Quick Burn to DVD

vannest wrote on 5/7/2006, 9:42 AM
I really like Movie Studio for editing movies, however, there are times when we are at a horse show, and need a really quick DVD copy of a class that's on tape. It's a bit of a pain to capture the tape, use Movie Studio to make the dvd files, then go to Architect to burn the DVD. Does anyone know of a really cheap, quick working bit of software that will let me plug the camera into my computer, cue up what I want, hit play and burn it onto a DVD without going through the Movie Studio work flow? I don't need any editing functions, just a quick easy way to burn a dvd of a bit of tape.

Thanks

Pamela Van Nest

Comments

hal9001 wrote on 5/7/2006, 12:18 PM
I think Nero 7 will do what you want. Specifically Nero Vision. It can be problematic on some machines but it works fine on mine.

1. Capture
2. pick in and out pout
3. Select burn with no menu
4. Burn

http://www.nero.com/eng/index.htm
Chienworks wrote on 5/7/2006, 3:26 PM
How about a stand-alone DVD recorder? Most have firewire as well as analog A/V inputs. They'll create a DVD from any material you dump into it in just a couple minutes over real-time. I've seen some models as cheap as $130 or so at Wal*Mart. They're not the best at producing a high-quality DVD, but if time is essential you won't find anything much faster, nor will you find anything easier.
Paul Mead wrote on 5/7/2006, 4:46 PM
Just for completeness, I don't think Nero offers any advantage here. You can just as easily capture the video to disk (.AVI) and then have DVDA render and burn, just like Nero, no VMS involved.

For that matter, I have a shortcut on my desktop for starting the Video Capture (VidCap) application w/o having to use VMS at all. When doing this kind of thing I just run VidCap, and then run DVDA to quickly get it to DVD.

That said, unless the camera generates MPEG in the format needed for a DVD you still have to render. Thus Chienwork's suggestion of gettting a DVD camera is going to get you the quickest results.
Chienworks wrote on 5/7/2006, 7:10 PM
Actually i hadn't suggested a DVD-based camera. Those have plenty of troublesome issues that you probably won't want to deal with. What i recommended is a DVD recorder that works similar to a VCR. You would still record with something like a MiniDV Camcorder, then dump that video to the DVD recorder afterwards. I suppose if time was very critical you could take the output from the camcorder and record it on the DVD recorder while shooting. That way you'd have a finished DVD a couple of minutes after the shooting was done.
bjrohner wrote on 5/9/2006, 6:35 AM
Paul

How did you get the VidCap shortcut onto the desktop. It's a great idea but I can't seem to find it.

Thanks
Bob
Paul Mead wrote on 5/10/2006, 9:58 PM
Sorry, I'm not on that system now (and won't be for a couple weeks since I am on the road). But, using Windows Explorer, select the "Desktop" folder. From the File menu select "New" and select "Shortcut". A window will popup with a "Browse" button. Find the image and select it. You should be able to find the image under the Sony directory; I believe it is named "VidCap60.exe".
Chienworks wrote on 5/11/2006, 3:53 AM
On my computer it's located at

C:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas 6.0\vidcap60.exe

You'll have to find out where it is on your own computer, but it should be rather obvious. Since you're probably using Vegas Movie Studio look for that name under \Sony\.

I browsed to it in explorer, right-mouse-button clicked and chose "Create shortcut", then dragged this new shortcut to the desktop. It will have "shortcut to" in the title, but you can rename it to anything you want.