I spent hours on my first DVD project ,home videos of my baby's birth,and after I got everything looking good in the preview in Sonic My DVD I saved the project and then procedded to burn it,but my buttons were not lit or acsessible .Did i forget a step in the process? My Pioneer DVD-R in mounted in an ext. 2.0 usb case,could this be a problem? ,maybe the software is having problem with the acsessing the drive, any advice would be helpful, thanks
It started as AVI from XP's Moviemaker,then I processed through myDVD by Sonic ,so I not sure what it is now.I'll check the format when I get home tonight, and post my details . As I remember when I open the saved project it's split into four different files,one for Vid. one for audio,one that say that it's open and one more I forget at this time what it was titled,am I supposed to put these all together somehow? I'll post later, thanks Shoey!
Sorry ,I forgot to mention that I moved the DVD-r drive to the tower ,and another thing I forgot to mention was that I running a Maxtor ATA133 HD, so I'm using a Promise ATA133 PCI adapter ,I hooked the DVD-R drive to the open slot on this card,at this time there is nothing connected to the motherboards primary or secondary slots,could I use one of these slots to hook my lite-on dvd -rom,so to keep them of of the same cable, any advice would be helpful,thanks and sorry for the cross topic!
Ok so we need to convert the AVI to VCD or SVCD? Check your home dvd player and see what formats it will play. If you don't see SVCD look on your remote control for a "PBC"(play back control) function. If you have this option then your home dvd player will play SVCD format(click enable). I despise VCD video quality as it sucks and not worth the effort (my honest opinion) to convert, encode. As far as your drive configuration, you wan't to hook them up to your primary, secondary ide channels. If it were me, I would run your DVD burner to your primary ide channel as slave, your Maxtor as master (or cable select) obviously and your [bold] great, incredible Litey [/bold] on your secondary ide channel as master. The reason I mention this configuarion is simply because most people use their dvd\cd-roms more than they use their dvd\cdrw burners. Another good thing about this configuration is for "on the fly" coy (dvd\cdrw) as both units are on seperate ide channels. Did you update your Litey firmware so the drive will read any media at present? What is the model # of your Litey? (163\165\166) Shoey _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Certified Computer Technician http://www.afterdawn.com Main Website^ (Afterdawn) http://www.afterdawn.com/general/legal.cfm Forum Rules^ Mobo: KT4VL MSI-6712 CPU: AthlonXP Barton 2.5 Ram: 512 SD-DDR (PC-2700) nVidia GeForce4 MX440-8x ATA\133 hd[/small]
Shoey, are you saying I should not even have my drives connected to the ATA 133 adapter card? I was trying to get all I could out of the Maxtor ATA133 drive,if I hook the drives straight to the motherboards primary/and secondarys,won't I lose some performance on the Maxtor? oh yes, my lite-on is the 163,and no I wasn't aware I should update the lite -on, any more advice? thanks so far!I'm new to all of this stuff,but as soon as I get my system configured properly,I should be able to attempt my first DVD burn,at this time I've had no luck, thanks again Shoey!
I was under the assumption your mobo(primary\secondary ide channel) supported ata 133. Obviously you'll wan't to run your Maxtor to your ata 133 card and dvd-rom\burner however you wan't to. I like mine on seperate ide channels for "on the fly" copy so I don't encounter burn errors as some cd burning software requires roms to be on sperate ide channels. Do you know how to flash a rom? I would hate to provide a link and a tool if you're not a "pc guru". It's not that difficult and after updating your firmware for your litey LTD 163, the dvd-rom will read any format (at present). [bold] Ok so we need to convert the AVI to VCD or SVCD? [/bold] Shoey
at this time my board is a intel 850MV 400fsb.it doesn't have 133 support,(wish it did)and 512 RDram,80gb Maxtor HD.as far as flashing the rom, I did it once before on my plextor scsi drives,If you can give a few tips it might refresh my memory.I'm no Guru,I'm learning everyday,here's another Q for you,obviously I'm hooking my Maxtor to the 133 card,but the card also has one open slot on it, which rom would be better served being plugged there? and I wasn't sure if I could use the motherboard slots being that I'm using that 133 controller card.so if I plug my HD and one of my roms into the card,which MB slot do I plug the other rom into to get the best configuration? pri/or sec.?and with what jumper settings?sorry again for changing topics ,I know the is probably the wrong section to be asking these Q's so I really appreciate your help,and patience! thanks
Shoey here's the format : in my docs it 's titled Birth video and the total size equals 4.35GB broken down as follows: video_TS = 4.31gb , Audio_TS = 0 bytes,does this mean it didn't get any audio ? jacket_P =176kb ,sources =40.0 mb ,cache =0 bytes ,build text doc =367 bytes using Sonic where do I go with these file from here,can Sonic burn them? or can I use Nero?I've got Nero Express version 5.5.10.28 oem edition Nero suggests a Nero authoring tool Nero vision ,can I do anything with my Sonic dvd project or should I start over using some different tool? thanks for the advice!
