how fast-burn a DVD for home player?

[George]

I'm wondering how to make a fast DVD that will play in home player. I'm
using a WinXP-pro PC that has a TV tuner on it, sounds silly but can be
interesting nevertheless.

If you were watching a show and press "record" (and stop it later), it will
record a file, like a TV commercial for instance, to several different
formats like these I've found so far...

XyzCommercial.avi (I "assume" this is high res TV)
XyzCommercial.mpg (obviously plays on MP3 players)
XyzCommercial.vcr (They call this the AVI VCR one)

Question is...Is there a way using one of these formats (or some other one)
that I can just "drag and drop" the file to a DVD burner...then go into
living room and put it into the DVD player to see on TV? (I'm trying to
avoid the extra steps of going through some SonicMyDvd or Roxio software to
create a menu and all that stuff.

Also, does it matter if I burn to DVD+R (I got these), DVD-R, DVD+RW (got
these), or DVD-RW?

And, about the ____.vcr file, this is first of heard of. Is this a standard
file format (know any place can get more info), or is this something cooked
up by ATI, the co. that made the TV-tuner.

Thanks,
George

 

[Wojo]

Hi George,
See my answers below:

I'm wondering how to make a fast DVD that will play in home player. I'm
using a WinXP-pro PC that has a TV tuner on it, sounds silly but can be
interesting nevertheless.

If you were watching a show and press "record" (and stop it later), it
will record a file, like a TV commercial for instance, to several
different formats like these I've found so far...

XyzCommercial.avi (I "assume" this is high res TV)
XyzCommercial.mpg (obviously plays on MP3 players)
XyzCommercial.vcr (They call this the AVI VCR one)

Question is...Is there a way using one of these formats (or some other
one) that I can just "drag and drop" the file to a DVD burner...then go
into living room and put it into the DVD player to see on TV? (I'm trying
to avoid the extra steps of going through some SonicMyDvd or Roxio
software to create a menu and all that stuff.

AVI will work with pretty much any DVD Authoring program as long as you have
the correct codec and apparently you do since the ATI TV Tuner is creating
the AVI files.
MPG also will work with "most" DVD Authoring programs.

As far as drag-and-drop burning that won't work since Windows XP doesn't
support DVD writing on it's own at this time.
MyDVD is quite simple to use though if all you want to do is create a simple
DVD movie without any menus etc...
Import and burn in a few mouse clicks.

Also, does it matter if I burn to DVD+R (I got these), DVD-R, DVD+RW (got
these), or DVD-RW?

Depends on the burner as well as the DVD Player. Some older models will only
work with DVD-R and some people have also reported they can only use DVD+R.
If your DVD Player is relatively new then more likely than not you can use
either one, makes no difference. If it is a video you plan to keep then I
certainly wouldn't waste an RW disk on it.

And, about the ____.vcr file, this is first of heard of. Is this a
standard file format (know any place can get more info), or is this
something cooked up by ATI, the co. that made the TV-tuner.

The .VCR extension seems to be an ATI thing, I found info on this site:
http://filext.com/detaillist.php?extdetail=VCR

Hope that clears things up for you.

 

[Guest]

In addition to Wojo's response........

1) The DVD players' manual will tell you what type of media the player will
play (ie: +R -R +RW -RW). So, if your player will only play +R and your
buddies will only play -R, you would need a burner that would burn both types
and you would have to make a -R for him and a +R for you.

2) DVD players require VOB IFO etc files that tell it how to play the movie.
You won't see any .AVI, .MPG or .VCR files on a DVD. .VOB is the required
finished product.

3) .AVI files (that aren't MPEG4) are huge since they're uncompressed so,
since the majority of DVD's are MPEG2 spec, it's best to set your ATI to
MPEG2, variable bit rate (VBR) 8,000 kbps, 48,000 khz audio. That is pretty
much standard DVD quality.

4) If you have a progressive scan player, for NTSC progressive scan
de-interlaced video, when you render the final product set the field order to
lower field first. I've found that ATI doesn't handle recording lower field
first very well (you may have better luck). So I always have to record by
frame then edit and create a lower field first file with the settings in 3).
Since the new file has DVD "specs", the DVD burning software doesn't have to
further render the file to get it to spec. It just creates the VOB IFO files
etc and burns.

5) .VCR files are unique to ATI, only your ATI player will play those files.

NOTEKY

 

[Wojo]

In addition to Wojo's response........

1) The DVD players' manual will tell you what type of media the player
will
play (ie: +R -R +RW -RW). So, if your player will only play +R and your
buddies will only play -R, you would need a burner that would burn both
types
and you would have to make a -R for him and a +R for you.

That is sometimes true, good point.

2) DVD players require VOB IFO etc files that tell it how to play the
movie.
You won't see any .AVI, .MPG or .VCR files on a DVD. .VOB is the required
finished product.

Correct again. Which is why the DVD Authoring program is needed.

3) .AVI files (that aren't MPEG4) are huge since they're uncompressed so,
since the majority of DVD's are MPEG2 spec, it's best to set your ATI to
MPEG2, variable bit rate (VBR) 8,000 kbps, 48,000 khz audio. That is
pretty
much standard DVD quality.

Correct, and the basic rule is approximately 1 hour of video to a standard
4.7GB DVD.

4) If you have a progressive scan player, for NTSC progressive scan
de-interlaced video, when you render the final product set the field order
to
lower field first. I've found that ATI doesn't handle recording lower
field
first very well (you may have better luck). So I always have to record by
frame then edit and create a lower field first file with the settings in
3).
Since the new file has DVD "specs", the DVD burning software doesn't have
to
further render the file to get it to spec. It just creates the VOB IFO
files
etc and burns.

Now there's some info I will file away. Thanks Noteky

5) .VCR files are unique to ATI, only your ATI player will play those
files.

I said that one already.

-Wojo