Recording Sage Recordings to DVD Burner

[taltman]

Hi Everyone,

This is my first post to the forum. I just purchased SageTV and will have my system built pretty soon. The system I'm building is going to be a dedicated HTPC in a Shuttle SFF case, so I'd like to do everything with my remote control.

I'd like to create a SageTV menu option that would allow me to take a recorded movie, or series of movies and burn it to my DVD burner.

Does anyone know of a way to do this? Do we need to convert the movies into a different format before we make a DVD? I can probably build a MS Vbscript to do it if someone can give me the steps that need to be taken.

/Tal

[McTurok]

I think you'll end up wanting to customize your DVD's.

I bought a burner and I've been archiving many shows I like to DVD's.

But:
1. I don't want any commericals. So use software to cut them out and
rebuild my MPEG2 Video File.

2. I like to create a nice main menu on my DVD to choose which episode
I want to watch on a show I'm burning to DVD. This really instead for me
but more for friends or family whom I might give my DVD to, to watch.

3. I personally don't ever want anything "scripted" or "automated" because
it's just a HUGH chance for problems, crashing, slowdowns, lock-ups and
added lag to my Sage.tv system.

4. My advice to you is to go into the Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Multimeida
and set your "Recording Quality" to "DVD Long Play" or another "DVD Option".
Then it's ready for burning to a DVD.

5. If #4 was all you were looking for then next time I suggest you do a search
of the forums. There are lots of other threads already talking about these issues
and questions.

Good Luck and I hope you enjoy Sage.tv,
Chris

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by taltman

Does anyone know of a way to do this? Do we need to convert the movies into a different format before we make a DVD? I can probably build a MS Vbscript to do it if someone can give me the steps that need to be taken.

The actual burning/authoring of the DVD may be possible with the Nero SDK, but to actually change the way Sage behaves, to use whatever you come up with, requires Studio.

[nielm]

To create a DVD:

Record in one of the DVD-compliant formats
optionally: edit to remove commercials, start/stop padding etc
optionally: create a DVD menu with chapters
Convert mpeg2 file into DVD filestructure (video_ts/*.lfo, *.vob)
burn DVD...

There are various mpeg2 editors available for cutting out commercials... I can recommend www.VideoRedo.com

There are various applications for creating the DVD filestructure... Some are better than others... I have used TMPGEnc DVD Author sucessfully, but Nero, Ulead, Intervideo all have their own versions...

There is also a command line tool that can do the conversion step - but I have never used it myself:
http://www.meedio.com/forum/viewtopi...light=mpeg2dvd

[taltman]

Originally Posted by McTurok

I think you'll end up wanting to customize your DVD's.

I bought a burner and I've been archiving many shows I like to DVD's.

But:
1. I don't want any commericals. So use software to cut them out and
rebuild my MPEG2 Video File.

2. I like to create a nice main menu on my DVD to choose which episode
I want to watch on a show I'm burning to DVD. This really instead for me
but more for friends or family whom I might give my DVD to, to watch.

<snip>

4. My advice to you is to go into the Setup -> Detailed Setup -> Multimeida
and set your "Recording Quality" to "DVD Long Play" or another "DVD Option".
Then it's ready for burning to a DVD.

Good Luck and I hope you enjoy Sage.tv,
Chris

Chris, Thanks for the information. I was aware of the DVD Options in Sage. I have not authored DVD's before so I was not aware of the process.

From nielm's post I can see I have a few steps I need to follow. I'd prefer to use some programs that I can pass command line arguments to. But in any case, it sounds like I should play around with some of the "Commercial Advance" customizations first.

It sounds like what I need to do is:

1) After a recording - automatically detect commercials using comskip....
1b) Remove the commercials via a script....(has anyone done this already?) - a link to the direct post would be helpful - reading 25 pages of posts to find an answer is very time consuming...
2) In Sage TV select movies that I'd like to burn
3) Pass the Movie names to a Menu Builder
4) possibly convert mpeg recordings to DVD file formats (vobs, etc...)
5) Pass the data (Menu) + (Movie source files) to an authoring program to record the DVD.

What is Sage Studio? Is there a Sage SDK somewhere that i could read? I can do some programming in Java to build this if I had some more information. Are there more applications I could look at?

Thanks for the time and patience everyone!

/Tdog

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by taltman

What is Sage Studio? Is there a Sage SDK somewhere that i could read? I can do some programming in Java to build this if I had some more information. Are there more applications I could look at?

