Eye TV to DVD, without losing quality!

You can go straight to iDVD which might help? I'd imagine export to iDVD would send it in a format best suited to getting the best quality on iDVD? No expert though.

There will always be a compression if your going to dvd.

If you make the film shorter than the compression won't be so bad. iDVD makes fairly good quality dvds if they're under 60min.

Sure you can fine-tune the compression in FCS, but you'll have to spend a bunch of cash and learn lots more about video. Its it worth it?

One question: what format does EyeTV receive? and are you using the same in your iMovie project? ie. same frame rate, same color space, same size?

As I understand it, EyeTV encodes the incoming TV signal into MPEG2, the format used by DVDs, when it's buffering or recording. So you should be able to bypass iMovie entirely and export the recording directly to iDVD.

Why not use Toast, if you have it ?

There is a feature in EyeTV to export the MPEG2 stream directly into Toast. If the resolution is above 480 or 576i it'll have to lose some quality to be on a DVD. You can even make chapters I think in Toast.

I've never managed to get Toast to make a DVD from my EyeTV that actually plays in a normal DVD player, yet using the same media and same Mac under iDVD makes disks that play just fine.

I think I'm having the same problem...

(edit: before you read further, I see there's already another thread on this very problem: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/240521/)

I record in EyeTV using standard DVD-quality MPEG-2 compression: 1.8Gb/Hr, 720x480, 29.97fps, etc.

If I watch that in EyeTV it looks great.

I export that as DV (approx 12Gb/Hr, 720x480, 29.97fps), so I can edit the adverts and add chapter markers in iMovie. The .DV file that EyeTV creates looks fine in QT, full-screen: good resolution, smooth video.

I import that into iMovie and edit. The imported video looks just as good (and if I extract the iMovie DV file from the iMovie project package, it looks great in QT).

Finally, I burn the iMovie project to DVD using iDVD, and the product looks terrible! The video is very choppy whenever there's any fast motion on the screen. I find it barely watchable, and I'm not that picky. It looks like iDVD is the problem, and I have to think it can do better than this. Is there some setting I'm missing that will smooth the video?

I have good news for you. Burning your eyeTV recordings to DVD without re-enconding is possible, infact, I do it all the time!

You will need two applications to accomplish the task:
1) ffmpegx, it's available for free at http://ffmpegx.com/tools.html
2) A DVD burning app that is capable of burning UDF formatted DVDs. Roxio Toast works great.

Once you have ffmpegx and toast installed and ready, follow these steps to get a pristine (lossless) dvd video out of your eyeTV recordings:

1) Select the recording in eyeTV and export it as "MPEG Elementary Streams". This step demuxes the mpeg2 stream in a video file (.mpv) and an audio file (.mpa).

2) In ffmpegx select the "Tools" tab on the right and then click on the "mux" sub-tab (the 3rd counting from the left).
You should see 3 empty fields (video, audio 1, audio 2) and some multiplex options.

3) Click the "video" button and select the .mpv file you created in step n.1. Then click the "audio 1" button and select the .mpa file you created in step n.1.

4) Leave the other multiplex options as they are (from top to bottom: "DVD", "DVD (VIDEO_TS)", "Cut Auto") and proceed by clicking on the "Mux" button on the right. This will create a folder with the file structure of a DVD video containing your eyeTV recording.

5) In Roxio Toast select the "Data" tab and then make sure that the format is "DVD-ROM (UDF)" (in the "Formats" sub-tab).

6) Drag the folder you created in step n.4 into Roxio Toast, put a blank DVD in the burner and burn the disc.
Edit: to clarify, you do NOT want to burn the folder in the disk but as the disc. The folder you made in step n.4 becomes the disc itself and it contains two folders: "AUDIO_TS" and "VIDEO_TS" (don't worry, it's normal that the "AUDIO_TS" folder is empty)

...and you're done

The resulting DVD should be playable on any stand alone DVD player and the video quality will be exactly the same as the original recording. Enjoy

Cool! Hey, thanks for all the info! I'll try it.

The downside that I see to this is that you don't get to take advantage of the stuff iDVD has to offer. I've been turning out some pretty nice DVDs for people lately, with menus and nice navigation and stuff, but lots of it contains stuff recorded off the air with EyeTV and the actual video looks crappy for the reasons described above. This is gonna suck if it turns into one of those situations where you have to choose between video quality or presentation. For as good as Apple stuff is in general, it seems like you should be able to have both...

sandman42 said:

This is gonna suck if it turns into one of those situations where you have to choose between video quality or presentation. For as good as Apple stuff is in general, it seems like you should be able to have both...

Click to expand...

Well, you can have both, but at a price.
Apple DVD Studio Pro will let you import those demuxed streams and add menus with images and animations, all without re-encoding the original mpeg2 streams.
It's more complex than iDVD and it's kinda expensive, but hell, if you got the time and money to spend on it, why not.

jimTV said:

I know there's something wrong with the fields. That's what's making the juddering when there's a lot of motion. But it shouldn't happen.

Click to expand...

Do you see horizontal lines when the screen moves? Or the image is just shaking?
How does the burned DVD play in the apple DVD player application?

Revlimit Punk.... follow up question

So I followed the instructions. Evyerhting seems to have worked except for one thing. The audio doesn't seem to work. The DVD plays on almost all players. The video starts automatically, I selected the mpa file when using the ffx program. But when I play the video, there is no audio? Any suggestions or solutions?

klacbob said:

So I followed the instructions. Evyerhting seems to have worked except for one thing. The audio doesn't seem to work. The DVD plays on almost all players. The video starts automatically, I selected the mpa file when using the ffx program. But when I play the video, there is no audio? Any suggestions or solutions?

Click to expand...

Does quicktime player open and play the .mpa file? All I can think of is a corrupted .mpa track or a strange bitrate that is not suitable to play on standalone DVD players.

If it's corrupted, it probably won't play well in quicktime either. If it's a bitrate problem, you can probably fix it by re-encoding the audio stream into a more DVD player friendly bitrate.

i'll check that out from home tonight and let you know if re-encoding it works revlimit punk. thanks for responding so quickly. I get a bad feeling it has to do with the eyetv program. sometimes when i watch it on there prior to export, the audio disappears, but then i move the slider and retrun to the same point on the video....it's back. either way, I'm gonna try again at home and see if I can play the mpa track through quicktime and hear the audio correctly. then i'll re-encode if it's functional and see if that helps it.