Newbie And Dvd Burning

[JJMAR]

Basic question. What is best and quickest way to burn DVD that will play on DVD player for TV. I am using Sony HD minicam and importing video directly via firewire cable to my laptop. Video is xferred in as .avi file via firewire. Last night I tried to burn DVD from some footage shot earlier this summer, about 1GB (23 mins..converted from avi to mpeg), and while it worked, it took about 1.5 hrs to encode the video and burn to DVD (speed was stuck @2x even though burner states 22X for dual layer or 10X for single layer). Lastly, when I put disc in, it played but only if I hit play button on remote immediately after menu screen appeared. If I waited more than 1 minute, I could not get DVD to play w/o turning off DVD player and restarting. So questions:

 

1. Best process for creating DVD;

 

2. How to increase burn speed (or does it just take that long);

 

3. Creating DVD so it will peform just like a DVD that you buy or rent.

 

Thanks

[gi7omy]

Simple quertions but not so simple answers

 

Frst of all, if you can, import the file as mpeg rather than avi. If you can't then you can't, but either way, defragment the drive before starting to render. Also, shut down any background apps while doing it and let the machine give the render its full attention

 

Burn speed is set by the disc itself - the drive reads a small info track and that tells the software the speeds that it is capable of operating at. Unlike CDs, you can't bluff it and tell it to burn at a higher speed than the disc rating. Check for a firmware upgrade for your drive as that is what reports the speed to the system.

 

You can choose 'no menu' when you render - that way it will automatically play on insertion

[JJMAR]

Basic question. What is best and quickest way to burn DVD that will play on DVD player for TV. I am using Sony HD minicam and importing video directly via firewire cable to my laptop. Video is xferred in as .avi file via firewire. Last night I tried to burn DVD from some footage shot earlier this summer, about 1GB (23 mins..converted from avi to mpeg), and while it worked, it took about 1.5 hrs to encode the video and burn to DVD (speed was stuck @2x even though burner states 22X for dual layer or 10X for single layer). Lastly, when I put disc in, it played but only if I hit play button on remote immediately after menu screen appeared. If I waited more than 1 minute, I could not get DVD to play w/o turning off DVD player and restarting. So questions:

 

1. Best process for creating DVD;

 

2. How to increase burn speed (or does it just take that long);

 

3. Creating DVD so it will peform just like a DVD that you buy or rent.

 

Thanks

Do you mean I should run "Defragmenter" prior to each time I want to burn a DVD? I assume this is what you meant by running defgramenter prior to rendering (asssume by rendering that you mean prior to video import). Also, I have a Sony DCR-HC62 mini DV cam and near as I can tell the only file type it exports is .AVI?

[bimicher]

Do you mean I should run "Defragmenter" prior to each time I want to burn a DVD? I assume this is what you meant by running defgramenter prior to rendering (asssume by rendering that you mean prior to video import). Also, I have a Sony DCR-HC62 mini DV cam and near as I can tell the only file type it exports is .AVI?

 

I beg to differ with Daithi on the capture format: I think avi is for capturing since there is much less processing involved as you capture. It will of course create a much, much larger file then capturing to mpeg. Your DV camera does not determine the capture format, that is set in the capture program by you.

You should defragment your drive before capturing so that your captured file will form one continuous block. Rendering usually refers to the process of converting the captured video to a format suitable for burning to a DVD or to some other user selected format.

[grandpabruce]

AVI capture is lossless. MPEG capture is compressed. Go with the AVI capture, and get a huge hard drive for the files.

[ggrussell]

The 'native' format that is recorded on a DCR-HC62 is DV AVI. When you capture to DV AVI, you are transferring bit for bit so there is no loss of quality during transfer. However, DV AVI is compressed when compared to totally uncompressed digital video.

 

If you choose to capture to MPEG 2 from a miniDV camcorder, the computer must capture as DV AVI and then convert on-the-fly to MPEG 2 and that requires a lot of CPU power. Since you are also compressing the video more, there will be a loss of video quality. If you do any editing, then Videowave or MyDVD will have to re-compress those areas that have been edited causing more degradation of video quality in those areas. This is one reason why editing in DV AVI is much better. The video is only rendered to MPEG 2 once. Plus editing DV AVI is faster.