[wolfworx]

Two thoughts:

Could your Drive be something other than a DVD burner? i.e. a CD RW or a DVD read only.
Is it for DVD +R or -R or +/-R. You might try a different blank DVD/

[ConsumingHatred]

I was wondering if it was at all possible to make a DVD with MPEG-1 videos, they are by far much more compressed and to my knowledge my DVD player does play VCD. So, could I make a DVD with MPEG-1 compressed videos and still be able to make the menu and what not?

[jwaion]

Hi all
Its becoming common to have the little video cameras which captures videos on Mpeg4. I for one have many video Mpeg4 clips which i burn to DVD using Nero vision. Nero vision is a simple editing software which creates Home made DVD from selected video files. BUT, I have one problem. How to grab the file dates of the mpeg4 to appear on each video clip so that when we watch the home burned DVD video, we can see what date the video clip was filmed. Any Advise from this forum would be very very much appreciated.

[rfjohn13]

GREAT Tagline.
bob

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Mulderator

I wanted to update this thread because there is finally a product that does a good job encoding to MPEG--an external hardware encoder so this is the product/method I would recommend:

http://www.adstech.com/products/USBA...p?pid=USBAV702

With the above, you can encode MPEG in real time directly from a VCR or camcorder to the hard drive. With that, you eliminate Step 2 in my guide (encoding to MPEG):

If you have a digital camcorder, this is the same product with a firewire port:

http://www.adstech.com/products/USBA...p?pid=USBAV703

I just started scouring this thread today after several months of wrestling with a Vaio MCE (RA930G) with its "Click to DVD" and Windows Movie Maker and DVGate or whatever, and having it flatly refuse to recognize my VCR when plugged into either the front or rear RCA jacks. The Vaio's video card is a GeForce 6600, for what that's worth and the VCR is a standard, Joe-average VHS Hi-Fi relic, also made by Sony.

I read the posts by Mulder recommending an external USB interface and have a couple of questions.

- First, is it likely that getting one of these will allow me to bypass this Sony-engineered software nightmare so I can finally get these VHS tapes burned onto my HD?
- Secondly, since you recommended this ADS box in posts dated roughly two years ago, will this new ADS model do essentially the same thing? Link:

http://www.amazon.com/ADS-USBAV-709-...dp/B000EW62NI/

The reviewers say it has better editing software too - have you heard any professional reviews of this unit? A lot of the video will be clips of local bands, family video, etc. that will require a lot of cutting and pasting - do you do this after getting it encoded to files on your HD, or do you do it on-the-fly? Will the included Video Studio 9 handle this kind of stuff (fade-ins & outs, etc.,) or if not, what would you recommend for editing?

Assuming the interface gets straightened out and I can actually capture, I remember your post saying it's best to encode directly to MPEG2 or 4(?) so as to be in the ideal format...? (I'm pretty much illiterate at digital video.) Is this ADS box likely to give me the best convergence of video quality and ease of use?

An avalanche of questions...sorry - but I keep returning to this dead-end problem every few months and am as confused as when I started in '05.

I bought the Vaio late that year primarily for its being loaded up for multimedia ('more like maxed-out - I picked a remanufactured unit with max RAM, respectable audio & video cards, etc.,) but can't get it to do something as mind-numbingly basic as digitizing videotapes. I considered making it into a boat anchor, then realized I don't have a boat and anchors aren't fetching much on Ebay...

Arrrrggh.

[baobeiyang]

I'm desperately in need of help and I'm terribly sorry for the length of my message-- I can't make it clear without giving you the background info so please bear with me and help me

I bought a Toshiba Satellite M105-S3041 laptop last Aug. and it came with WinDVD Creator 2. At first it worked well, allowing me to create several DVDs for my friends. Then I started to have all sorts of problems with it. Right now my urgent problem is regarding the project files. I read this thread from the very beginning but I couldn't find an answer so I'm writing to seek any advice or help.

I started with the Capture function, using a firewire cable to transfer clips of vedio from my mini dv camcorder to the harddrive of the laptop. The clips were then saved as .wcp files (i.e., WinDVD Creator Projects) under a folder titled "WINDVD" I created in My Document/My Video. The way I named each of them is something like "032106 birthday party" with the numbers standing for mmddyy. Then I could just click on any of these projects to open the WinDVD Creator and the particular clip would be shown and I could go on to do the edition.

I haven't been using the WinDVD Creator for quite a while. A couple of days ago I wanted to organize the old projects (the clips that I uploaded before) by renaming them into yymmdd instead of mmddyy. Also, a little earlier than that, I downloaded RealPlayer to my laptop and I don't know if that automatically changed certain configuration of my laptop in terms of media playing. To my surprise, I was not able to open any of the renamed project on the WinDVD Creator. So I changed the name format back to mmddyy. But then if the project was completely new (never worked with after uploading) I would get the following Warning message, saying,

Warning Message: File not found
C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Videos\AV02032007_195850.mpg

Remove or Browse For Files

If the project was one that I had edited before, I would firstly see the warning message, not just for .mpg but also for .wma (music that I imported before), then eventually the project would be opened, but I noticed that it contained only still images (.jpg) I imported and edited into the project while missing all video parts and some music parts.

