Direct record

[dogstar]

Hi, I'm new to all this and experimenting with direct recording to DVD-RW using GBPVR. I have a Hauppage 350, using a Nvidia MX440 s-video to TV.

I'm using GBPVR's direct recording plugin with Mpeg 2 encoding so I'm getting roughly four hours using the lowest settings, which are:

PAL: 352x576;
Constant bitrate: 1500kbits/sec;
Audio bitrate: 128;
Audio samplerate: 44khz

1.) Is there any way to lower the settings beyond these parameters as the next lowest settings are for NTSC only?

2.) Is there any way of changing from Mpeg2 on the fly recording to any of the other Mpeg encoders? (eg. Mpeg4 which has a better compression rate.)

3.) If none of the above, is there any other Mpeg2 encoder that gives any finer control over resolutions and bitrates?

I know there are external devices that use other encoders, such as DIVX, WMA etc, but I'm primarily focusing on the Hauppage series, internal cards as they appear to be the most popular choices.

I've been through the forum threads and so far can find nothing which comes close. Can anyone help?

[reboot]

Mpeg-4 is just a compression scheme for avi.

If you're recording directly, just for storage, you could use any avi compression, and skip mpeg-2 competely.
There would be a time lag, from end of recording, through transcoding, to burning though.
Mpeg-2 is the only way to go direct.

You can manually edit the registry, and change the settings to anything you like, although some don't work, because of the nature of the card (such as 1/4 D1 PAL).