Mastering M100i programs to set-top DVD recorder

[Christopher Kinsman]

Please search online forums carefully. I have read some really scathing reviews about the Lite On products. I recently purchased a new old stock Pioneer 320 for under 150 on ebay. Pioneer seems to have a decent rep. Hope this helps, Kind Regards, Chris

[Jerome Robbins]

[Kieran Matthew] “As an asside though, one of the cow users (Jerome I think) posted a while back that he was using a Philips DVDR-615 that worked with Media 100 firewire control directly. If he’s around, perhaps he can chip in with his experiences ?”

It really is a great convenience to be able to make a DVD in realtime. The finalizing process takes only a couple of minutes. In the Hardware menu I select “no machine control and generic DV” then when you Master to Tape check the DV box hit the Master to tape button and manually hit record on the Philips 615 ( R+).

My Panasonic DMR-E60 (R-) will not accept the signal from Media 100. So, I sometimes will Master to Tape on my DSR-30 or DSR-11 deck and then output the firewire to the Panasonic Standalone recorder for a DVD.

If you still want to use your Desktop recorder for making DVDs for customers, I would suggest mastering to dv tape and then outputing via firewire to your deck. It is fast and for those customers that do not need menus it works just fine.

I personally do have BitVice and DVDStudioPro but spend the time to use them only on special as needed projects.

good luck,

jerome

[Michael Slowe]

Jerome, two questions regarding your latest post (28 Sept). Do you see a big quality difference between your direct record to a ‘set top’ DVD machine and what I would call a ‘proper’ encode, format and burn using BitVice and Studio Pro? And, do you find there are compatability issues with other players using a ‘set top’ recorder?

I found that quality is far better encoding properly and that the resultant DVD never causes problems in any player, regardless of what you do (2x, 4x, 8x forward and back, stop, start).

[Jerome Robbins]

[Michael Slowe] ” Do you see a big quality difference between your direct record to a ‘set top’ DVD machine and what I would call a ‘proper’ encode, format and burn using BitVice and Studio Pro? And, do you find there are compatability issues with other players using a ‘set top’ recorder?”

I am pretty new to Bitvice and StudioPro and at first the set top was definetly superior. However, after working with the settings I would rate them the same now.

As for compatibility issues, I have made hundreds and hundreds of DVDs on my 2 set tops (one is R+ & the other R-) over the last 4 years. I have only had 5 problems. Three were compatibility issues with their players being manufactured prior to 2000. The other 2 issues were with bad media.

For the last 8 months I always use Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden DVDs and have had no issues.

jerome

[Michael Slowe]

Thanks Jerome for your interesting answer. If there is no great difference in quality between the two methods of producing DVD’s why are some of us (most?) spending time (six hours for fifteen minutes) and money (for BitVice and SP) compared to mastering straight to a set top box? Can Floh kindly comment please?

[Kieran Matthew]

Hi Michael,

Set-top DVD recorders get their quality from relatively high bit-rates and encode in CBR. Whereas this is fine for short videos, I have found that long periods of CBR can cause problems when playing in software DVD players on computers – the sustained rate leading to occasional skipping etc.

Software encoders give you the felxibility to fine tune your data rates etc, and with VBR and other filters/tricks can make things look nicer at lower data rates/file sizes. Handy when you are trying to cram over two hours on single layer DVD.

Again this is all about the best option for the job in hand.

You mention about the expense of DVD SP, but everything I make (even approval copies) generally come with nice menus, chapter points in relevant places, DVD-ROM content, and in some cases interactive functions courtesy of eDVD. For that kind of stuff you need software like DVDSP even if you are encoding via hardware.

K

[Floh Peters]

[Michael Slowe] “Thanks Jerome for your interesting answer. If there is no great difference in quality between the two methods of producing DVD’s why are some of us (most?) spending time (six hours for fifteen minutes) and money (for BitVice and SP) compared to mastering straight to a set top box?”

There definitely is a difference between stuff encoded with BitVice and recorderd on Standalone recordes. Both have their advantages for some cases. The standalone recorders are obviosuly quicker, and we use them for a lot of client review discs. We produce several hours of TV-shows each week, and most of them go through 2 steps of client approval before going to the TV station. These previews are recorded to standalone recorders, since the content (plus the speed of delivery) is much more important than the image quality. Since the final shows get reviewed on DigiBeta or HDCam anyway before sending them out the quality of the DVD recorders is really enough there. Previously they got VHS tapes, so DVDs are obviously an improvement.
We did produce several commercial DVDs, and of course these are encoded via BitVice. But it seems like your BitVice encoding times are somewhat high. For SD source material we usually get ~3-4x realtime results with BitVice (3 to 4 hours for encoding one hour of material). So six hours for 15 minutes seems to be very high. Of course there is a difference when you