converting dvr-ms files to dvd

ok so here's my situation and what i want to do. i plan on recording basketball games in hd on my computer using a tuner card and then burning them to dvds so i can watch them later. i'm using the windows vista media center and they are saved as dvr-ms files. while i could use the built in dvd option in media center for smaller sd video the hd captures are huge in size and would not fit on a single dvd. what i've thought of doing is simply using dvr edit to cut out the commercials and split it into 2 smaller more manageable files. now here's the thing i would still have to use the dvd option in media center and it's soooo slow.

1. is there a faster way?
2. or better yet is there a way to bypass the whole saving to hard drive thing and record directly to a dvd?
3. when i burn a hd recording using the built in dvd option is the quality better or worse then converting it to a divx/xvid file? my dvd player will play divx/xvid files as well so i can either burn it as a dvd or just burn the divx files to a dvd. what would look better?
4. using the built in dvd option in media center, how much hd content would i be able to fit on 1 regular dvd-r?

ok so here's my situation and what i want to do. i plan on recording basketball games in hd on my computer using a tuner card and then burning them to dvds so i can watch them later. i'm using the windows vista media center and they are saved as dvr-ms files. while i could use the built in dvd option in media center for smaller sd video the hd captures are huge in size and would not fit on a single dvd. what i've thought of doing is simply using dvr edit to cut out the commercials and split it into 2 smaller more manageable files. now here's the thing i would still have to use the dvd option in media center and it's soooo slow.

1. is there a faster way?
2. or better yet is there a way to bypass the whole saving to hard drive thing and record directly to a dvd?
3. when i burn a hd recording using the built in dvd option is the quality better or worse then converting it to a divx/xvid file? my dvd player will play divx/xvid files as well so i can either burn it as a dvd or just burn the divx files to a dvd. what would look better?
4. using the built in dvd option in media center, how much hd content would i be able to fit on 1 regular dvd-r?

In answer to the editing problem, I use dCut to edit out the commercials, etc from the drv-ms files. Takes a little time but works like a charm. My wife and daughter like the PBS miniseries but the interrutions can be painful --- so I use this to create a nice file for a single watching, and sometimes burn to DVD for my wife to watch on the bedroom unit.

Good Luck :):):)

ok so here's my situation and what i want to do. i plan on recording basketball games in hd on my computer using a tuner card and then burning them to dvds so i can watch them later. i'm using the windows vista media center and they are saved as dvr-ms files. while i could use the built in dvd option in media center for smaller sd video the hd captures are huge in size and would not fit on a single dvd. what i've thought of doing is simply using dvr edit to cut out the commercials and split it into 2 smaller more manageable files. now here's the thing i would still have to use the dvd option in media center and it's soooo slow.

1. is there a faster way?
2. or better yet is there a way to bypass the whole saving to hard drive thing and record directly to a dvd?
3. when i burn a hd recording using the built in dvd option is the quality better or worse then converting it to a divx/xvid file? my dvd player will play divx/xvid files as well so i can either burn it as a dvd or just burn the divx files to a dvd. what would look better?
4. using the built in dvd option in media center, how much hd content would i be able to fit on 1 regular dvd-r?

You can save yourself a lot of trouble doing all of that, but getting one of the Midte devices. All you need to do is connect them to your USB or Network depends on what model you have and then that would connect to your HDTV using either HDMI or Component Video. They're HDD Media Players. Some are both HDD and Network.

This one cost $40 to $44 depending.. Just need to stick in HDD
http://www.midte.com/English/Products/MDT-PM318S.html

Then you can play it back on your TV. See this youtube video not most of what you see is in Spanish, but you get the idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS1xTlXpRCg

Use MCEBuddy to convert the drv-ms to AVI and use one of these toys above to watch it on the set. Unless you really want to go the DVD way you can use D.I.K.O but format must be AVI otherwise this program won't work. D.I.K.O is freeware. Works great in my opinion.

i really want to use the equipment i already have. it's just so much more complicated that it should be, all i want to do is take my hd recordings and put them on dvds so i could watch it on my tv =/

there is something we're overlooking here: HD-content versus SD-content.

DVD's are intended for SD content. While it is possible to put a HD-movie file on a DVD or even a DVD9, you don't have a lot of options. Even if you do put a HD media file (mp4, mkv, wmv), you need something fairly powerful to play it back (PC, Blu-ray player, Xbox 360, PS3...)