So, my question is, can anyone on this list help me to savage these project files? These are the only copies of the video clips that I uploaded and I have reused the mini dv tape in my camcorder so no original videos are available for me to re-upload! Do you know if these project files can be converted to some other format and be edited again, or be encoded, as Mulder suggested in his article? or they are simply dead?

One more thing I noticed is that a short clip that I captured from my camcorder to the WinDVD Creator that day just before I renamed all the old project files was saved by the computer in a different way-- directly as a Movie Clip that can be viewed by either the RealPlayer or Windows Media Player or can be imported into the WinDVD Creator and to be edited there. This seems to be different from my last year's experience of capturing video to computer (i.e. the clip was saved as .wcp, not directly as a movie clip). Anyone know why?

I really don't want to lose those precious video memories imbedded in those project files. So any help or advice from any one of you would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thank you,
Baobeiyang

[2000wolf]

Good job Mulder ,you are so helpful .

[addme]

I have download one , it works pretty good .
Thank you .

[hilton1234]

hello, i couldn't find anything just by looking so i thought id write in for some help.

i have some films on my pc that i want to put on dvds (yes i have dvd RW etc), i have converted it from avi to mpeg dvd (not LCD) but i can choose between NTSC DVD & PAL DVD ?? not sure there but i chose one 2 see if it would work..

ok i did that anyways and then i converted that to DVD and it went from one file to a folder with 2 folders in, one audio and one video, is that right?

lol I have ended up wasting so many of my dvds i thought id try and get some help.

cheers tom hilton

[W0JT]

NTSC is the video standard used in the US, PAL is the video standard used in Europe. (Sorry, I can't be more specific than this, but if you are in the US, you almost certainly want NTSC).

It sounds like you are progressing in the right direction. A video clip to be watched on a PC is typically a single file, such as *.avi, *.wmv, *.mpg, *.mpeg, etc. However, the standard format for your typical stand-alone DVD player is very much more complicated. As you saw, at least a AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folder, and in the video folder, numerous files with obscure names like VIDEO_TS.BUP, VIDEO_TS.IFO, VTS_01_0.BUP, VTS_01_0.IFO, VTS_01_0.VOB, etc. If that's the sort of output you have seen from your conversion program, it sounds like it is indeed preparing the files for burning in DVD Video format. (Just look at a commercial movie DVD in your PC's DVD player with Windows Explorer. You'll see the same sort of collection of files.)

So, have you tried burning the results onto a recordable DVD disc and seeing if the disc can be played in a DVD player? Remember, the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders MUST be at the top directory level. In other words, you can't make, for example, two folders called Movie-1 and Movie-2, and copy the *_TS folders as sub-folders of those to put two separate projects onto the same blank disc.

Other issues to deal with at this point in the process:
1) What is the size of all the files in the two *_TS folders combined? This will tell you
if you can fit the result onto a single-layer 4.7 Gb DVD, or need to use a dual-layer
9.4 Gb disc.
2) Some stand-alone players are fussier than others about what brand and type of
recordable disc you use for your blank. I believe that in general, DVD-R is more
likely to work in a stand-alone DVD player than DVD+R, but sometimes even two
different brands of DVD-R disc will behave differently in a particular player.
3) Some stand-alone players are much more forgiving, and some can even read the
native single-file formats in addition to the highly structured DVD movie format. So
a disc that plays in one of those players may not be readable anywhere else except
on a computer.

I hope that helps.

[hilton1234]

Originally Posted by W0JT

So, have you tried burning the results onto a recordable DVD disc and seeing if the disc can be played in a DVD player? Remember, the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders MUST be at the top directory level. In other words, you can't make, for example, two folders called Movie-1 and Movie-2, and copy the *_TS folders as sub-folders of those to put two separate projects onto the same blank disc.
I hope that helps.

hello, thanks for help so far.

ok i have tried to burn my files to a DVD and i get the following: no disk in my dvd player, and on my PC dvd player: ASPI for Windows not available! Only 32-bit CD-ROM driver supported. Please make sure 32-bit CD-ROM driver installed. and in WMP: "Windows Media Player cannot play DVD video. You might need to adjust your Windows display settings. Open display settings in Control Panel, and then try lowering your screen resolution and color quality settings." ??? anyways i thought id try to lower my resolution just in case but it didn't help.

do you think it could be file that i am starting with? i have recorded other normal data cds with my drive and they all worked fine, have i not installed my drive properly?

i am using "WinAVI Video Converter Full Edition" to convert and then "Burn4Free CD and DVD" to burn

thanks, tom hilton





ok i have tried again and converted my mpeg to avi then avi to dvd using winavi. i then burnt it using burn4free. i tried it on my tv and it didnt work, on my pc it reconises that it is a dvd but cannot play it...

[byanoseau]

Hi Mulder,
I want to transfer VHS tapes to my computer but I want them in .avi format before I transfer them to DVD. Is the ADS Box still the way to go to do this?
Thanks.
Byn

[addme]

Hello all friends ,
I hope these messages can help you :

Share : how to rip DVD and convert Video to iPod

Share ：how to convert dvd and video to iphone

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[addy999]

Well nicejob multer you have covered almost everything of this topic ...

[addme]

Have you try them ?

Share : how to rip DVD and convert Video to iPod

Share ：how to convert dvd and video to iphone

Share ：how to convert dvd and video to zune