Try this guide m8. [bold]How to convert DivX (AVI) to DVD-R [/bold] ------------------------------------------------ DivX's that have been made properly are of superb quality. They can be 1 or 2x 716 mb long, encoded with DivX or Xvid codec with 5 channel AC3 sound or stereo MP3 and all backed up from a DVD. While these have been traditionally converted by many to VCD or SVCD with great results, but always with a drop in picture quality, I thought why not convert back to DVD, retain the DivX picture quality (but a drop from the origianl DVD) and now only on 1 disk. This Tutorial makes a multi-region, auto starting movie (no menu or extras) with 1 audio track and no subtitles (subtitles can be included however, read below). It works for me. There may be a better or simpler way, I just haven't found it yet. This procedure uses DVD2SVCD as the work engine and it basically does all the thinking for you (I like it!). Those making (S)VCD's with DVD2SVCD will feel right at home here. CCE is used as the encoder for both speed and quality reasons. I have changed the Authoring from SpuceUp to TMPGEnc DVD Author as that is simpler to use, more flexible and easily purchased. However, other good authoring tools such as DVD Maestro or DVDLab can also be used. TMPGEnc DVD Author does NOT support any Subtitles at this point of time, so if your intending to import Subtitles, then you will have to use Maestro for this or permanently include then during the DVD2SVCD process. My other DVD to DVD±R Tutorial describes how to use Maestro for authoring. DVDLab is a "Maestro look alike" and if you can use one, then you should be able to use the other with little problems. There can be problems with some DVD Players playing DVD-R or DVD+R discs, even different brands of media. So if it does fail, check the disk in a friends player to see if it works there. Try burning to a different brand of DVDR also if problems persist or try burning at lower speed. I can't fix those problem. Software you will or may need: 1. DivX Codec 5.05 or later, ( d/l from http://www.divx.com ) and DivX Codec 3.11a ( d/l from http://www.doom9.net/ ) and Xvid Codec, the latest version ( d/l from http://roeder.goe.net/~koepi/xvid.shtml or http://nic.dnsalias.com/ ) 2. DVD2SVCD 1.1.3 Build 2 or later ( d/l from http://www.dvd2svcd.org ) 3. Cinema Craft Encoder 2.50 ONLY! ( d/l demo from http://www.doom9.net/ ) 4. TMPGenc DVD Author 1.0.4.24 or later ( d/l demo from http://www.pegasys-inc.com/e_main.html ) 5. Nero 5.5.10.28 or later ( d/l latest fully functional demo from http://www.ahead.de ) NOTE: Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT install the Nimo Codec pack to get the DivX/Xvid, etc, codec. This pack has killed more systems than it has ever cured. You have been warned ! You will also need a Computer with: * Windows NT, 2000 or XP installed (will NOT work in Win95/98/ME as >4gig files will be created.) * A Pentium III 550mhz or equivalent as a minimum (needed for CCE to run). * At least 128mb memory (256mb preferred). * Hard drive NTFS formated with at least 15 gb free and in one partition. * A DVD Burner (either DVD-R(W) or DVD+R(W) ) to produce the DVD and some good quality DVDR's. * A sound card and DVD software player (WinDVD recommended) to check the finished product. Tips before we get started: * Turn OFF your Screen Saver, it will simply slow the conversion down by hours. * Do not run any other program in the background while DVD2SVCD is running, especially if you have a slower computer. * Turn the screens colour depth to 16bit colour or better. * Re-boot the computer just BEFORE you start the ripping, in this way you have the best conditions as possible. Do not under estimate this step, I find it essential to guarantee a 100% perfect encode. So you have downloaded the software and checked that you have the right stuff in your computer. Sounds good, then lets get stuck into it! Step 1: Getting Ready. 1. Install both DivX Codec and Xvid Codec. 2. Install CCE. 3. Install DVD2SVCD. 4. Install TMPGEnc DVD Author. 