If you do a search you'll find more info (might want to limit it to posts by Narflex to avoid the "less pertinent" discussion), but short answer:

Studio is what was used to build the 2.0 UI, and is what is used by people like mlbdude, Opus4, Malore, etc (no offense to those I didn't mention ) to build their custom STVs. It's in private beta and under NDA, so you won't get too many questions answered, but you can get a good idea what it's capable of by looking at the varous STVs and how they are different from the default.

[mostlyfodder]

there's a program written by a user named cybervillain in to meedio forums called "MPEGIIDVD", or something close to that. i used to use it with myHTPC, before meedio (www.meedio.com) was released. i'm pretty sure he updated it to work with meedio, and it only functions as a plugin. however, i'm pretty sure that the originial myHTPC version would work as a free-standing app. you should search these and meedio's forums for posts by that author and i think you'll find a solution. the program was short & sweet.

i stopped using it because i started using videoredo on a networked computer. so i'd set up my cuts on the other computer and then process them overnight in a single batch process that would handle several movies at once. i'd have videoredo save the new files to the non-htpc computer on the network, so in the morning i didn't even have to wait for file xfers.

good luck-
fodder

[justme]

For anyone thinking of doing such a thing the MPEG2DVD thread mentioned above, contains very usefull info. Several very knowledgable people came and went as different sections of the process were mapped out. Some other programs of interest mentioned in that thread, but not in the first post are:

DVDauthor-A nearly complete free opensource suite for DVD authoring. It contains just about everything needed to make mpegs into DVD compliant Vob files of the correct size/spec. It will build and put them into the correct dir stucture(Video_TS etc.). It and even has the ability to build custom menus thru it's use of XML configuration files. Of course you can use a few simple/default XML files over and over again or you could have(with Studio generating the XML) a very complex custom menu setup for each seperate project.

Cuttermaran or Mpeg2schnitt-These are free opensource mpeg2 editors that can be used for removing unwanted footage(commercials,beginnings, etc). At the time the Mpeg2DVD project was started neither supported a command line interface(CLI). Because of this there was no practical way for them to be used. I'm sure at least one now has a CLI and I believe the other allows for an XML file to specify where the cuts should be made. I can't remember which is which, from memory right now. Either way the comskip info could easily be used to determine the edit points. Or a very ambitious/smart person with Studio access could make a simple editting interface for Sage that then generates the cuts from the user's selections.

Quenc-a free re-encoder for mpegs. Most likely to be used for shrinking instead of using rejig, although some recent feature additions(AC3 and MP2 audio handling) could make it usefull in other steps. Usually rejig would be sufficient to transcode the files down in size if needed. But if you try to shrink them too much(anything over 85% of the original,IMO) transcoders(like rejig) produce very poor results. This is where a true re-encoder(re-encoder are slowler than transcoders) like Quenc comes in handy. With a re-encoder you can go lower(no lower than 70%,IMHO) Of course ideally you want to record the shows in a profile that doesn't need to be shrunk. But sometimes your files go a little over, especially if the show didn't contian as much editable(commercial) time as you estimated. Programs like Rejig and Quenc allow you to make use of your recordings for DVD, all be it at a reduced quality. This is a handy thing, if the show is not airing again in the near future.

Anyway, all the pieces exist to go from recorded mpeg2(or even several different mpeg2s) to DVD. Assuming you don't need to shrink any of the shows/files to fit on a DVD the basic proccess would be:
Demux(use bbdemux or PVAStrumento)>edit(mpeg2schnitt or Cuttermaran)>Remux into DVD compliant Mpegs(use mplex included with DVD author)>Build the DVD compliant file structure and menu(use DVDauthor)>Make a ISO(use mkisofs)>burn to DVD(DVDdecrypter or ImgTool).

Obviously you could do this differently but the above process uses only free or opensource tools(that have a CLI) the entire way. One thing many people might want to do is avoid the ISO creation stage. If you use a app like CopytoDVD you can skip the make ISO step and CopytoDVD will burn the DVDauthor generated file structure straight to the DVD. This saves HD space and a little time, but means that the process now requires a peice of payed software besides SageTV. The same things go for the edits by using VideoRedo.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by taltman

2) In Sage TV select movies that I'd like to burn
3) Pass the Movie names to a Menu Builder

Apart from these 2 items, everthing else you can do now

[abasu2003]

can someone tell me what they use to author dvd's that lets you bypass transcoding? the dvd author programs i briefly looked at seem like they don't have a way of just accepting the mpg.

[McTurok]

Originally Posted by abasu2003

can someone tell me what they use to author dvd's that lets you bypass transcoding? the dvd author programs i briefly looked at seem like they don't have a way of just accepting the mpg.

I have never had to "transcode" any of my DVD's I've made from my Sage'tv recording.

I use the DVD recording quality setting for my shows and then just use another program to could out the commericals.

