kgresko,

Thanks for the reply.

I wish I could capture in AVI, but I cannot. My Sony Vaio only captures in MPEG2. I was able to edit it in MS 3.0 though.

The real question is: can I save it as an MPEG2 file, then author in Ulead, then burn - essentially skipping an additional rendering step?

Allen

All I can tell you is that at some point you must render the file. If you are adding chapters in your DVD authoring in another program, you still will need to do a render in order to make sure that your chapters are rendered.

If you have the folders I think they are VOB folders then you can burn those directly to DVD. But without those folders which are created when rendering then you will get nothing when you attempt to burn.

Converting (aka rendering/encoding) a file to another format like mpg is usually referred to as rendering. For example, you render an avi file to an mpeg2, sometimes in an editor like MS3 or some other encoder like TMPGEnc. The authoring step is what takes the rendered files and creates the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders and the associated .VOB files. These are burned to the DVD. If you were to look at a DVD in Windows Explorer, you'd see two folders above. AUDIO_TS should be empty. It is reserved for DVD-Audio. In the VIDEO_TS folder you will find what are called video title sets. Some files have extension of .IFO, these are the DVD navigation files or how the DVD player knows how to move around on your DVD given remote control input. The .VOB files are usually limited to 1GB in size and are basically your movie files. This is just a top level overview of the DVD structure. It gets lots more involved and is usually of no interest to most people.

If you start with an mpg file you can import it directly into an authoring program and make a DVD. However, if you want to edit it in an editor like MS3, then it may be re-rendered or re-encoded by the editor into an mpg file. This is the step where you can lose quality. Mpeg encoding uses lossy compression. So if you make changes and re-render you are re-compressing an already compressed file. Thus the potential loss in quality. Some encoders or editors may be smart enough to only re-render the parts that have changed. I have no idea if MS3 is one of those; nor do I know of one first hand.

vwcrusher, you don't say what your setup is for capturing. What is your source. What is the capture sequence. Are you using the Vaio firewire port to capture? What software are you using to capture? If it's Uliead you probabaly have an option to capture in avi or mpg. Firewire is basically a copy from the source to your HD as avi. Then you can edit, render, author and burn. Yes, you can capture directly to mpeg2 and then author and burn. But, as I've said, you may lose quality if you edit and re-render. YMMV , you just have to experiment to determine if the resulting quality is acceptable to you.

If you don't want to edit then you can
1. capture to mpeg2
2. import into authoring software
3. author DVD
4. burn DVD

If you want to edit your input then I would recommend:
1. capture to avi
2. edit
3. render to mpeg2
4. import into authoring software
5 author DVD
6. burn DVD

In most cases, if you require editting, then the second procedure yields the best quality output.

HTH

HTH,

Thanks very much for the comprehensive response.

Here is the situation: I can only capture in MPEG2 (Sony Vaio desktop). The source is a VHS VCR with s-video out (plus audio L+R).

The editing I will do is primarily cutting out sections I do not want to save to DVD. I have been told that I can use TMPGEnc author to not only add chapter points, but to also 'edit out' the sections I do not want - saving the re-rendering step you explained in your response. Is this true? Can I do this so as to not lose quality?

Again, thanks for the advice,
Allen

vwcrusher,
I'm not sure you will get the best possible quality this way but here is a guide for how to get video to DVD directly. SInce your source is VHS then you won't get DVD quality anyway. I hope this is helpful.

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/userguides/159800.php