5. Install Nero. Step 2: Checking the DivX file 1. Every version of Windows comes with Windows Media Player (WMP), so we will use that to check the file. You will need version 7 or better installed. 2. If the DivX is on a CD, copy it to your Hard Drive. If its in 2 parts, these need to be joined together first. See NOTE: 1 below on how to do this. 3. Run Windows Explorer, locate your DivX file, and RIGHT Click on it. From the windows that opens, go to Properties, then Summary. You will now see all the characteristics of the file. Write down the Frame Width and Height and Frame Rate as we may need them later on. Note the Data rate also and if data rate is less than 110 kb/s, I would not suggest you continue. Also if the width is less than 480, I would also suggest you don't continue. The quality of these AVI's are less than perfect and I would suggest you convert these to a SVCD or VCD for better results. See the other Tutorials on how to do those. You can of course convert these to DVD but just remember, garbage in = garbage out. I prefer to convert these to 1/2 a DVDR with a Menu as converting to full dvdr size is a waste of good media. 4. You can use the Frame width and Frame height (from above) to work out the Aspect ratio of the movie but the simplest is to actually play it full screen. So play it in WMP, and hit Alt-Enter to get to full screen display. If there are no black bars top or bottom, then its a 4:3 full screen. On a 15" monitor, if there is about 1 1/4" or 3cm of black bars top and bottom of the screen, then its a 16:9. If there is about 2" or 5cm of black bars then its a 2.3:1 These 3 variations cover 99% of all movies. Step 3: DVDR Conversion. 1. Run DVD2SVCD. It may complain it cannot find CCE, so click the Encoder tab and then browse your HD for CCE (cctsp.exe) depending on where you installed it. This will happen 1st time it is run only. 2. Click the Misc. tab, then select the Input File Type to be AVI and Output File type to be MPEG-2. Then click Default Output folder to select the Output folder where all the files will go, this will require 15gb free HD space! Change DVD2SVD Level to Advanced. Untick Don't Delete any Files. Then check the box next to Convert divx3 to divx4 (can resolve CCE problem) as it can help CCE converting DivX3 encoded AVI's with no problems. 3. Click the Conversion tab, and load in the DivX file. It will indicate its length and select an Aspect ratio mode and mark the Audio track. There is no Cut or Trim features here. I do not recommend ticking NTSC to PAL box unless you like jerky movies. DVD2SVCD still has problems with most AVI's setting the correct aspect ratio. It tends to select 4:3 (No borders, encoded as 4:3) for all. If its a true 4:3, then do not change it, however, if there were any black bars top & bottom when you played it, then change this to Anamorphic (no boarders, encode as 16:9).1. Run DVD2SVCD. It may complain it cannot find CCE, so click the Encoder tab and then browse your HD for CCE (cctsp.exe) depending on where you installed it. This will happen 1st time it is run only. 2. Click the Misc. tab, then select the Input File Type to be AVI and Output File type to be MPEG-2. Then click Default Output folder to select the Output folder where all the files will go, this will require 15gb free HD space! Change DVD2SVD Level to Advanced. Untick Don't Delete any Files. Then check the box next to Convert divx3 to divx4 (can resolve CCE problem) as it can help CCE converting DivX3 encoded AVI's with no problems.3. Click the Conversion tab, and load in the DivX file. It will indicate its length and select an Aspect ratio mode and mark the Audio track. There is no Cut or Trim features here. I do not recommend ticking NTSC to PAL box unless you like jerky movies. DVD2SVCD still has problems with most AVI's setting the correct aspect ratio. It tends to select 4:3 (No borders, encoded as 4:3) for all. If its a true 4:3, then do not change it, however, if there were any black bars top & bottom when you played it, then change this to Anamorphic (no boarders, encode as 16:9).4. Click on Finalize Tab, there is nothing in here to change. 