burning MM exports to DVD...

[mentalguy2004]

Hi,

I use WMM to capture, edit & title my camcorder videos, and I save the
finished movies "to my computer" with the intention of burning them to DVD
to use on my home DVD player. I'm now using Ulead DVDWorkshop to import
these vids, create a menu etc., now I've got to the burning stage, a 4gig
AVI video file has taken 6 hours to convert (in UleadDVDWorkshop) and is
STILL not finished.

Supposing I want the best quality available for my finished DVD, what
format/quality should I be choosing in WMM to save my video files? I can't
spend 6-8 hours waiting for 4 gig of video to be converted to DVD format.
Does anyone know whether saving a WMM video in a different format will allow
DVDWorkshop to either not have to convert it, or at least be able to do it
quicker? Or any other authoring software that can speed the process up a
little?

Many thanks...

 

[Guest]

I am in a similar situation.

WMM title animations are really something and I would like to make and them
on WMM and import them as MPEG into Pinnacle. WMM only saves the movies in
..WMV format.

How can I convert it to MPEG other formats that Pinnacle Studio 9 accepts?

Wishes ans regards,
Basil
Canada

 

[PapaJohn \(MVP\)]

Save it as a DV-AVI file (it'll be type I) and then use a conversion utility
to make a type II
DV-AVI file from it (see the Setup > Other Software page of my site for
links).

Studio 9 will use the type II DV-AVI file.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org

..

 

[Public posting]

Supposing I want the best quality available for my finished DVD, what
format/quality should I be choosing in WMM to save my video files? I can't

As high as practical, because the converting to mpeg-2 for dvd is going to
introduce some additional quality loss.

(You could also do raw, but that'd be rather large.)

spend 6-8 hours waiting for 4 gig of video to be converted to DVD format.
Does anyone know whether saving a WMM video in a different format will
allow DVDWorkshop to either not have to convert it, or at least be able to
do it quicker?

The source format isn't going to matter much. Sure, a simpler format will
save a little bit of decoding time, but most of the time is spent in the
encoding process.

And since a dvd player can only do mpeg-2, and WMM can't save in that
format, there's going to have to be some conversion.

quicker? Or any other authoring software that can speed the process up a
little?

I've never used DVDWorkshop, but just doing a dvd to Divx, 6-8 hours isn't
all that unreasonable. Especially when done in 'two-pass' quality mode.

Video encoding is just slow. And some codecs are much slower than other.
You could try another program, but I wouldn't expect it to be much faster.
Most codecs are designed for faster decoding than encoding.

That's why the fastest computer possible is usually used for video encoding.
And why special hardware is even better.

 

[mentalguy2004]

Excellent, thanks. I hadn't saved this movie in DV-AVI because I'm trying it
on my laptop and I just don't have the hdd space. I'll stick with my desktop
PC from now on...

 

[mentalguy2004]

Thanks for the advice, I am used to just copying the video straight back
onto the camera (tape) in real-time, I had no idea that making DVD's was so
time-consuming. Still, 10 hours and 31 minutes later, it's multiplexing the
audio/video, so I might just get it burned before bed!

 

[Rehan]

so I might just get it burned before bed!

Before bed!!! Most people do it first thing in the morning

 

[Guest]

Still working on what is really the best..BUT..have been useing the "other"
setting Check Box to Choose a DV-AVI Format for Save to Hard Drive..30-FRAMES
per second seems the tops for digital re-creation..I make 50-minute MPEG-2
w/MP-3 audio..these are Slide Shows mostly..I'm just starting to add some
Digital Video to these same slide shows..WinMM-2 most times takes twice the
time to SAVE your FILE((50-minute movie=120-minutes to SAVE in DV-AVI))this
50-minute movie is some 9-GB's in Size..Burning it to a Disk in Mpeg-2 will
drop that to about 2.78 GB's..I use a ROXIO EZ CD&DVD Creator-6
Edition..so..the first stage is about in REAL-TIME((50-minutes long))..and
the First Burn is also about 50-minutes long..but in ROXIO you can choose the
#-of COPIES..so..Disk#2,,#3,,#4..get Burned in about 11-20 minutes..which is
a huge relief..I would say go w/ROXIO..get your RAM up to 512 MB...TDK Blank
DVD-disks seem the best at consistently running at 4X...which also is very
important..ROXIO will give you read-outs on all these performance angles..I
add my audio at the very last opportunity..I do not Store my Video File with
an Audio File unless its going directly to the Burner..WinMM-2 is great for
this feature..as a WMM<can't remember the complete file-ext>Save Project
File..add your audio last..just before your ready to sit there for a couple
of hours.

 

[Guest]

Thanks PapaJohn & others. I did as per your advice and it worked. There was a
little work around though...

The DV-AVI created in WMM could not be imported into Pinnacle 9 Studio;
Pinnacle didn't recognize it as an importable file.

So, I used the ImageMixer program that came with my Sony DCR-DVD200 DVD
camcorder to convert the DV-AVI file to MPEG2 which was then acceptablt to
Pinnacle.

A bit of a round-about way but I got what I wanted.

Kind regards and best wishes,
Basil
Canada
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