I'm used Adobe Encore and TMPGenc to create DVD's.

Unless you mean the Encoding to DVD format *.vob files?
I think every DVD Authoring program has to create those.

[abasu2003]

I thought TMPGenc only creates dvd compliant mpg's

[McTurok]

Originally Posted by abasu2003

I thought TMPGenc only creates dvd compliant mpg's

The one I use creates the VOB Files in temporary folder and then burners the files and menu system to the DVD.

I then go a remove them manual as to not take up my Disk Space but only after i verify the DVD is functional.

[jsturtevant]

Here is another approach... I find DVD authoring time consuming and I'm just looking for an inexpensive archive playback method...

The Phillips player will play native MPEG and DIVX files so you can simply burn them to DVD. This is $63 at amazon or $33 if you get their credit card.

Depending on the recording format you can get 4-8 1hr episodes on a SL DVD disk ($0.25/ea).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...89524?v=glance

cheers,
Jim

[McTurok]

I think you deleted your post, but I use:

TMPGenc DVD Author

Like the guy above said, you could just copy the MPG files to a DVD and Sage.tv will play them if you have your DVD drive setup as an Import Video Files location.

But I create DVD menus so my Friends and Family can watch the stuff I save.

[KJake]

This would be a very cool option to have. Panasonic has DVD burners built into their Tivo boxes and the menus are automatically created with the show title and the episode info that you can view before watching the show. Having Sage do this would be a big one up on people I know who have those boxes...plus it'd save me tons of time.

I'd be willing to help out on this little project. I don't have Studio, but we could probably figure out a fairly automated way of doing this, right?

So, let me guess, the automatic DVD menu authoring is the next stumbling block here?

[big boi]

Originally Posted by stanger89

The actual burning/authoring of the DVD may be possible with the Nero SDK, but to actually change the way Sage behaves, to use whatever you come up with, requires Studio.

not exactly true. i use nielm's STV (actually upgrading to 2.1 and prolly cayar's STV today) and since nielm put the menus into the XML file i simply added a menu item that launches nero. it's not exactly seamless (which i think is what you're saying is not possible without studio) but it's pretty damn close.

[mostlyfodder]

Originally Posted by KJake

....I'd be willing to help out on this little project. I don't have Studio, but we could probably figure out a fairly automated way of doing this, right? So, let me guess, the automatic DVD menu authoring is the next stumbling block here?

kjake-
these issues were definitely addressed in several of the discussions that occurred over at meedio maybe a year ago or so (see the above link as place to start).

nice screenshot here:

http://www.dac.se/MPGII2DVD.jpg

the mpg2IIdvd meedio plugin link is:

http://www.meedio.com/maid/detail.ph...-9AC2156C64FC}

the official discussion thread link is:

http://www.meedio.com/forum/viewtopi...=18461&start=0

if you find some of the old threads, these guys discussed almost every issue you can think of surrounding a project like this. some of the usernames were: cybervillain, gplasky, & edtee.

-fodder

[KJake]

fodder: Looking closer into the meedio posts and the older myHTPC posts I'm seeing that no one has tackled dynamic menu generation - and I don't believe that their generated DVDs even have menus! I've started working on this because I think it's one of the biggest features and could be fairly hard to do (at least from a CLI stand-point). As far as setting up the transcoding/muxing/burning, I think someone can put that together in no time. For samity's sake, I'm building menus with DVDauthor like it's been suggested above...

justme: Simply creating them with an XML file as you've stated is not really true. There's tons of other things dealing with making your own menu MPG files and subtitles as buttons that you've gotta setup just for the XML config'd buttons to work.

I'll post updates on this as I get closer to even getting a motion/animated menu working.

-Kevin

[abasu2003]

KJake,

I briefly looked into this and will revisit it once I am done with school for the itme being, but some things I came across that might help.

The DVDAuthor GUI's are extremely helpful in figuring out a quick solution to DVD menus. The GUI's just simplify everything, adn while you become a slave to some of the pre-determined menu formats, most likely thats going to happen anyway without a studio integrated solution to DVD ripping. I'm thinking a two-level menu, where this a title track and maybe another menu that has buttons to each scene would od the trick. Also integrate a background image.

I can't remember the names of the GUI's I was using, but a google search should do it.

Also, seeing as how most people have txt files that have commercial information, it would be nice to put screen breaks during commercials. Also, maybe have a menu that has buttons that point to those screen breaks.


one problem i did have with the gui's was i couldn't figure out how to stop them from transcoding. most people record in DVD format so that seems kind of important.

In general, are most people thinking of doing this as one episode per DVD? I assume if you only have single layer burner, you probably dont' ahve much choice.