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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : DVD writer software?

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Grogster

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Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 9308
Posted: 07:06am 24 May 2023
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Hello.

I have started capturing VHS videotapes into AVI file format, but some people want me to give the disc to them as a DVD rather then a data file.

Can anyone recommend a free DVD writing software?
All I need to do, is take an AVI file, and write it to a DVD as a DVD-video format.
No menus are required, but it would be a bonus.

Suggestions?
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TassyJim

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Joined: 07/08/2011
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Posts: 6101
Posted: 07:14am 24 May 2023
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DVD_authoring_software
VK7JH
MMedit   MMBasic Help
 
Grogster

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Posted: 07:32am 24 May 2023
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Thanks.

EDIT: DVD flick seems to work well, but 10fps encode rate - pretty bad.

Free, yes, but still.....

Celeron 2GHz dual-core, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD.
Would have expected better performance on the encoding then 10fps......
CPU usage at 42% even during full encode.

Nice easy GUI, but this is pretty horrible.
Will take more then THREE HOURS to encode to DVD, a file I captured in real-time in a little over one hour.

Any other suggestions?
Edited 2023-05-24 18:48 by Grogster
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toml_12953
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Joined: 13/02/2015
Location: United States
Posts: 339
Posted: 12:03pm 24 May 2023
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  Grogster said  Hello.

I have started capturing VHS videotapes into AVI file format, but some people want me to give the disc to them as a DVD rather then a data file.

Can anyone recommend a free DVD writing software?
All I need to do, is take an AVI file, and write it to a DVD as a DVD-video format.
No menus are required, but it would be a bonus.

Suggestions?


I use Freemake Video Converter. It's free and lets you create menus.

https://www.freemake.com
 
Martin H.

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Joined: 04/06/2022
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Posted: 12:52pm 24 May 2023
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  Grogster said  Thanks.

EDIT: DVD flick seems to work well, but 10fps encode rate - pretty bad.

Free, yes, but still.....

Celeron 2GHz dual-core, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD.
Would have expected better performance on the encoding then 10fps......
CPU usage at 42% even during full encode.

Nice easy GUI, but this is pretty horrible.
Will take more then THREE HOURS to encode to DVD, a file I captured in real-time in a little over one hour.

Any other suggestions?

every frame has to be encoded to Mpeg2
This is time consuming if the program didn't use the GPU for transcoding.
I used to use TMPEG for Encoding and Nero Vison for the creation of DVDs including menu. Started in the evening and in the morning the DVD was ready. But that was 15 years ago
Edited 2023-05-24 22:54 by Martin H.
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Volhout
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Location: Netherlands
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Posted: 06:41pm 24 May 2023
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Memory okay, bit cpu not the fastest.
What can you expect?.
One thing you can check is if the variable bitrate flag is set. If so you can gain some performance using fixed bitrate. But the files may be larger, filling the dvd faster.

Also note that the noisier the source material, the lower the compression ratio.

Volhout

Suggestion, use 1pc to capture, another to author dvd. Maybe you can even let your NAS do it when you sleep...
Edited 2023-05-25 04:46 by Volhout
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Grogster

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Posted: 12:57am 25 May 2023
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OK, format to DVD complete - took NINE HOURS and 45 mins, for a 70min source AVI.

  Quote  What can you expect?


Better then that.  I had a Pinnacle DV/AV capture card on Windows XP with 4GB of RAM about ten years ago, and it could encode the raw AVI to DVD at about 50fps.  It was an AthlonXP CPU from what I remember, which IS a more juicy CPU then this NUC designed for economy, so perhaps I am simply not being fair to the NUC and to DVD flick.

I will see if I can dig out one of my slightly older, but much more juicy CPU boxes and run another encode. Still, even on THIS NUC, I would have thought that the encoding process would have pushed the CPU up to 100%....
The CPU was not even being pushed, sitting around 40% all the time.

Still, I like the nice easy user interface of DVD flick, and I guess if I just make sure that I set it going before I go to bed, it can churn away there all night and the files are ready the next day, so there is that.

I will dig out one of my other PC's and see if it runs better on that.
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Volhout
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Posted: 04:23am 25 May 2023
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Maybe the encoder can only use a single core?

Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
Grogster

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Posted: 06:05am 25 May 2023
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Perhaps.  I never researched that deep into their docs, but I might check on that.
But you'd expect ANY new-ish video editor/coder to make use of any and all cores it could detect these daze....
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austfox
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Joined: 05/03/2016
Location: Australia
Posts: 18
Posted: 02:47am 26 May 2023
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I use the AVS suite of software and it looks like their AVS Video Convertor is free with no restrictions.

It's been a while since I have converted any videos, so not sure how well it works, but their other programs work well (at least for my needs).
 
Grogster

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Posted: 04:38am 26 May 2023
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Thanks - I had totally forgotten about AVS!
I used to use their software years ago.

As you mentioned, DVD writing is pretty much a non-event for most people these days, with the capacity of modern USB flash drives, you just copy the video files and flick the USB drive at them.

However, I do still have a collection of mostly older people who just want their old home movies converted into DVD's, cos they don't have a computer, so there is still the odd time when I need to create DVD's, but it's so infrequent now, that I use an external DVD-writer drive!
Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!
 
Grogster

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Posts: 9308
Posted: 06:17am 26 May 2023
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UPDATE: Further to this, the 9 hour DVD encode via DVD Flick has corrupted video from 10 mins in - the video goes totally nuts, so that is a failed encode.

However, AVS Video Converter took the source video and converted it to a DVD in just under 25 mins - that's more like it!  
And the video is not corrupted, it plays correctly all the way through.

We have a winner!
Only wish I had remembered the AVS softwares before now.
Oh well.
Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!
 
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