Burning DVD's from Windows Movie Maker projects...

[Bob Evans]

I have recently purchased a Sony DCR-HC30 for use in
filming my sons football games. The purpose is to produce
game films for the coaches and players to review.

Using Windows Movie Maker (WMM) I am able to easily
capture the video in DV-AVI format and modify the movie
to fit my needs. I am able to save it back to the camera
to create a master archive tape of the edited version as
well.

I need to be able to do this, plus convert to MPEG-2, and
burn 5 DVD's as quickly as possible. Output quality
should be very good quality NTSC.

I have tried using TmpGenC and currently takes more time
than I have available for turning DVD's around. I plan on
experimenting with it more this winter, but for now need
something that does the conversion quickly while
sacrificing the numerous options and as little quality as
possible.

Galan Bridgman recommends MyDVD in his article "Burn a
Movie Maker Project to DVD" (see
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/expert
/bridgman_burndvd.mspx ) citing that it is the simplest
means in his opinion of producing a working DVD the first
time. I am technically sophisticated enough that I don't
necessarily need something that simplifies it so much as
a product that meets the criteria I outlined above of
trading speed for flexibility in options and as little
video quality as possible.

I appreciate the groups suggestions on how they would
accomplish this.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Encoding can only work at the speed of the PC.... if you need it to happen
faster, then consider upgrading CPU and RAM. You may also want to try
TMPGEnc Xpress.... but for fastest encoding you'll need a high end CPU with
HyperThreading.

http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/te3xp.html

 

[Bob Evans]

Yikes. You didn't make your first suggestion "buy a bigger hammer" did you?
I am going to cut you some slack and move past commenting further on the
basis that you are an MVP and you don't get the money, perks, or recognition
you fully deserve. Plus I didn't specify in my question "with existing
hardware". The point was that everyone commenting on TMPGenC knows it is the
best and the slowest, so I was kind of surprised.

As I mentioned, I eventually do want to be able to use TMPGenC. However,
specifying the settings that I had seen in a number of postings as the those
responsible for the best output resulted in estimated conversion times of a
minimum of 20 hours on my system. The number of settings, the resulting
permutations of setting combinations, and the amount of information that has
to be understood to independently determine the best settings is
overwhelming at this point in my evolution as a digital movie maker. Hence
the request for something simpler and faster. It sounds like your
recommendation of TMPGenC Xpress is right on the money.

After further reading, I think I may have found a link on PapaJohn's site to
what I was looking for: http://dvd-hq.info/Compression.html . This page
provides a very specific set of settings to use with TMPGenC, why they were
chosen, and possible values to adjust based upon certain properties of the
file being converted. I didn't find anything else this specific or succinct
in the several user guides I had seen recommended on this. I currently have
a conversion underway using the settings recommend acting upon the same AVI
file that previously was estimated at 20+ hours. This time the estimate is
approximately 4 hours. Hopefully the end quality of this will meet my
expectations. If it does, this was what I had been looking for all along.

After that completes I am going to download the Xpress trial version and use
it on the same file. When I am done I'll compare the results and go with one
of these two products. My only concern is that with Xpress being a different
product and my being relatively knew to this area of computing, I may not be
able to setup a fair comparison.

Regardless, based upon all the info and recommendations such as yours, it
seems to make sense to stick with PegaSys products.

Thank you for your response and your support of these forums.

 

[Guest]

Hello Bob
I use DVD santa and it is REALLY easy and fast. Works great!!
Heike Tash

 

[Mike T]

I have recently purchased a Sony DCR-HC30 for use in
filming my sons football games. The purpose is to produce
game films for the coaches and players to review.

Using Windows Movie Maker (WMM) I am able to easily
capture the video in DV-AVI format and modify the movie
to fit my needs. I am able to save it back to the camera
to create a master archive tape of the edited version as
well.

I need to be able to do this, plus convert to MPEG-2, and
burn 5 DVD's as quickly as possible. Output quality
should be very good quality NTSC.

I have tried using TmpGenC and currently takes more time
than I have available for turning DVD's around. I plan on
experimenting with it more this winter, but for now need
something that does the conversion quickly while
sacrificing the numerous options and as little quality as
possible.

Try CinemaCraft encoder, it is excellent quality and very fast, the basic
version is also excellent, just does not have as many options. They have
free trial versions.

http://www.cinemacraft.com/eng/home.html

Tmpgenc is excellent quality, just slow.

Mike T