[George Wing]

IN addition to what Eric mentioned:

Uleads DVD MovieFactory 6 Plus and/or VideoStudio 11.5 Plus.

These are relatively inexpensive, but they can give you BD and HD-DVD on regular DVD5 discs. I have actually made HD-DVD’s on DVD5, and they play on Toshiba HD-DVD Player. I never tried BD material on DVD5, but I heard/read that it works, and can be played back in PS3 and some Blu-ray players.

NOTE 1: these are “basic” HD discs (i.e. no menu overlay/popup functionality as in retail discs).

NOTE 2: you can only fit so much on DVD5 (about double on DVD9).

Regards,
George

[George Wing]

I did not think Sonic DVDit ProHD 6.3 had Closed Caption functionality. Since you are familiar with it, can you post some quick steps on how to add them in that software (I already have the scc files I want to add)?

Thanks,
George

[George Wing]

Sorry to ask more questions:

1) When you record from hard drive to the disc — can you tell if it is re-encoding — or is it just burning the recorded mpegs?

2) How long does it take to “transfer” about 4gb to a dvd disc (from the unit’s hard drive to disc)?

3) Are the pauses / freezes random — or do they appear at either the automated chapter marks, or between “segments” (between the different recordings you have on your hard drive)?

4) When you burn to disc — do you fill up the entire disc, or leave a little breathing room (I try not to go over ~4gb on a DVD5 disc). They burn from inner circle to outer edges, and sometimes the outer edges (if you fill it up to the max) are unstable due to handling and/or scratches…

5) When you use the device to burn from its hard drive to disc, does it create a standard dvd-video, or is it dvd-vr? What folders do you see on the final disc?

6) There are plenty of DVD Authoring packages for the PC — they just vary based on the features/options you want. The following “consumer” level programs have trials — so you could download and use them for the trial period:

-Ulead DVD MovieFactory 6 Plus
-Ulead VideoStudio 11.5 Plus — has more editing functions, and an authoring module similar to the MovieFactory Authoring software — just not all the bells and whistles as MovieFactory
-Sony’s DVD Architect Studio
-Mediachance’s DVDLab (they have several versions from Standard to Pro)
-and some dvd burners come bundled with suites that do dvd authoring

Regards,
George

[George Wing]

I also wish Vegas had this funtion — as it comes in handy at times. I’d actually like it in DVD Architect, where I can tell Architect to automatically insert chapter marks at the scene changes (eg — I tape highschool football games — and each play is a start/stop record. I take the dv video into another authoring package, tell it to auto insert chapter marks for each play — scene change — and then burn the dvd for the coaches).

There’s a free tool called DV_Date (or DV DateCode (something like that) — it will load in a DV video, and export a text file of the scene changes.

Regards,
George

[George Wing]

Hi,

Note sure what’s going on, but I have a few questions that might help uncover potential reasons for the playback issues:

1) what recording setting do you use in the standalone recorder (i.e. 1hr, 2hr, 4 hr, etc…)?

2) when you record, is it one single recording session, or do you record multiple videos per dvd (i.e. do you have multiple recording sessions on disc 1, or disc 2, etc…)?

3) what duplicating speed do you use (16x, 8x, 4x, etc…)?

4) Do you have auto-chaptering turned on in the recorder (i.e. every 10 minutes, every 20 minutes, etc…)?

5) have you tried using dvd authoring software on your computer?

6) when disc 1 and 3 play ok, and disc 2 and 4 do not — are they all the same brand dvd disc?

Regards,
George

[George Wing]

[Rich Kutnick] “As you know, the audio is less than one MB for something like this, so the bulk of the problem lies within the video compression.”

What does that mean — the audio for almost 2 hours will be alot larger than one MB?

Also, I noticed in Vegas 7 that for VBR, it doesn’t really encode at the AVG bitrate. You have to use 2-pass to get it closer to the AVG bitrate (for predicting final size of render).

Regards,
George

[George Wing]

What type of video are you putting on the timeline (DVD Compliant that will NOT be re-encoded, or a vide othat needs to be encoded)?

Your problem might be that the chapter mark you are setting is being “offset” to the nearest valid I-Frame for a chapter mark.

Regards,
George

[George Wing]

There should be a way to turn off automatic button routing (and manually set the routing). Look in the help under Buttons / Routing.

From memory — on the right side for the menu properties, there was a checkbox for “Automatic Button Routing” (uncheck that, and then on the menu you can use one of the icons under the menu to show the button routes). This was in Encore 2.0 — so not sure how much it changed in CS3

Regards,
George

[George Wing]

Doesn’t Encore allow you to add CC? At least Encore DVD 2.0 did — I don’t know for sure whether CS3 does…

DVD LabPro 2.x also allows you to add CC

Regards,
George

[George Wing]

Noah,

Someone asked if US DVD Players will play a PAL DVD. I answered that used to be very few, but lately the numbers have increased (I didn’t know if he wanted to send to a friend and/or relative, etc…) — and I clearly stated But for a broad distribution, I’d say you are safer to do a conversion and create a true NTSC DVD from your PAL DVD…

It’s just like there are more DVD Players that play divx now (than compared to years ago). I’m not saying burn a divx movie to DVD, and send it to the states — but if someone were to ask me if DVD Players can play divx, I would answer that it used to be very few, the numbers are growing, but for wide distribution, you need to create a more compatible disc.

Seems kind of harsh to me that you would be LOL at me…

Regards,
George