slau Posted January 1, 2004 Report Share Posted January 1, 2004 I bought my first DVD Writer yesterday: the LG GSA-4081B, which is supposedly to be compatible with ALL DVD formats. There are a few prgrams included in the package. I had to try the new DVD authoring program as Nero 5.5 does not support (or see) my new LG writer.The neoDVD program by MediodStream works good to burn a DVD-RW (Memorex 1X 4.7 GB), directly with the PTE generated .AVI file, and my Pioneer DV-333 has no problem playing the DVD-RW, even with menu. Quality is not bad either...at least better than my SVCD generated with TMPGEnc+ & Nero5.5 combination. Before I bought this LG writer, I haven't even heard about MedioStream. Here is the link to the neoDVD:http://www.mediostream.com/neodvd/index.htmlWell, my next step is to find out if my Pioneer DV-333 can play the Pine DVD-R (4X 4.7GB) disk which is relatively inexpensive (CAD$ 1.5/disk). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slau Posted January 2, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2004 UPDATE - NeoDVDBurned a few DVD-R (Pine 4X 4.7 Gb) which are more compatible than the DVD-RW with my Pioneer DV-333. The whole moive (home made, mini DV) is about 1 hour 15 minute. The DVD-RW has some problem at the end of the movie. I am not sure that if the movie is too long for a 4.7 MB disk or there is problem with the DVD-RW (I have tried two DVD-RWs and they behaved the same at the end). The DVD-R has no problem from the beginning to the end. Next step is to find out how compatibable this home made DVD-R disks are with other DVD players. When are we going to have a 'standard' for DVD players? Or, we still have to wait a few more years for the technology to mature as in the case of Beta vs VHS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Cox Posted January 2, 2004 Report Share Posted January 2, 2004 Steventhere might be sonething at these siteshttp://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.6.2http://dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.htmlhttp://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.php?DVD...w&Search=Searchsorry Stevenguess you likely have been therejust seen your entry on pg 2http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=20entry9989ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slau Posted January 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2004 Hi Ken,With DVD disk, not only what format is important (i.e. DVD-R, DVD+R, ETC), sometime the maufactuer makes a difference too. One brand of DVD-R may work perfectly but any brand of same format disk may not be 100% compatible. I have been following the development of the DVD writers since the first 'consumer' model hit the market. And, I have been refraining myself to buy one until now and it has been tough for a high tech equipment junky like myself >.Also, I believe that the manufactuers of both DVD disk and players make continuouely minor modification (i.e. firmware) to their product. That can be very confusing and frustrating for consumers. The only advise is to try different brand/format of disk, and find one or two that work GOOD with your DVD player and stock up on the disks before their change the manufacturing processMay be one of these days things (for DVD making) can be a lot more easier for regular consumers. We can only hope.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Cox Posted January 5, 2004 Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 Steven, what version of neoDVD program by MediodStream came bundled with your LG burner4.1 or 5?ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slau Posted January 5, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 Ken, I think it is a 'special edition' of NeoDVDplus5, which has taken away some features of the regular neoDVDplus5. But it is good enough for me to author/burn DVD. I am still not happy about Nero5.5 does not support this LG drive. I have tried a few times with the "Autodetect CDROM" feature in Nero but no luck. May be the drive is too new?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Cox Posted January 5, 2004 Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 Steven, likely you have already checked but just in case seehttp://www.nero.com/en/helptool/641.htm#o641ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo Posted January 10, 2004 Report Share Posted January 10, 2004 I've only now got around to D/L'ing and testing the new AVI-capable version of PTE---seems to work great so far. I've been using NEO Plus 4 to write DVDs for a while with success so I gave it the task of converting/writing PTE's output...it did a great job, the resulting video is clear and the transitions are fine. I've seen some pretty unpleasant results when making MPEGs out of slideshows,EXEs etc for use in DVD players but this combo seems to be a winner. There's a newer version of NEO (5) out but I don't see any Great Leaps Forward with it so I'll stick with 4 for now at least. Yet another winner of an upgrade for Igor and PTE, which I've been using since '99 and I'd have to give him my vote as by far The Best of the Bunch of all the myriad slideshow-type programs that I've dabbled with. Great stuff Igor. Anyway, if you're thinking about getting DVD authoring S/W to go with PTE's new capabilities then you might look at NEO, it's about $50.Regards to all,Jim in LA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joy Posted January 10, 2004 Report Share Posted January 10, 2004 What the difference between Neo Plus and Neo DVD and does either one create SVCD? It says only VCD or DVD video using a CDR. I tried the DVD video with another program (Roxio Video Movie Creator) and the quality was not as good as SVCD. Of course Neo may be a better program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo Posted January 11, 2004 Report Share Posted January 11, 2004 Joy, it doesn't output to SVCD as such, or at least the Plus version4 doesn't. I don't know what the Standard version lacks from the Plus one, check out Neo's website, I'm sure it's all there. It'll output to AVI, MPEG1 & MPEG2. They have now released version 5, perhaps that might be worth a look at. I was using Roxio's Movie Creator to put together some little fast-edit clips and was quite happy with it until I installed their EZCD Creator 6--Movie Creator has refused to work ever since! Roxio's software is known to be prone to clashes, even amongst its own products.Neo, by the way, renders very quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slau Posted January 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2004 I agree that the NeoDVDPlus5 renders very fast for DVD MPEG2 and the quality of the clip is not bad at all. It is a lot better than the mpeg2 encoder with my Ulead MSP6.5. For comparision with my favorite software: TMPGEnc+, I have rendered the same AVI file using TMPGEnc+ (2 Pass VBR, Sharpen edges, Normal). The DVD looks better with