BurnDVDX2 support issues.

[pastro]

Hi,

this is a great tool and thanks for contributing it. I am rapidly running out of HD space and need to burn my recorded films to dvd, BUT the recordings are too large to go a DVD i.e spiderman is about 6gig and lots of others are over as well. I record using "low" (in record settings option) to keep the size down but any film that goes 2hr or more just won't fit on a dvd.

I realize that there is a transcode feature and that i could re-code them but i'm afraid i really don't know too much about codecs etc. and i don't which setting to use that will give me a smaller sized mpeg.

Is there a way to ensure my recordings are smaller in the future, without transcoding afterwards. (takes forever on my humble system).

Any help would much appreciated.

2 hours on my machine at high ends up at 5 something gig. I thought in medium res I was getting something like 4 gig.

Anyway, I have burnt to and iso and told imgburn to ignore layer breaks, and then taken the iso and used dvdshrink to make it fit on a dvd and then burnt using imgburn by selecting the audio and video folder from the backup copy. I use daemon tools to load the iso so that dvdshrink can see it. Does that make sense?

I want to automate this and I think I have a way but I'm a little short on time. Hopefully I'll get this done going forward.

[yoda]

thanks for the reply.

I don't know why my mpegs are so large then.

Could the mux or the settings for tv card be changed to achieve a smaller size. i currently have about 28 recordings taking up all but 40gb of a 200gb drive!!!

I use daemon tools to load the iso so that dvdshrink can see it.

i don't know about deamon tools but i thought there was an option to load from iso (ast time i used any way). I'll give it a whirl and let you know.

but obviously, for future recordings, i need to get my mpeg size down and then straight to dvd would be a GREAT option. Ohhh just thought. i'm on PAL system does that alter anything with the mpeg size.

[pastro]

thanks for the reply.

I don't know why my mpegs are so large then.

Could the mux or the settings for tv card be changed to achieve a smaller size. i currently have about 28 recordings taking up all but 40gb of a 200gb drive!!!
there was an option to load from iso


i don't know about deamon tools but i thought there was an option to load from iso (ast time i used any way). I'll give it a whirl and let you know.

but obviously, for future recordings, i need to get my mpeg size down and then straight to dvd would be a GREAT option. Ohhh just thought. i'm on PAL system does that alter anything with the mpeg size.

You might be right there about pal size changing things but I don't know for sure. Maybe one of the PAL users can chime in here.

In burndvdx2 there is an option to burn an ISO or a disk. If you burn an iso you can load it with daemon tools, and then use dvdshrink to transcode to a DVD compatible size. DVDshrink is pretty fast and I can transcode in under 20 minutes.

The resultant backup file can be burnt to a DVD. This is a little time intensive but it does work ok.
I'll try to get it to be automatic which should make it easier. Depending on how many commercials you have you might be able to use the cut commercial option and still burn on a standard DVD. You have to run comskip or manually mark the commercials. On a 2 hour show, we probably have 30 minutes or more of commercials and that might be enough to make it work.

[yoda]

Thanks Pastro,

Just checked dvdshrink does have an option to "load a discimage" iso, bin, img etc... so i'll try that but have just downloaded deamon tools just incase

If any other PAL users do have an idea why my mpegs should be so large please help me sort this out for future recordings.

If the answer isn't obvious or related to this plugin then may be i should post to the general support thread and see if Sub has more info as he uses the same broadcast as myself here in NZ.

If you do have an automated option that would prve very useful as i'm sure this is going to get old very fast with 28 diffferent movies to do.

Many thanks

[gEd]

yoda: Are you talking about the recordings made from your nova-s or pvr150?

AFAIK, the nova-s is pure digital and the bitrate is set by the tv station. changing the quality setting does not alter the recordings at all in the digital domain as there is no analogue to digital conversion taking place, unlike the pvr150 where the settings do affect quality/filesize.

[yoda]

gEd: Yes, i see your point and after a quick check i can confirm that indeed it is only the nova-s card that seems to be the trouble.

Harry potter- recorded on the pvr 150 is only 3.75gb but i don't use this card very much for recordings as the nova-s card comes with epg already with the satellite signal and i don't have this htpc hooked up to the internet so no epg with the pvr150.

But i did notice when setting up my 'capture sources' that there seemed to be quality setting available even when setting up the satellite card nova-s. Do these have no effect on the decoded mpeg coming from the broadcast (all set at default at present)?

[gEd]

the quality settings are always there and have not effect on the output from digital tuners, which is simply written to disk as a digital stream. unlike an analogue tuner which reads the analogue signal and then converts it to mpeg using the quality settings.

I think there are plans in a future release, to remove the settings option when gbpvr detects a digital tuner.

[pastro]

Thanks Pastro,

Just checked dvdshrink does have an option to "load a discimage" iso, bin, img etc... so i'll try that but have just downloaded deamon tools just incase

If any other PAL users do have an idea why my mpegs should be so large please help me sort this out for future recordings.

If the answer isn't obvious or related to this plugin then may be i should post to the general support thread and see if Sub has more info as he uses the same broadcast as myself here in NZ.

If you do have an automated option that would prve very useful as i'm sure this is going to get old very fast with 28 diffferent movies to do.

Many thanks

I'll check and see if dvdshrink will work with nero and imburn isos. That would make it easier to get working with dvdshrink.

[yoda]

Pastro: I have sucessfully used burndvdx2 to burn 'Bridgette Jones Diary' to an ISO then used DVDShrink to load and resize from 6.3gb to 4.3gb then saved as ISO then used imgBurn to burn to VD.

couple of thing to note, this whole process took up 16gb of space :- burndvdx2 did an ISO 6.3 and a dvd folder 6.3gb dvdshrink did another ISO 4.3 total=16gb+. Also this was just a straight mpeg (un edsited or cut with comskip). I couldn't get some settings within Burndvdx2 to work; widescreen 16:9, Smsmode and captions. All those options just quit out of brndvdx2 and back to main menu.

the installation of the plugin seemed fine so i don't know why these options wouldn't work but 16:9 is the only one i'd need so any help muchly appreciated.

[gazoo]

Depending on the version of nero, I think it does the same thing as shrink and since it's nero, it can probably read iso's too. I believe the author of shrink now works for nero, or at least they bought his technology.