5. Click the CDImage Tab and just click Don't Make Images, as we use SpruceUp to do all the Authoring. 6. Click the Subtitles Tab. Tick Rip Subtiles if you have external subtitle file to be included. You MUST select Permanent as the other options will not work here. Utherwise, leave un-ticked. 7. Click the bbMPEG Tab, there is nothing to change here as we don't actually use this part of the program. 8. Click the Pulldown Tab, there is nothing to change or setup in here. This will run automatically only if a 23.976fps NTSC framerate is found in the AVI and will convert it to a 29.97fps NTSC movie. 9. Click the Audio Tab. Untick Audio 1 downsample 48 -> 44.1 as a DVD must have 48khz audio to playback on DVD Players. Again, 99% of DivX's have 48khz audio, if it was only 44.1khz, then see NOTE 3 below. For Audio Bitrate, select 384 if the Audio was 5ch AC3, 192 if 2ch AC3, MP3 or MPA. The box for Autodetect Azid Gain (2 pass) should be ticked as this with Normalize the MPA audio sound level.10. Click the Frameserver Tab and select Resize Method to be Bicubic Resize. Make sure Resize is set to DVD (720x480/576) ('cause thats what we are making folks!). At the end of the MPEG2Dec line, click the small [...] button and from the ..\DVD2SVCD\MPEG2Dec folder, select MPEG2DEC2.dll This can solve some decoding issues and I find it faster as well (only needs to done the first time you run DVD2SVCD). Add ResampleAudio needs to be ticked if you have an AMD CPU, else CCE will crash. 11. Click the Bitrate Tab and set Max to 9000, Min to 300 and Max Avg to 6000. Unselect Min Avg if its ticked. Change all the 6 boxes of CD size to read 4400 and the 6 boxes of Use to 1. DVD2SVCD calculates the bitrate automatically for you to use the highest data rate to fit onto your DVDR. Untick the Warn if the total bitrate is too high...12. Click the EncoderTab and make sure Cinema Craft Encoder is selected (and not TMPGEnc or Procoder). Multipass VBR should be set at 1 (or 2) for best results (I've found any higher doesn't improve the AVI conversion any better). I set Image Qual. Priority to 22 & Bias to 20. If the DivX picture is "noisy", tick Anti Noise Filter and set to 2, increase to 4 if really "noisy". Set the Timecode to 00:00:00:00. Click on the Advanced Settings dropdown arrow and select ALL 4 of the MPEG2 Video Settings. Set Intra DC precision to 10 and tick on Close all GOP's. Set the N/M to 4.13. All is now setup and we are ready to begin the encoding. If you intend to be doing a few movies, all the setup above needs to be done once and will remain set to the same settings next time you run DVD2SVCD. (A good idea is to go to the Misc tab and click Save Settings, so you can always load in the settings later on if needed.) Next time you will only need to load the AVI in, maybe set the Aspect Ratio, set the default folder, maybe Audio data rate and then GO. 14. Click the Conversion Tab again and if all is ready, click the GO button. Click Start Conversion then confirm with OK. If you have selected Subtitles to be included, then click on Add Extrenal Subtitle Streams instead and when loaded, select the one you want. Subtitles can be in the *.sub or *.srt format. 15. Go to sleep, work or school as this process may take a long time. On a P550 it can take about 24hrs with a 2pass VBR encode! On an Athlon 1800, most movies convert 1pass VBR (actually 2) in about 4 hours. 16. When finished you will have in the default folder you selected, about 20-30+ files. We need only 2 of these files, the Video file Encoded_Video_CCE_PAL.mpv or Encoded_Video_CCE_NTSC.mpv or Pulldown_Encoded_Video_NTSC.mpv (use this if it exists) and the Audio file Extracted_Audio_1.ac3 or Encoded_Audio_1.mp2 17. The bbMPEG_video_01.mpg file should be played (for example with WinDVD) to check that the audio is in sync, the correct aspect ratio has been maintained and that the whole AVI encoded ok without loss of picture or audio from start to end. 18. If the audio file was origianlly MP3 and converted to Encoded_Audio_1.mp2, then this needs to be converted to AC3 format for 100% DVD compliance. While most authoring software will accept a *.mp2 file for the audio, DVD Player playback will suffer on some brands/versions of DVD Players. Use AC3 Machine (with BeSweet) to convert the mp2 to ac3 format. 