My Firewire port on my MiniDV is fried

[jman0918]

I can't seem to use the firewire port on my wife's Sony MiniDV, so I'm stuck using the RCA video or splurging $10 for the cable with S-Video.

I want to make 16:9 DVD's of my video footage. GB-PVR automatically records the video in 4:3, even though I have the camcorder set on 16:9 video aspect. I know that it has to do with the video signal.

I found a utility called DVDPatcher that lets me assign values to the file headers in an MPEG2, and change the aspect of the recorded videos to 16:9. I think there is a competing utility on Sourceforge.

I'd like to see an option in Conversion to apply these header settings automatically when recordings are finished. Since I would likely be using the same recording quality settings for all MiniDV captures, there should be an option to assign a profile for the bitrate and screen size.

[Reddwarf]

I'd like to see an option in Conversion to apply these header settings automatically when recordings are finished. Since I would likely be using the same recording quality settings for all MiniDV captures, there should be an option to assign a profile for the bitrate and screen size.

Not a bad idea, but it would be valid for analog recordings only, since the bitrate of digital is set by the broadcaster. I don't know about aspect, bit it would kind'a be nice, since I always have to set the aspect manually for all my HD recordings when playing them back.

[jman0918]

The DVDPatcher asks you to define the transport or program video's bitrate, horizontal and vertical size, framerate, as well as the aspect ratio. You also decide if you want the patch once or throughout the video.

The utility allows you to redefine the playback bitrate in the header. I can't say what a DVD player would do if you tried to say 8 MBit/s was actually 5 MBit/s, and under what circumstance you would want to reduce the bitrate.

I assume that the utility rewrites the entire header, and the author left all settings available for the user to change. I think that there should be an autodetect for the video and a "Change only aspect ratio" option. It should be said that the patching does not reencode the video, but simply tells a player how to treat the video during playback by rewriting the header.

The playback framerate can be changed from PAL to NTSC Film or from NTSC to PAL using DGPulldown to adjust playback flags, and then a video frame resize must be done (usually with black borders). I can't say if DVDPatcher has the same effect. I've done this with PAL divx movies that I changed into NTSCFilm DVD"s.

Is it possible to have the DVDPatcher aspect ratio added the legacy or new program?

[sub]

Its unlikely I'd add something like this directly in the application, but you can always use a custom PostProcessing.bat file to run whatever utility you want each time a recording ends.

[jman0918]

I suppose I could get in touch with one of the authors and see if they can prepare a command line utility. DVDPatcher is a GUI and doesn't default to anything useful.

I haven't looked at the other program yet, and I have no idea where a postprocessing.bat would be placed or referenced.

I just looked, and the sourceforge program is for DVD players, not MPEG2 programs or transports.

[sub]

I haven't looked at the other program yet, and I have no idea where a postprocessing.bat would be placed or referenced.

You can create one in C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts

I want to make 16:9 DVD's of my video footage. GB-PVR automatically records the video in 4:3, even though I have the camcorder set on 16:9 video aspect. I know that it has to do with the video signal.

Just to be clear, its not GB-PVR or NPVR doing this, its the video capture card that is marking everything as 4:3. The app has no say in the aspect ratio of the video coming from the capture device. If the app wanted change it, it'd pretty much have to do the same as DVDPatcher.

[jman0918]

Yes, I know that the RCA video is almost the worst signal and is hardcoded as 4:3, and the displayed video in GBPVR cannot be modified by the camcorder unless I decide to change to full 4:3.

I've got an email into the author of DVDPatcher about creating a command line utility. There isn't any documentation about flags, since the utility was created for a wholly different purpose.

[jman0918]

I got word back from Frank Weseloh at WinCESoft and he claims that a new update with a batch mode is planned. He didn't say when to expect it, or if it would accept calls from another program (I wanted to clarify "batch mode"), so I asked.

I know it would be useful to the HD crowd if the new utility can be set to a default for most of the settings, and to autosense for the bitrate of the broadcast.

According to their response (and the date of the last update), they are in no hurry.