentially, my question is how to crop the black bars from the frame (both the sides and top/bottom). Can TMPGEnc do this? Will I have to use the previously mentioned method of streaming to get it to open the mpg file?

Also, when I record a show from a cable source (4:3 source, 720x480 encoding selected on the 250), then create a DVD from it, it appears to record in widescreen format, making everyone look fat. I used Ulead Movie Factory to do this. Is there simply a setting I can change while making the DVD to create a full frame version? When I reencoded the file into 640x480 (using MPEG-VCR) it created a 4:3 full frame DVD. Based on these responses, I feel like I am doing something fundamentally wrong...

[stanger89]

What you should be doing is outputting a 4:3 frame from the STB since that is what the 250 expects, and then use Sage to correct the AR for display on your TV.

Yes TMPG should be able to crop, and no you shouldn't have to stream, TMPG can open Sage files directly. Actually MPEG-VCR should be able to do it also.

As for Ulead, what you want to look for is a "widescreen" or "anamorphic" setting, it should be off with pretty much anything recorded by the 250 unless you edited it. Actually I looked and I doubt your doing anything wrong, it's more likely Ulead is stupid. I downloaded the manual and can't find any way to set the aspect ratio. You might want to take a look at another DVD Authoring program, like TMPG DVD Author.

[mangriotis]

Actually, the reason I don't output 4:3 is so I can watch Live TV (not using Sage) and OTA HDTV directly from the STB to the widescreen TV. When watching recorded content I simply use the 16:9 and 4:3 keys to switch between them, I also made Fill 135% vertical zoom so letterboxed content shows fullscreen.

Has anyone actually cropped a video using TMPG? I (like BigGator) couldn't get TMPG to even open a Sage recorded file.

[stanger89]

I opened one quick before I posted above, but I didn't actually try and save the file.

[Grey_Goose]

I'm trying the same thing, I'm using Sage as a digital vcr in an entirely different room.

So basically everything I record needs to go on a DVD. What quality do you guys record at?

[Ralphjb]

Kind of depends on what you want and the quality of the input too.

For much of what I recorded, I used the 1.8gig/hr setting. This allowed me to get 3 hours of video on a disk, and I did not feel I lost much quality compared to the 3.5gig/hr setting. But my initial source was only ok and the original programming material was also of limited quality.

I'd suggest experimenting.

Originally posted by Grey_Goose
I'm trying the same thing, I'm using Sage as a digital vcr in an entirely different room.

So basically everything I record needs to go on a DVD. What quality do you guys record at?

[Grey_Goose]

ok, i think i'm going to go ahead w/ a full-blown htpc.

i see sage's system requirements are a p3-600.

do you guys think dual 500's or dual 550's would cut it?

[Opus4]

Originally posted by Grey_Goose
i see sage's system requirements are a p3-600.

do you guys think dual 500's or dual 550's would cut it?

I don't think dual cpus make any difference, unless some software decoder out there can make use of them. My client is a dualie & it only maxes out 1 cpu when doing something intensive. (The SageTV screen saver used to do that to me.) On the other hand, you'll still have a responsive system if 1 cpu is maxed out.

The key will be how much of your cpu will be used for playing back mpeg video & how high a quality setting you want to use for recording -- can you play DVDs ok on that system? Some of it could depend on how much assist your video card can provide for playback.

My server is a p2-400 & it had a hard time playing anything much above 2-2.5GB per hour recordings, so I put a hardware decoder into it (xcard) and very little cpu is used for recording or playback.

- Andy

[davephan]

I would like to burn video recorded by SageTV onto video DVDs so that they can be played on a standard DVD video player.

I checked the TMPGEnc web site and some other video recording web sites, and became more confused which software I need. I sent the TMPGEnc web site an e-mail to dermine which software I need.

Here is the response:
"It is not clear on the Sage TV website if the system outputs a fully DVD-Video compliant file or if a re-encode is needed. If the outputted file is compliant, you will just need one of the DVD authoring software below. If not, you will also need one of the MPEG encoding software. "

I usually record with "Great" quality, 2 gigs per hour. Could I get some recommendations which software I need?

Thank You!

Dave

[fidget]

There are three DVD format recording qualities, and they are labeled as such:

DVD Extra Long Play ~ 1.8GB per hr
DVD Long Play ~ 2.5GB per hr
DVD Standard Play ~ 3.25GB per hr

[Ralphjb]

Originally posted by davephan
I would like to burn video recorded by SageTV onto video DVDs so that they can be played on a standard DVD video player.

I checked the TMPGEnc web site and some other video recording web sites, and became more confused which software I need. I sent the TMPGEnc web site an e-mail to dermine which software I need.

Here is the response:
"It is not clear on the Sage TV website if the system outputs a fully DVD-Video compliant file or if a re-encode is needed. If the outputted file is compliant, you will just need one of the DVD authoring software below. If not, you will also need one of the MPEG encoding software. "

I usually record with "Great" quality, 2 gigs per hour. Could I get some recommendations which software I need?

Thank You!

Dave

Using the TMPGenc DVD product, I created DVD's using Sage created files. I have recorded at 2g/h, 1.8g/h and 3.5 g/h, all with out problem when creating DVD's.

[naln]

Hi,

Regarding burning shows to DVDs- a lot of DVD players can play raw mpeg data files (unauthored DVDs). If u own such a player- it is just a matter of creating data DVDs of your shows.

I fould VideoReDo to be a really good program for editing videos. It seems very intutive and is really fast. There is a trial download at their website, which I think maybe a 15 day full version trial.

For burning DVDs from shows- using a standard DVD quality while recording overcomes problems of re-encoding. Try something like Ulead Movie Factory. If you bought a retail version of Hauppauge card- check the driver CDs, there may be a limited version of some such DVD authoring software that you can use.