TMPGEnc+, less artifact and sharper. However, it takes a long time to render the avi file to mpeg2 using TMPGEnc (I think it is about 4X real time with my P4 1.8 PC running W2K). For quick-and-dirty project, I will use neoDVD5. I will still use TMPGEnc to encode the MPEG2 file when I prefer quality over time/effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronniebootwest Posted January 11, 2004 Report Share Posted January 11, 2004 Gosh, what a mountain to climb eh! There is so much discussion about this DVD thing and still nothing seems to be getting any better. I almost gave up trying to get better quality from my DVD burner and then I discovered a program called "Proshow Gold" from Photodex. I have found that this software creates a 'video' file that can be rendered in Pinnacle Studio 8 to produce a DVD that provides excellent quality on the TV screen. This software also produces its own .exe files - though I must confess that the quality of these is much below that of the PTE avi.Have a look and see what you think. Paste this link in to your browser. (I don't know how to insert a hyperlink - perhaps someone will tell me how please)http://www.photodex.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joy Posted January 11, 2004 Report Share Posted January 11, 2004 I replied before, but my post got lost so if it shows up again........Jimbo, Thanks for the reply, I thought svcd was mpeg2, but I might be wrong. I find Roxio Movie Creator very confusing. I downloaded it (436MB), only to find out if didn't create svcd, only vcd. It will make some kind of DVD-VCD that will only play on a PC DVD player not on a standalone DVD (TV) player. Would have been nice if Roxio had said that on their website so I wouldn't have had to download 436MBs . I made a show in P2E and Pinnacle Expression (svcd) and the quality was NOT good. Too much jitter. Transitions were smooth, but lots of that jitter. My best results with SVCD so far has been Movie Maker 2 wmv>Tmpgenc Avi>Pinnacle Expression SVCD. Surprisingly converting the wmv to mpeg2 in Tmpgenc and then using Pinnacle Exp. gave a worse resulting quality than the plain avi file.Ronnie, I saw PhotoShow Gold before but didn't try it. Any scrolling titles and credit available? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slau Posted January 11, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2004 Ronnie,I have tried the Proshow Gold before for making SVCD and liked it. If you don't want and care about having the control and features of PTE, the Proshow Gold is 10X better in the VCD/SVCD creating process (i.e. very user friendly).Yes, there are still mountains to climb in the DVD making process. Until the DVD format is standardized (both software and hardware), we the end users still have to be concern about compatibility issue. To make matters worse, one process works for me, may not work for you as there are so many varibales in between. Anyway, may be I should go back and take another look at Proshow Gold again for creating DVD.Another advise for home made VCD/SVCD/DVD: if YOUR home made disk does not play smoothly on YOUR DVD player, please don't blame PTE, DVD player, the disk or whatever, as there can be due to a lot of factores: software in creating the slideshow and/or the avi file, the encoding process to turn the avi to mpeg file, the DVD authoring software, the burning software, the CD/DVD disk, the DVD player, and of course your computer. Any one of those not working 'properly' will give you problem and a lot of times the problem is due to a combination of the above factors. Yes, Ronnie, ther are MOUNTIANS to climb. My advise is if you don't care about climbing the mountain, try to follow one guy's success and see if it works for your own setup. If it does, stop trying and stick by the same process right to the last bit of details (e.g. use the SAME brand of disk). Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo Posted January 11, 2004 Report Share Posted January 11, 2004 Joy..I THINK that SVCD is a slightly lesser quality form of MPEG2 (I.E. less than what you would get with a regular DVD production) but I could well be wrong too so someone more knowlegdable than I can set us straight on that issue..I, too, was under the impression that it was the same as regular DVD MPEG2 but that you simply can't fit nearly as much of it on a compact disc as you can on a DVD but a friend insists that this is not the case, it is in fact of reduced quality...Over to the experts???I didn't have any problems with using Roxio's Movie Creator (I bought it on a CD) and I actually liked its output. Of course it's dead now 'till I can breathe life back into it. Roxio should definitely have told you about the lack of SVCD on their site. They should also alert potential buyers to the fact that some of their S/W might well interfere with already-installed versions of their other productsWMV is a good codec to use if small file size is important but you have to be choosy when setting its compression/sizes etc. I found it starts to break up and look fuzzy at the higher screen size resolutions. See what the compression setting was that you produced your WMV file from, it might have been set at a, say, puny 320x240 then got enlarged to 720X when you produced the DVD from it.That would certainly make it look pretty awful. I use WMV a lot for simple video files that won't be put onto DVD and I've found that it looks fairly decent, with a decent file size, at 640x480. with KBPS set at about 750 to 1000. Good but NOT DVD good.I've rambled enough already.........Jim. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joy Posted January 11, 2004 Report Share Posted January 11, 2004 Jim, I've made svcd using just Pinnacle Expression and also using P2E first and then Pinnacle. (Sorry Igor), P2E show was not as good. But then Pinnacle Exp alone has few transition options. I think you misunderstood me. The MovieMaker2 wmv>Tmpgenc avi>Pinnacle Exp svcd gives as good a result, maybe a little better, than just Pinnacle alone and it has the unique title and credit animation and good transitions. I save the wmv at High Quality Video NTSC which is 720x480, 4.3 aspect ratio. Tmpgenc avi file is huge but I have 2 - 80G hard drives. This MM2 wmv>Tmpgenc>Pinnacle svcd process gives the best svcd quality of all the processes I have tried. I'm sure DVD is better, but I don't have a DVD recorder. I am disappointed in svcd results using the P2E avi and although slau says not to blame any one thing, I do get good results using the MM2/Tmpg/Pinnacle process. Frankly, I am searching for a program that will import wmv files and then create the svcd and (when I buy a DVD recorder) DVD. This would allow me to eliminate the Tmpgenc step. I found one program, but although the photo quality was retained and good, the transitions were not rendered properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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