19. We are now ready to Author these files to DVD format. Step 4: Authoring with TMPGEnc DVD Author 1. Run TMPGEnc DVD Author. From the opening screen, just click the Create New Project button. 2. In the new window, we then click the Add File button and browse to our Encoded_Video_CCE_PAL.mpv or Encoded_Video_CCE_NTSC.mpv or Pulldown_Encoded_Video_NTSC.mpv (MUST always use the Pulldown file if it exists) file. 3. In the next window, click the Audio Settings Browse button and locate your new created *.AC3 audio file. 4. At the top, click the Chapters cut edit button. Now click the Add button. You can now manually add Chapter points (slow and painful !) or just select the option Automatically Insert Chapters with the Selected Interval and select 10 minutes (or anything else that suits your needs). Then click OK. Once the Chapters have been set, click OK again. 5. There is no need for a Menu since we have only one movie that will auto-start when we put it in ouir DVD Player, so click on the Output button. 6. The Create DVD Folder option should be ticked. Then browse to uour optput folder. You will need 5gig free. When ready, click the large Begin Output button. It will ask you to save the Project, then do so. Sit back while it takes 10-15min to create all the VOB, IFO & BUF files needed for DVD playback. 7. Using Explorer, go to the folder where you just created the DVD files. There will be two new folders, VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS. The AUDIO_TS folder will be empty. In the VIDEO_TS folder will be all the *.VOB, *.IFO and *.BUP files and their total size should be less than 4.37 gig. Do not delete or move any of these files. 8. Double click on either of the IFO files and the Movie should start playing with WinDVD or your installed player. Check it out for lip sync at start and near end. If all is well, we are now ready to burn the DVD. Step 5: DVDR Burning. 1. Run Nero and shut down the wizard. Select DVD-UDF/ISO option. Leave set at all the defaults, enter a Volume Label in the Label tab. If you intend to playback your DVDR's on an XBox, then in UDF Tab, click the option on for "Force DVD-Video Compatability Mode (Required for XBox)". 2. Click the New button and browse to your new VIDEO_TS folder (Right Hand window) and drag it to the VIDEO_TS folder in the left hand window. Drag the empty AUDIO_TS folder across also as this is need for playback compatability with some DVD Players. 3. Click Burn icon, set speed to 1x, 2x or 4x (or leave on Max) depending on the media rating and burner capabilities and then click OK. Sit back while the DVD is burnt to DVDR. Burning time for a full DVDR is 56min at 1x, 28min at 2x and 14 min at 4x. 4. The excitement builds! As it finishes burning, rush it to your DVD Player, get a stubby from the fridge, something to nibble and sit back and enjoy the movie! NOTE: 1 - Joining 2 DivX together 1. Run VirtualDUB , click File and select Open Video file... Browse to the first DivX file and click Open (ignor any VBR MP3 error). 2. Click File again and select Append AVI Segment... and browse to the second DivX file, then click Open. 3. In both Video and Audio tabs, set to Direct Stream Copy. 4. Click on File and then Save AVI..., give a new name and Ok. Soon you will have 1 large DivX file made up the 2 smaller parts. You can delete the 2 small DivX files if your short on space. [nold] ChickenMan (c)2003 - Updated June 2003 [/bold] Shoey
great m8!,I'll let you know in a week how things go , I should be able to finish reading your post by then,LOL! thanks for being so attentive to detail,and also for the heads up warnings of what not to do,it's people like you that make these forums the best tool for beginners like myself, thank you!
