Hi All

I have been reading through the threads on how to put uplodaded files from the hummy onto DVD. I have no problems doing this.

I have two questions: 1 about putting files onto DVD, and the other is about converting the file to something smaller in (memory) size for archiving.

1.
The problem I seem to have is when I put several episodes of a programme onto a DVD.

I use TMPG DVDAuthor. When I include a video file, a single hour takes up about 65% of a 4.7GB disk.
Therefore if I put 2.5 hours of video into the compilation, the disk is 162.5% full. Therefore, there is a lot of compression that is needed to reduce the bitrate to fit the video onto the disk.
I have noticed from results in the past that the result is a video that is not overly blocky (which would normally be the result from a lower bitrate), but it does seem to be skipping frames (apparent when the camera shot pans around)

Is this the experience of other users here, or do other authoring programs have better compression algorithms that result in a better DVD?
I have tried first converting the ts files to divx and xvid, but I cannot get a proper output (the video becomes scrambled, and I'm sure it's something to do with the settings).

2.
So what do people here do when they archive their hummy files? At 1GB per hour (or sometimes 2GB per hour), it won't take long to fill up a disk!
I would like to encode to divx or xvid, as then I can burn to a data DVD to play on my divx player or my Zen (portable mp3/video player), but (as mentioned above) I always get problems on the conversion where the playback is scrambled.


I think this forum is great (and have used the advice here to install the USB cable mod, which is soooo much quicker than using the e-linker!), and I appreciate the suggestions and advice from the regulars/experts!

Alex
(Wenvoe Transmitter)

In step 1, compile a multi-episode DVD as usual and use DVDShrink to fit onto a 4.7Gb DVD disc (or burn onto a dual layered disc - 8Gb available).

In step 2, use SimpleDivX or AutoGK to compress to DivX or Xvid. Compress using the oversize DVD files on the PC - not from the reduced files burnt onto the DVD disc.

http://h2d.wikispaces.com for some (old) info/techniques...

OK, so now I'm having one of those 'banging my head against the wall' moments in a 'why didn't I think of that?' kind of way! I do have DVDShrink, but never thought to use it with this! duh...

I will give the conversion tools a go soon!

before you use DVDShrink - I think you may be re-encoding the MPEG2 files with your DVD authoring. The size of the TS files varies with the channel, but even the biggest are about 1.5GB per hour. You should thus generally reckon to get at least 3 hours per DVD layer.
I use ProjectX to demux the TS files (and importantly for my fringe area, it corrects the sync errors) and then use DVD-GUI to author the DVD. This definitely does NOT re-encode the MPEG2.
FWIW

I have finally gotten round to making a good dvd:

1. Used Mpeg2repair to clean up the ts file.
2. Used TMPGenc DVD Author for the authoring (I found that after chopping out adbreaks, I can squeeze 6 '1hour' episodes into about 11GB (I'm pretty sure it's not re-encoding, but it takes a lot longer to create the output files, so maybe it does?!)
3. Used DVDShrink to compress to about 80% (for an 8.5GB disk)
4. Then I used PGCedit then IMGBurn to burn DL disks (something i read somewhere about the layer transition breaks makes nero a bit useless at doing them)

The resulting DVD is very good now!