You're not going to be able to put a 1080i file in divx format on a DVD and expect your regular dvd player to play it. The content needs to be downscaled to Standard Definition (SD) and that means the entire video needs to be transcoded. Depending on the length of the movie, this can take several several hours. I transcoded 6 hours of 720p video on a single core 1.8ghz cpu, and it took about 24 hours.

The best software I've used for transcoding to DVD is Nero Vision (part of Nero 8). It takes your video file and fills up the DVD as much as it can with the content that you give it with the least amount of quality loss (except of course for downscaling). Very intuitive.

Using the divx option will probably render the same or slightly lesser quality. Divx has a higher compression than standard DVD video (mpeg2 i think). Divx however uses much less disc space. You'll save DVD blanks if you choose to compress to divx.

Either option requires transcoding. You can't speed that up unless you get some beefy hardware, like a quad core processor and more ram. I'm not too familiar with TV tuners/capture cards, but if there was a way you could get your DVR to record it in 480p format instead of HD (1080i/720p), then converting the files might be a lot quicker. Hopefully someone can fill in the gaps on what I'm missing.

i really want to use the equipment i already have. it's just so much more complicated that it should be, all i want to do is take my hd recordings and put them on dvds so i could watch it on my tv =/
What is confusing is how exactly you want to play back these files. If you mean to use a standard DVD player then the files will have to be re-encoded to DVD which will be SD video. The media center software is about as good as it gets for this... SLOW. Set up and go for it overnight.

Now if you want to just store the video files for playback using the computer, they can be written to a DVD as data files. If they are larger than a DVD will hold, then they can be split.

I use VideoReDo for cutting commercials and splitting large video files. This software will not re-encode, thus is faster than some other editing programs using their fast frame copy.

there is something we're overlooking here: HD-content versus SD-content.

DVD's are intended for SD content. While it is possible to put a HD-movie file on a DVD or even a DVD9, you don't have a lot of options. Even if you do put a HD media file (mp4, mkv, wmv), you need something fairly powerful to play it back (PC, Blu-ray player, Xbox 360, PS3...)

You're not going to be able to put a 1080i file in divx format on a DVD and expect your regular dvd player to play it. The content needs to be downscaled to Standard Definition (SD) and that means the entire video needs to be transcoded. Depending on the length of the movie, this can take several several hours. I transcoded 6 hours of 720p video on a single core 1.8ghz cpu, and it took about 24 hours.

The best software I've used for transcoding to DVD is Nero Vision (part of Nero 8). It takes your video file and fills up the DVD as much as it can with the content that you give it with the least amount of quality loss (except of course for downscaling). Very intuitive.

Using the divx option will probably render the same or slightly lesser quality. Divx has a higher compression than standard DVD video (mpeg2 i think). Divx however uses much less disc space. You'll save DVD blanks if you choose to compress to divx.

Either option requires transcoding. You can't speed that up unless you get some beefy hardware, like a quad core processor and more ram. I'm not too familiar with TV tuners/capture cards, but if there was a way you could get your DVR to record it in 480p format instead of HD (1080i/720p), then converting the files might be a lot quicker. Hopefully someone can fill in the gaps on what I'm missing.


well i don't really mind that the hd is downscaled when it is burned to dvd cuz when i play it using my upconverting dvd player it looks just as good as actual hd. i think my best bet would be to just transcode to dvd directly instead of making a divx/xvid file. anyway, would nero be able to burn the dvr-ms files directly? or would i have to convert them first?

also here's another question i have. let's say i record a basketball game in hd. the length of the game is about 2 1/2 hours, cutting out commercials it would probably be around 2 hours long. how much of it do you think i would be able to fit on a single dvd? would i be able to simply do 2 dvds? or are we talking more along the lines of 3-4 dvds for one game?

What are you using to make the dvr-ms files? My XP Media Center uses an ATI tuner and it makes dvr-ms files and the media center software will make DVDs directly, or so it says, I've never tried it but I may just to know.

Stored in DVD format a single DVD should hold the 2 1/2 hours just fine.

if it was just sd a single dvd would be fine but when i record in hd the files are way bigger than what would fit on a single dvd. what i'm wondering what the size difference is when you transcode the dvr-ms file to a dvd; would a 3gb dvr-ms file translate to 3gb on a dvd or would it end up taking more space?