Hey all, I have a question for the DVD-burning gurus of the board.

I have a TV-Tuner in my computer and have been recording my favorite shows every week they air. After a show has been recorded, I go back through with a program and remove all the commercials.

Now, the problem is that my hard drive space has been completely eaten up by this. In a little over a month and a half of having the TV-Tuner installed I've recorded 70 gigs worth of shows. The reason for so much space being taken up is because by default they are encoded in regular old MPEG.

The reason I haven't converted these files over to something much more space-efficient (like XVID or DIVX) is because I want to burn them to DVD and play them in my set-top box at home. However, I'm unsure what format the video files must be in, in order to just pop in a burned DVD and play it on the set-top box.

Is there any program that can help automate this process? Like putting in menus and what not as well? Right now all I'm concerned about is getting these shows burned to DVD to watch later on my set-top box before the hard drive gets filled up .

Does anyone know and have any recommendations? Thanks!

www.doom9.org/

Quoted: www.doom9.org/

Which one should I download from the list they present on that site :

Audio Tools (show all audio tools)

BeSweet 1.5 - Advanced audio transcoding tool. offers one-pass & two-pass Normalization, DRC, Equalization, Sample-Rate-Conversion, Delay Assertion & more.
BeLight 0.22 - probably the best GUI for BeSweet
HeadAC3he 0.23a - smart & fast AC3 -> WAV/MP3/OGG/AC3-WAV transcoding utility, includes SSE dlls (MMX/SSE2 dlls can be downloaded here).
Lame 3.95.1 - best and free MP3 encoder

AVI Editing tools (show all AVI editing tools)

AviDefreezer - fixes frozen frames
Avifrate1.10 - framerate changer for Avis
DivX Fix 1.1 - to fix broken DivX downloads and crashed ripping sessions. NOT for frozen frames!
Ogg Cutter - utility to cut Ogg Media streams
OggMux - ogg media stream multiplexing utility
VirtualDub 1.6.12 - latest official release without any AC3 or VBR MP3 support. Website
VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.1 - VirtualDub plus Nandub audio + OGM/MPEG-2/AviSynth support. Website

Calculators (show all calculators)

Bearson's Bitrate Calculator - Bitrate calculator, what else?

Codecs (show all codecs)

DivX 3.11 alpha - it appears to me that some people don't know what CTRL-F is... so learn!!!
DivX 6.0 - lastest DivX codec by DivXNetworks. The successor of DivX4.
DivX 6.0 Pro - free version with extra features. Trial version - runs out after 6 month. Website
XviD 1.1 - imho the best MPEG-4 codec out there. Website - Binary download site

Descrambling / Ripping tools (show all ripping tools)

DVD43 3.7.0 - an on-the-fly decryption layer for Windows
DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0 - the most versatile ripper out there
DVDFab Decrypter 2.9.7.0 - simple ripper that's always updated to handle copy protection by disc corruption mechanisms. Website
SmartRipper 2.41 - outdated, old-style (brute force) ripper
vStrip 0.8f_css - outdated, old-style (brute force) ripper, has many features and is the only open source solution

Decoders (show all decoders)

DGMPGDec 1.4.5 - latest version of the tool formerly known as DVD2AVI
DVDx 2.2 - all in one DVD -> VCD/SVCD encoder. Website
Xmpeg 5.03 - latest FlaskMpeg derivate. Website

Digital TV (show all Digtal TV tools)

Cuttermaran 1.66 - frame accurate MPEG-2 cutting tool. Website
MPEG2Schnitt 0.8 - easy to use tool to cut out commercials from MPEG-2 streams. Website
ProjectX 0.90 - demuxing tool for DVB streams. Website
PVAStrumento 2.1.0.15 - PVA demuxing tool. Website

DivX / MPEG-4 Encoders (show all DivX/MPEG-4 encoders)

Nandub 1.0RC2 - SBC encoding utility

Filters (show all filters)

AC3Filter 0.7b - AC3 playback filter for AVI/AC3 and DVDs
ffdshow - general purpose DivX/XviD decoding filter

Launchers (show all launchers)

Compact Disc Autolauncher 2.0
MicroDVD Autorun 1.85 - DivX autolauncher for Micro DVD Player
Mini DivX Launcher - fully automated codec installation and movie launch
MovieLauncher Plus 1.11 - the big brother of movie.exe so to speak.

Media Players (show all media players)

BSPlayer
Media Player Classic 6.4.8.5 - just like WMP6.4 except that it has a lot more features
The Core Media Player 4.0 RC5 - successor of PowerDivX NextGen
Zoom Player 4.0 - WMP replacement, optimized for TV output. Website

For DVD players go to the links section.

MPEG1/2 Encoders (show all MPEG1/2 encoders)

CCE SP - demo version: displays a logo on each encoded file.
HC 0.17 - free high quality .AVS to MPEG-1/2 encoder. Website
QuEnc 0.61 - free high quality .AVS to MPEG1/2 encoder based on ffmpeg
TMPGEnc 2.521 - note: MPEG-2 support expires after 30 days unless you live in the future ;)

Region Free Tools (show all region free tools)

DVD Genie 4.10 - can set the region for almost any DVD software player

Subtitles (show all subtitle tools)

Subadjust 1.56 - adjust subs, split subtitle files and convert subtitle files
SubRip 1.30 beta 10 - the most uses subtitle ripper. Website
VirtualDub subtitle plugin - to add ssa subs to an AVI
VobSub 2.23 - another subtitle plugin for VirtualDub & Avisynthand DS filter for subtitle overlay during playback.
VobSubStrip 0.11 - strips unwated subtitle streams from VobSub files. Website

Support Utils (show all support utils)

AviSynth 2.56 - probably the most powerful video editing tool based on scripting
AviResetAll - resets all AVI settings for Windows, try that if the above doesn't help
BatchCCEWS - automates .avs encoding using CCE. To be used together with DIF4U. Website
ForceAspi 1.7 - if you get ASPI errors install this
Robot4Rip 0.6 - automates preprocessing of DVD sources for Gordian Knot & other tools
VFAPI - includes VFAPI Reader Codec and VFAPI Converter

S/VCD Tools (show all S/VCD tools)

TSCV 0.84b2 - GUI for VCDImager 0.77+ including menu and chapter capabilities. Website
VCDEasy 1.1.5 - advanced VCDImager GUI, allows easy chaptering of VCDs and SVCDs including burning via CDRDAO. Website

VOB Tools (show all VOB tools)

bbTools 1.9 - good demuxer and mpeg2 analyzer
DoItFast4U 1.4.0 - re-authoring made easy. Website (currently offline)
DVD Shrink 3.2 - one click DVD transcoding tool. Website
DVD Rebuilder 0.96 - one click DVD transcoding tool using CCE/Rejig/QuEnc for video encoding. Full installer
IfoEdit 0.97 - edit IFO files, create IFO files, stream processing for DVDs, DVD image and burning capabilities included.
IfoUpdate 0.78 - merges PGC/Cell structures between .ifo files
ImgBurn 1.2.0.0 - Continues DVD Decrypter's burning engine
ReAuthorist 1.0.0 - putting DoItFast4U & DoCCE4U output together to a fully working Scenarist project ready for compilation.

This document was last updated on February 23, 2006

BTT