EyeTV Digitizing VHS Tapes Large File Issue

[renton267]

Haven't seen this one elsewhere so sorry if it has been discussed previously.

Have a new Mac Pro running latest OSX.

Recently purchased a TVMax to convert VHS tapes to DVD's. After recording a video tape using the Eye TV VHS assistant, I am asked to burn to DVD using either Toast or iDVD. Don't have Toast so iDVD it is. After about half an hour after the recording has finished, iDVD seems to start up only to tell me that the file is too large to creat a DVD project. I look at the file in the drive and it is 27 GB in size (Good Will Hunting) and shown with a .dv extention.

In EYE TV I had selected the Standard DVD recording format (MPEG 2) which the TVMax website should take about 1.8GB per hour of video.

The video also seems to be recorded in the EYETV Archive folder. This file is about 4.2 GB is size (.eyetv extension) which makes more sense in terms of size. However, neither iDVD or DVD Pro will allow me to import this file so that I can work on a DVD burn. Both iDVD and DVD Pro will import the large, 27 GB file but the file is too large and the software produces error messages. Am I supposed to condense this large file again? I thought that was what the TVMax was supposed to do?

Have already reinstalled the software as per TV Max technical help instructions. Have tried recording videos using different recording formats but I get the same result... very large file sizes.


Any suggestions would be appreciated. Or alternative devices in case I can't get this to work. Return deadline is approaching fast. Thanks

 

[ChrisA]

Sounds to me like you should try the process using a short 5 minute VHS tape. Get that to work first. Debug your process.

Also it just might be that you can't fit that much data on a standard DVD. I think you are just over the limit. You may have to compress it more, cut the video or us a double layer DVD.

I've had good results using Quicktime Pro to compress DV video I get from my DV camera

 

[ftaok]

Haven't seen this one elsewhere so sorry if it has been discussed previously.

Have a new Mac Pro running latest OSX.

Recently purchased a TVMax to convert VHS tapes to DVD's. After recording a video tape using the Eye TV VHS assistant, I am asked to burn to DVD using either Toast or iDVD. Don't have Toast so iDVD it is. After about half an hour after the recording has finished, iDVD seems to start up only to tell me that the file is too large to creat a DVD project. I look at the file in the drive and it is 27 GB in size (Good Will Hunting) and shown with a .dv extention.

In EYE TV I had selected the Standard DVD recording format (MPEG 2) which the TVMax website should take about 1.8GB per hour of video.

The video also seems to be recorded in the EYETV Archive folder. This file is about 4.2 GB is size (.eyetv extension) which makes more sense in terms of size. However, neither iDVD or DVD Pro will allow me to import this file so that I can work on a DVD burn. Both iDVD and DVD Pro will import the large, 27 GB file but the file is too large and the software produces error messages. Am I supposed to condense this large file again? I thought that was what the TVMax was supposed to do?

Have already reinstalled the software as per TV Max technical help instructions. Have tried recording videos using different recording formats but I get the same result... very large file sizes.


Any suggestions would be appreciated. Or alternative devices in case I can't get this to work. Return deadline is approaching fast. Thanks

DV is approx 13 GB per hour. So a 27 GB DV file will be just over 2 hours. I think iDVD's limit is up to 2 hours with single-layer DVDs.

Seems kinda wierd that you have to convert the MPEG2 to DV. Because you have to go back to MPEG2 to burn the DVD.

Toast might work better. And they just released Toast 8.

 

[huntercr]

I've never used the product, but from the detailed review here ( and the pics ) http://www.applematters.com/index.p...ini-companion-the-tvmax-by-miglia-technology/

I gather that when exporting to iDVD, the program sends it a DV file. This makes sense, since it is the format that iMovie sends iDVD.
As someone else pointed out, you're not only wasting quality from going from Analog -> MPEG2 -> DV -> MPEG2, you're wasting a heck of alot of time encoding something that was already encoded.
You might consider exporting it in EyeTV as MPEG2 ( and recording as such ) and then using Toast ( or Sizzle if you want freeware YMMV )
The MissingMedia tools are another cheap ( but unstable IMHO ) set of tools

I also recommend like the previous poster, trying a shorter clip first, since if you are actually aquiring the video in DV ( which I believe the tvmax can do ) you are going to be much better off sticking with that work flow... in fact, if you really can aquire as DV, running it through imovie is going to be very valuable so you can edit if you want.

to recap: if you're aquiring in MPEG2, then send to a direct burning program that won't reencode. If you're aquiring in DV, then send to imovie and edit down to less than 2 hours.

Make sense?

 

[sandman42]

DVDs from EyeTV

I do this all the time, and to add to what the previous posters have said, I can confirm the following:

EyeTV encodes in MPEG2, and the file size depends on the encoding quality you select in preferences. 'Standard' is 1.8Gb/Hr.

You can export the MPEG2 file from EyeTV. Select 'Export', then when prompted for a format select 'MPEG Program Stream'. The other thing you can do is open the EyeTV program package, and extract (copy) the .mpg file for yourself, but I think it's better to export from within the EyeTV application.

You cannot import the MPEG stream into iDVD. For some reason iDVD doesn't support that. I think it might be a piracy deterrent. Anyway, iDVD will accept a DV file (which will be huge), so that's why your software is trying to do that. I think you can also import MP4 video into iDVD. That would be pretty lossy, but you could try exporting from EyeTV as MP4 and importing that to iDVD.

If you had Toast you could burn the MPEG2 file directly to DVD without transcoding to DV (saving time and disk space), but you don't get to dress up your DVD with menus, etc, like you can with iDVD.