kira13
November 4th, 2007, 02:27 PM
Now that I can finally transfer shows from my Series 3 TiVo, I have started copying the shows I want to archive over to my computer and am now trying to edit/author them to DVD with my new TVSuite. But I apparently recorded one of the shows (CSI, in case it matters, which I doubt) in SD either before we got our HD package from our cable co. or by accident. Now I am trying to put it on a DVD with an HD episode (because I record 2 hr.-long episodes per DVD, and I have no other SD episodes).
I used the option to convert the 4:3 clip to 16:9 with pillarboxing on my first try. I set everything up to remove commercials in each clip, adding the output to the DVD list without saving the file, and writing straight to DVD. The DVD has issues, so I tried again, this time saving each episode's edits as a separate file, then adding each of those files to the DVD list, then writing to a folder only. When I checked the output by playing the VOBs from the folder, I realized that the 4:3 episode was squished horizontally; the pillarboxes are too wide and the video area is almost square. Also, the pillarboxes are green, not black. It was this way as well on the DVD, but I thought perhaps it had been a problem of writing straight to the DVD.
So I tried again. I ran the HD episode thru QuickStream Fix (only because I had noticed sync issues in the output complete box), and I tried saving the SD episode as a 16:9 DVD by itself (to folder only) to rule out problems with trying to edit both to be compliant with each other as well as DVD standards. (I figured I could then re-combine the VOBs and save the output as an MPG again, only it would already be 16:9.) I checked the cropping screen, and the pillarboxes looked fine; they were black, like I expected, and the video looked like it really was 4:3. Nevertheless, the output still turned out just like the previous tries, with green pillarboxes that were too wide and video that was nearly square.
At this point, I gave up and moved on to two more HD episodes until I could find out what's going wrong. Am I missing some setting(s) somewhere, or is there a problem in the software? Also, I looked for options for converting a 4:3 video to a 16:9 pillarboxed video in the same format (i.e. MPG to MPG), but found none. I don't know if others would find such a thing useful; my only use for it is to be able to save output at every step of the way to ensure quality, but if the authoring works just fine without resorting to that, I wouldn't need it.
Any ideas?
Thanks, Kira
I used the option to convert the 4:3 clip to 16:9 with pillarboxing on my first try. I set everything up to remove commercials in each clip, adding the output to the DVD list without saving the file, and writing straight to DVD. The DVD has issues, so I tried again, this time saving each episode's edits as a separate file, then adding each of those files to the DVD list, then writing to a folder only. When I checked the output by playing the VOBs from the folder, I realized that the 4:3 episode was squished horizontally; the pillarboxes are too wide and the video area is almost square. Also, the pillarboxes are green, not black. It was this way as well on the DVD, but I thought perhaps it had been a problem of writing straight to the DVD.
So I tried again. I ran the HD episode thru QuickStream Fix (only because I had noticed sync issues in the output complete box), and I tried saving the SD episode as a 16:9 DVD by itself (to folder only) to rule out problems with trying to edit both to be compliant with each other as well as DVD standards. (I figured I could then re-combine the VOBs and save the output as an MPG again, only it would already be 16:9.) I checked the cropping screen, and the pillarboxes looked fine; they were black, like I expected, and the video looked like it really was 4:3. Nevertheless, the output still turned out just like the previous tries, with green pillarboxes that were too wide and video that was nearly square.
At this point, I gave up and moved on to two more HD episodes until I could find out what's going wrong. Am I missing some setting(s) somewhere, or is there a problem in the software? Also, I looked for options for converting a 4:3 video to a 16:9 pillarboxed video in the same format (i.e. MPG to MPG), but found none. I don't know if others would find such a thing useful; my only use for it is to be able to save output at every step of the way to ensure quality, but if the authoring works just fine without resorting to that, I wouldn't need it.
Any ideas?
Thanks, Kira