Archive Recordings to DVD

[sixgun]

Hi,

Occasionally i get asked to record something on my GBPVR setup for someone else. I then need to put the recording(s) onto a DVD-RW. This i can do just fine, but it does take quite a lot of time.

I am fine with stripping out the ads with video re-do as that doesn't take too long.

What takes the time is authoring the DVD with 1, 2 or maybe even 3 programmes on it. This can total 4 hours or video footage. I currently re-encode the files to get them to fit nicely on the DVD.

So, to my question.

Is there such a piece of software that will take a number of MPG files, and generate a DVD folder/image with a menu to getting to each programme.

Ideally i would just want a main menu with each programme on it, maybe chapters every x minutes (where i can specify x).

It would then generate the menu for me, after having gathered info on each MPG file (title, # of chapters etc), then re-encode the MPGs and create the VOB/ISO files.

If there isn't such a thing, are the any source libraries available for doing the donkey work, then i could write a GUI for all this.

Many thanks.

[djtaylor]

So, to my question.

Is there such a piece of software that will take a number of MPG files, and generate a DVD folder/image with a menu to getting to each programme.

Ulead DVD Moviefactory does just this, very easy to use and you can download a trial

http://www.ulead.com/dmf/runme.htm

[pBS]

one important feature that is unique to dvdmf is that it can actually do all that and not have to make temp files! if you're not re-encoding it can burn the files directly to dvd in one step with menus without having to make a 4.7gig temp area..it does conversion and formatting on the fly so to burn a dvd it takes me ~15 minutes total! however it can re-compress and for that it would have to make temp files...but nice thing is you can walk away and come back to a finished disc and not have to burn with something else..
wish i could figure out how they do it on the fly like that..

[sixgun]

thanks for the suggestion. I am trying it out now. it seems okay, apart from the fact that it doesn't re-compress / reduce the bit rate of video files that are too big to fit on a 4.7 gig dvd. Even though i've told it that's the media type i have.

It's generating an iso that is a couple of hundred megs too big.

I've used DVD-lab in the past, as that has a nice MPEG size reduction tool.