Video Recording/Playback/Editing/Converting/etc.

bmwracer wrote:
Here's the list, sorted by member ratings: http://www.videohelp.com/tools?listuser=&orderby=Rating&s=35#35

Damn! That's an overwhelming list! I don't remember seeing this link at all, btw. :sweat:

DVD Flick seemed good at first until I saw someone's review that it took 12 hours to finish one DVD (four 45 minute eps on one disc). I'm definitely not going that route. I wish the other reviews mentioned how much time is used to complete the discs.

ConvertX seems to be working for me in the sense that it's easy and takes about 3 hours to convert DVDs. And this is coming from someone who converts stuff with a 512 RAM laptop.

If there is a better program that takes 3 hours or less to complete the DVD authoring and can be used with a crappy laptop, I am up for suggestions. :mrgreen:

cori wrote:Damn! That's an overwhelming list! I don't remember seeing this link at all, btw. :sweat:

Hmm. :headscratch:

DVD Flick seemed good at first until I saw someone's review that it took 12 hours to finish one DVD (four 45 minute eps on one disc). I'm definitely not going that route. I wish the other reviews mentioned how much time is used to complete the discs.

You have to take the reviews with a grain of salt: that person might not have known what he/she was doing or maybe even using a slower PC than yours... :beaten:

Try it out... It might be better than you think.

If there is a better program that takes 3 hours or less to complete the DVD authoring and can be used with a crappy laptop, I am up for suggestions. :mrgreen:

I'm pretty sure that my process is more than three hours, but it yields the best quality and is the most reliable of any of those all-in-one packages... And I think Geez would pretty much back me up on that. :)

I don't think DVDFlick does menus...

If I can find a better tool, i'll let you know :)

Thanks for the key, AD! :D

I am authoring a DVD with the latest version of ConvertX right now (not the large filed drama). The only thing is that this is taking way too short. I am used to the process taking about 3 hours, but it says that it will take just 1 hour. I wonder if this will make a difference when I watch the DVD. I guess I shall see when it's done.

cori wrote:Thanks for the key, AD! :D

I am authoring a DVD with the latest version of ConvertX right now (not the large filed drama). The only thing is that this is taking way too short. I am used to the process taking about 3 hours, but it says that it will take just 1 hour. I wonder if this will make a difference when I watch the DVD. I guess I shall see when it's done.

Hmm, that is a big difference in conversion time... Unless it's overly optimistic.

bmwracer wrote:
Hmm, that is a big difference in conversion time... Unless it's overly optimistic.

No, it did take a shorter time than it usually does. The video preview was going super fast too. I'm burining it to disc now so I'll check it out when I'm able to.

cori wrote:No, it did take a shorter time than it usually does. The video preview was going super fast too. I'm burining it to disc now so I'll check it out when I'm able to.

Great...! :victory:

Sometimes it pays to upgrade, ne?

(and I'm not talking about Vista. :bleh: )

cori wrote:

No, it did take a shorter time than it usually does. The video preview was going super fast too. I'm burining it to disc now so I'll check it out when I'm able to.

Glad to hear it worked for you, cori-chan. I'm interested to hear how it turns out :fingerscrossed:

It didn't turn out too well. :shamefulcry:

The timing of first episode of the disc was really off. I think the sound was too fast (or slow...can't remember) and that really annoyed me.

The second thing I noticed is that towards the ending of the disc, it got blocky and paused here and there. :sweat:

I think there was something else that was wrong, but those are the 2 that really stood out to me. Oh yeah, there were flashes of purple throughout the whole thing. Just a few seconds here and there, but enough to bother most people. That also happened in the first softsubbed disc I tried making, but I didn't care because that was the only problem with the disc.

Looks like I really need to hardsub the dramas if I don't want to deal with anymore of this irritating bull$hit. *sigh* Back to the drawing board. :(

cori wrote:It didn't turn out too well. :shamefulcry:

The timing of first episode of the disc was really off. I think the sound was too fast (or slow...can't remember) and that really annoyed me.

The second thing I noticed is that towards the ending of the disc, it got blocky and paused here and there. :sweat:

I think there was something else that was wrong, but those are the 2 that really stood out to me. Oh yeah, there were flashes of purple throughout the whole thing. Just a few seconds here and there, but enough to bother most people. That also happened in the first softsubbed disc I tried making, but I didn't care because that was the only problem with the disc.

Looks like I really need to hardsub the dramas if I don't want to deal with anymore of this irritating bull$hit. *sigh* Back to the drawing board. :(

I think you probably missed a setting or two with the new version of software... Double check everything before giving up, cori-chan. :)

Experimenting with the new tmpgenc DVD author 3. Lots of changes.

It will now accept AVI files. It also has a subtitle component which I have not tried yet. Also lets you specify 4/3 or 16/9 mode and the menus follow suit accordingly. Lots of other goodies.
Brand new interface. Larger video and one can zoom thru the video by showing only I frames. There is a problem getting to the edit menu which has been fixed in later versions. But the version I have still has the bug. I found a workaround hitting control K gets you to the edit menu to specify chapter installments.

bmwracer wrote:
I think you probably missed a setting or two with the new version of software... Double check everything before giving up, cori-chan. :)

Yeah probably. I just hope I can figure that out without spending a lot of hours on it. :sweat:

And I tried doing a hardsubbed drama with the speedy ConvertX and it seemed to work perfectly. So yay! No 3 hour converting anymore. I can probably do 2 or 3 discs a day now. :victory:

cori wrote:Yeah probably. I just hope I can figure that out without spending a lot of hours on it. :sweat:

And I tried doing a hardsubbed drama with the speedy ConvertX and it seemed to work perfectly. So yay! No 3 hour converting anymore. I can probably do 2 or 3 discs a day now. :victory:

That's odd that the hardsubbed one worked just fine whereas the softsub one tanked... :headscratch:

bmwracer wrote:
That's odd that the hardsubbed one worked just fine whereas the softsub one tanked... :headscratch:

I guess maybe it's my crappy laptop that isn't able to handle dealing with softsubs. :sweat:

cori wrote:I guess maybe it's my crappy laptop that isn't able to handle dealing with softsubs. :sweat:

Not likely... Try a different drama and see if you get the same bad result.

bmwracer wrote:
Not likely... Try a different drama and see if you get the same bad result.

Hmm...I think I'll try that and see how that goes.

cori wrote:Hmm...I think I'll try that and see how that goes.

Good luck... Any experiments you try now should pay off in the long run... :fingerscrossed:

bmwracer wrote:
Good luck... Any experiments you try now should pay off in the long run... :fingerscrossed:

I tried it with another softsubbed drama and it worked!! The picture, the subs, everything was perfect! I think that maybe the previous drama was just screwed up, but I won't give up on it just yet.

Now to focus on getting other softsubbed dramas to DVD.

cori wrote:I tried it with another softsubbed drama and it worked!! The picture, the subs, everything was perfect! I think that maybe the previous drama was just screwed up, but I won't give up on it just yet.

Excellent.

Yeah, now that you know it works, retry the one that screwed up and see what happens.... :victory:

bmwracer wrote:
Excellent.

Yeah, now that you know it works, retry the one that screwed up and see what happens.... :victory:

I've tried working on that drama over 4 times and still it came out like crap (purple shading, weird glitches, etc.) so I'm wondering if it's the video file itself. Stupid me hasn't checked the actual video on my computer, so I shall do that when I'm home.