I have a Satilite card that captures native DVB signal to the harddisk, which is MPEG2. The MPEG2 file has a resolution of 528x576 PAL. (not DVD complient). Is there a way or a DVD Authoring software that can create a dvd from this file WITHOUT TRANSCODING. Re-encoding the file to DVD complient is causing the following: reduce in quality, increase in size, encoding time of at least 5 hours.... I have checked several forums and guides so far non worked properly. I'm more interested in a DVD authoring software that can handle these files in their native format. I heard WinOnCD 6 DVD edition does just that. Has anyone tried it ?!... Thanks
DVD-Lab can make DVDs from non-standard resolution files. You'll be warned that it's non-standard, but it will let you do it. You can also do it with IfoEdit, but I've never tried that method because I'm in NTSC-land, and IfoEdit has issues with NTSC authoring. You should be able to find information on that method with a simple Google search. In either case, the program will just change the MPEG header information to tell the player it's a legal resolution. Many DVD players will play DVDs made this way with no problem. If you try it and yours doesn't, you might want to get a cheap player just for that purpose since I'm reasonably sure that most (if not all) of them will handle this fine. I just wish Dish Network would license decryption devices for DVB cards so I could do the same thing from my satellite system.
Thanks vurbal... I have already tried DVD Lab. It did create a dvd but when I played on my DVD player the picture did not stretch to fill the screen ! Please note that I'm trying this on several DVD players. I might try to buy another soon... I also tried the guide DVB to DVD at Doom9 which uses IFOEdit but the results where still the same. Until I find a solution, I'm re-encoding the DVB to half D1 (352x576) which is accepted by several DVD authoring software. However, the process is time consuming and a slight loss in quality is noticed in the final DVD...
From what I understand, the problem you're having is exactly what happens when a DVD player won't play non-standard DVDs. I know what you mean about not wanting to re-encode. It's incredibly frustrating to have a perfectly good digital source that you can't play, but I'd say a different player is your only option as yours appear to look at the stream instead of just the headers.
It seems you got your DVDs working...Hmm ! I'm interested in finding out which DVD player you have. Note as well that I currently have 3 different DVD players (none of any known brand-cheap ones). One will play my DVD, created from the files discussed, with the movie playing on the left side of the screen leaving 1/4 th of the screen blank. The other two play the movie in the middle of the screen with small black bars on either side of the TV screen. In both cases the video (even though it playes well) seems to stick to its 528 horizontal resolution. I'm tempted to actually take a couple of those DVDs that I created and go to an electronic store and try them on all the DVD players and see which one playes them right !!!! (lol). Somehow, I still think there is a way to it... The KDVD templates of TMPGEnc (from KVCD.net) at the moment seem to be doing a good job in re-encoding the video and maintaining almost the original size which enables me to put two full movies on one DVD plus menus... and I keep telling myself... well at least now they are DVD compliant and will work on any dvd.... If you find out anything new please let me know.... Bye
Actually I don't have a standalone they'll play on right now. I had an Apex 1010W that would play non-standard DVDs and even miniDVDs (not so uncommon now, but then it was unusual). Unfortunately my kids did that one in, and all I have right now is my Sanyo that won't play them correctly. Since I can't capture the DVB stream my receiver's getting it's not a big deal for me, but obviously you have a little more use for it. I believe the Apex 1110W is the same as my 1010W, but I don't know if you can get those where you are.
Well, you're right... I'm aware of the Apex brand but it's not available in the market where I am. As I mentioned earlier I will probably stick to re-encoding as long as the change in quality is hardly noticable. I would like to thank you for all your effort to reply to this thread... If I come across something new I will post again and let you know. Hope you'll do the same. Thanks again...
Absolutely. I'm still hoping that I'll be able to capture my satellite stream at some point in the future, and I'm always looking for ways to capture without losing quality.
