Anyone else making WDW Home Video DVDs yet?

[StormalongBay]

I have been toying with moving all my old 8MM analog tapes to some form of digital media for years. I have been using a Matrox Marvel G400-TV analog capture card to transfer to my computer. My intention was to make VCDs. I even purchased a Pioneer 525 DVD settop player because of the dual laser pickup for better CD-R and CR-R/W.

Well if you haven't tried this yet, let me just tell you now that it is not worth the trouble. :hammer:
Picture quality stinks even after trying all sorts of MPEG1 encoders. Then SVCD came along (which the Pioneer 525 happily plays) but I was still not convinced that this would be my way of preserving these treasures (Family man with kids).

Then something really good came along. The DVD burner.
I went out and bought a high-end DV camera (Sony TRV-900 3CCD) for very high quality taping. I then added a Canopus DV-Raptor card for firewire captures with hardware overlay (using the camera).

This has changed my life.

Very easy captures, no dropped frames and no loss of quality. After editing using Premiere and creating an MPEG2 using DVD standards, I just pop this into Ulead's new DVD Workshop.

The software is VERY easy to use and not that expensive. It supports motion menu backgrounds and menu buttons. Also background music for those menus.

Now I create DVDs with chapter points to various places in my videos, like attractions.

And to top it all off, these DVDs are playable in most settop DVD players.

My last trip consisted of 5 DV tapes recorded. To save time and to get the best quality, I just put one tape (one hour) on each DVD using the highest bandwidth allowed. These DVD blanks (Pioneer) are only like $5 now by me but it sure saves me time and aggrevation trying to "squeeze" more than one hour per DVD.

Anyone else doing this? Anyone have any experience with Dazzles DVDComplete?

 

[NowInc]

I have actually been looking into a DVD-Recorder. I do a lot of digital video work and i HAAAAAAAAAATE Beta and SVHS (too large, and not safe from magnets)...especially since I have to mail out my final work to other states/countries. DVD seems to be the best route for me...especially since my final output comes from my computer..so the DVD transfer will be...for lack of a better word...Flawless.

Thanks for confirming what I had hoped

 

[StormalongBay]

I couldn't take the frustration any more so I just had to buy that burner. It's the Pioneer DVR-A04 (or DVR-104). I forgot which one - lol They are the same with the exception of ore being the retail box with software which is the one I bought.

I got this one for the DVD-R/W capabilities. I do not need a DVD backup solution like the other burners are used for. Using DVD-R/W gives me the ability to "test drive" the DVD in my settop (which also loves the DVD-R/W). Any mistakes, I just do a quick erase and try again on the same media. No coasters here anymore.

VHS ... well... stinks. SVHS is not that popular with family so I could not go that route. DVD is soooo much easier. If they don't have a DVD player, they can go buy one now for under $100.

I have made one VHS dup of my work and that was for the coach of my kids t-ball coach. I shot all the games and made a 90 minute movie out of it complete with a "music video" :lol: . Since he was the coach, I thought I'd give him whichever method he chooses to have.

I'm still debating on the use of my DV camera as the hardware overlay source. I really do not need it much but it does come in quite handy on previewing the complex scenes (fancy transitions, etc) Canopus has a device for this but if I spend anymore money, my wife would surely want a divorce. :veryconfu

I think you will not go wrong going down the DVD path here.

 

[DisneyJedi]

Like many people, I'm sitting on the sideline waiting for DVD burners to come down in price. I bought my first CDRW drive in like 1997 for $300. It's a 2X speed!! I'm convinced if I wait long enough DVD burners will go down to $200 or less. I can't make any extraneous purchases right now anyway. So in the meantime I make SVCDs. Unfortunately my Panasonic DVD player won't play them directly, but I found I can fool it into playing them by multiplexing VCD headers on the SVCD files. I'm hoping a DVD burner will fall into my lap.

So could you make it as clear as possible the DVD formats and which DVD burner is the most compatible with existing standalone DVD players? Is it DVD-RW or DVD+RW or .. I get confused what is what.

 

[StormalongBay]

Originally posted by DisneyJedi

...

So could you make it as clear as possible the DVD formats and which DVD burner is the most compatible with existing standalone DVD players? Is it DVD-RW or DVD+RW or .. I get confused what is what.

A great site for this information is vcdhelp.com

The top two right now are DVD-R and DVD+R, with most sites claiming DVD-R as the most compatible. DVD-R/W and DVD+R/W are the rewriteable versions of these that will not be compatible with many settops. My Pioneer happens to like DVD-R and DVD-R/W's which is why I purchased the Pioneer burner.

DVD-ROM and DVD-RAM is NOT compatible in a settop. They are just used for storage.

 

[DisneyJedi]

Doh.. I should know that. I visit that site a bunch, but only look into VCD/SVCD and DIVX creation stuff since I don't have a DVD burner. Silly me.

One correction though.. my Panasonic RP91 player can read DVD-RAM according to the documentation. I have not tried it yet, but suppossebly it can play them. I spent $580 for the player, so it better do something else.

 

[Bdis86]

I love DVDs!!!!!! DVD stands for Digital Versitle Disk, NOT Digital Video Disk. Just FYI. hee hee

 

[Nineinchnailsmk]

i just purchased a Sony DCRTRV140 Digital 8 Camera. I love it!! Its so perfect. I really love the thing that allows you to record in WIDESCREEN, and if you use an SVIDEO cable from the camera you can watch the video in WIDESCREEN without the black bars on a WIDESCREEN TV! Anyway, I would like to know about DAZZLE to if anyone has any informatin. I was so close to buying the new ROXIO CD Burner Program, but it seems like nobody likes the VCD. Great post! I learned a lot!

 

[jmarc63]

Originally posted by Bdis86
I love DVDs!!!!!! DVD stands for Digital Versitle Disk, NOT Digital Video Disk. Just FYI. hee hee

Edit addition: I just realized that bis86 was the Idiot that we suspended for being a jerk.

Here is the real story

I have spent the last 9 years in the Retail Electronics Industry at the retail level and followed the developement of the DVD from Industry trade papers and my relationship with our dealer rep. and that is incorrect.

Actually the Digital versital disk moniker was the name given during the developement phase with the standards committie that was made up of the major electronics Manufactures that developed the DVD. Originally there were five standards that were developed by the big manufactures, some based off the old Lasrerdisk standard but with all new algorithims for compression and anti copying encoding. But obviously if they marketed five different standards then you would have to find the disk with the proper encoding standard for you to play on that manufactures machine. So they developed a standards committie to develope the best one to market and then license it to the other manufactures of electronics equiptment. I forget what the developement name was for the encoding standard we now refer to as DVD. but this is the one chosen as well as some features from the other developement standards

It was chosen primarily for the dual layer of encoding that allows you to use multiple languages for subtitles or alternative audio tracks such as in the DVD Superspeedway where you can turn on or off the background music the mario andrettie narriation or the commentary feature that is available an many movies on the DVD format.

Durring marketing Phase the name was changed it to Digital Video Disk as a simpler and more defined name that the consumer could recoginize easier and then shortened to DVD