Well I though about the idea after seeing the DVDRecorder recorded DVD-r from a friend. He ran his dvd cam firewire into the DVD-Recorder and also S-Video from a vcr.
I was blow away! Just as good as any encoding I've done and it was recorded in realtime! Obviously the menus are very basic at best. Now I still intend on editing and authoring the traditional way for some projects but rendering mpg is a slow process!
I did some investigating and came up with the following.
- You can get a unit (Sony, Pioneer, Panny) that has DV in/out and a HD (80G) for about $500-$600.
- You can set the bit rate via quality settings. In some cases VBR but no major options.
- You can record directly to DVD-R or DVD-RW (or DVD+R/W in some units) or directoy to the HD for simple edits (cuts, deletes) and then to DVD.
- I would record to DVD-RW, rip back to pc, demux to mpv and mpa, do simple editing (cut out content) with Womble MPG-VCR with no re-encoding, then re-author with customized menu and chapters, burn.
- I would basically use this workflow to author DVD's for my clients who want the bulk VHS,VHS-C,Hi-8,8mm,DV to DVD. Some with basic menus and chpts some with more fancy. Some times I get a whole box full! Ya Ya I know, who wants to pick that work but once you have the workflow down it really is just pretty easy. I tell people to go out and by one of these and they say either no or cool, but they still want me to do it.
- From what I can find you can't go from the PC directly into the DVD Recorder (anyone?). But I was thinking I could even go PC to print to DV to DVDRecorder. No loss.
- The pro is that I can encode the video without having to go to avi and then mpg. The quality it really good (seriously). I'm not tying up my editing rig so I can do the fun stuff.
- Just to check point, is there a good MPG encoder card anywhere near $500 on the market that is really good (I've seen some real crap out there).
Have not settled on a make/model yet or even if I will go this route. Anyone else doing this? Crazy? :)
-Jason
I was blow away! Just as good as any encoding I've done and it was recorded in realtime! Obviously the menus are very basic at best. Now I still intend on editing and authoring the traditional way for some projects but rendering mpg is a slow process!
I did some investigating and came up with the following.
- You can get a unit (Sony, Pioneer, Panny) that has DV in/out and a HD (80G) for about $500-$600.
- You can set the bit rate via quality settings. In some cases VBR but no major options.
- You can record directly to DVD-R or DVD-RW (or DVD+R/W in some units) or directoy to the HD for simple edits (cuts, deletes) and then to DVD.
- I would record to DVD-RW, rip back to pc, demux to mpv and mpa, do simple editing (cut out content) with Womble MPG-VCR with no re-encoding, then re-author with customized menu and chapters, burn.
- I would basically use this workflow to author DVD's for my clients who want the bulk VHS,VHS-C,Hi-8,8mm,DV to DVD. Some with basic menus and chpts some with more fancy. Some times I get a whole box full! Ya Ya I know, who wants to pick that work but once you have the workflow down it really is just pretty easy. I tell people to go out and by one of these and they say either no or cool, but they still want me to do it.
- From what I can find you can't go from the PC directly into the DVD Recorder (anyone?). But I was thinking I could even go PC to print to DV to DVDRecorder. No loss.
- The pro is that I can encode the video without having to go to avi and then mpg. The quality it really good (seriously). I'm not tying up my editing rig so I can do the fun stuff.
- Just to check point, is there a good MPG encoder card anywhere near $500 on the market that is really good (I've seen some real crap out there).
Have not settled on a make/model yet or even if I will go this route. Anyone else doing this? Crazy? :)
-Jason