Posted by P Pron on 11/11/05 02:19

graham chapman wrote:
|| I've bought a capture card, and now I can transfer my old video
|| tapes to DVD - or so i thought!!
|| The first problem i come across is, is that why 2 different formats?
|| For example, my brothers DVD player only accepts DVD + , my player
|| at home accepts DVD-. Why?
|| Also, the quality of the discs themselves. I've recently bought both
|| types of DVD media, the DVD +RW and the DVD -RW, so that I can first
|| make a disc, to see which sort is compatible for each player...I
|| bough Maxell DVD + RW, DVD -RW, so I thought it would be ok, after
|| all, if the discs are no good to start off with, then why bother
|| wasting DVD discs! However, I bought Datawrite DVD-R discs. They
|| seem to be temrermental at times, sometimes they play on some,
|| others not at all Which sort should you think I should go for, as
|| far as DVD-R?
|| Next I bought 50 Budget DVD+R from ukdvdr.co.uk and that was a
|| mistake! When you burn these discs, you usually end up with
|| unplayable copies, or no copy at all! I must try to ditch these!
|| Again, which type of DVD+R media do you recommend?
|| To copy the Video, I do this... First, I use Windows movie maker to
|| edit, make the titles, transitions etc. I save that as a WMA. file,
|| then I use DVD santa to convert the file to disc, and then burn it.
|| But it's getting a bit hit and miss, sometimes, you get a perfect
|| copy of the video, others, sometimes the player ( a medion player,
|| the other a Wharfdale DVD-750S ) won't even locate the start of the
|| movie....
|| So, where am i going wrong? Is the burning process the place to
|| start?
|| Do you find a better solution to Windows movie maker, that can not
|| only do all the effects i need, and convert the process, and make a
|| decent DVD? Or is the choice of Disc suspect? maybe the player could
|| be at fault? Any ideas?
|| Graham

I'm not an expert on capturing video to a PC - I generally use a standalone
DVD recorder... But I suspect the bulk of your problem lies with your
software choices, rather than elsewhere. If you trawl through this NG, I
think you'll find very few (if any) mentions of Windows movie maker. And I
_know_ you'll find virtually no trace of DVD Santa. I've used it a couple
of times, with variable results, and I've also asked for feedback about it,
and got no replies...

Others may have better ideas, but I think you could do worse than try Nero.
(I use TMPGenc DVD Author myself, but it is very plain and basic and is
really only the video equivalent of a simple word processor - no fancy
transitions, etc.)

hth

paul

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