Movie DVDs

[Seekermeister]

I was wondering if there is a website somewhere that a person can download images suitable for creating DVD labels and case covers? I've been Googling, but all that I've found are pictures that would work, but would only cover one side of the case, but nothing for the DVD itself.

 

[Seekermeister]

Since I got no response on my first question, I changed the title of the thread to conserve space, because my questions have grown. I've had no experience with trying to burn movie DVDs before, so my questions are pretty basic.

I recorded a movie using my PVR150 of a broadcast. But, since I use a set of rabbit ears, I couldn't get perfectly clear reception. Is there any way that I can cleanup the recorded file? Secondly, I used the SVCD option, which produced 2 files...one with a .img suffix and an icon lettered iso, but this only contained 80 bytes of data. The other file has a .mpg suffix and contains most of the data (1.73GBs). When I burn a DVD, do I use both of these?

 

[tailschao]

Try searching
http://www.cdcovers.to/
for DVD covers.
There's a multitude of things you can do to cleanup the file, from the simplest De-Noise filter in VirtualDub to the most Complex AVISynth Script, it depends on how much effort and time you are willing to put in. Either way, it is extremely difficult to recommend clean up methods without a short sample, or at the very least an image showing said interference.
I've not had any experience burning DVDs with SVCD compliant video, but assuming it is the same as normal DVD authoring...
You'll need to use the .mpg file only, and you'll also need to author the mpg to DVD compliancy, IE *.vob files no bigger than 1GB each, and a set of *.bup and*.ifo files so the DVD can be played. Note this is not re-encoding, just authoring. I use DVDLab Pro for authoring, there are some free authoring apps, I just don't know what they are.

 

[Seekermeister]

Thanks for the covers link. I do not know how to give a sample of the movie. Maybe I can figure it out by trial and error, unless the cleanup could be destructive if I made a bad choice. I have no idea of how to divide the file into .vob, or to creat a set of .bup or .ifo files. Is that something that the authoring program will do, or will I have to do something manually?

 

[Seekermeister]

I already have Ulead's Movie Factory, Windows Movie Maker, VirtualDub and possibly a couple of others that I can't remember, but I haven't done much more than install them, and have no idea of how to use them.

 

[SuRgEoN]

cdcovers.cc

 

[tailschao]

Yeah, authoring apps do that for you. They also allow you to create menus, add additional selectable audio tracks and subtitles and add chapters. All my menus turn out crap 'cos i've the imagination and creative skill of a large, dead oak tree. I've never used Ulead, so I can't comment. Windows movie maker... Forget it! throw it out the window! VirtualDub would be good for your purposes, as AVISynth is very similar to command line programs, which can put off new users. (I've been a videophile for a while, and still I only know the syntax for the simple things like crop, resize, deinterlace etc.) Crap! I just remembered It's MPEG-2 video... That's a B!tch to edit... Okay, try and get a screen shot of a part where the noise is apparent, and upload it to imageshack and post the link here. Don't expect miricales though, always remember the golden rule... "****** goes in, ****** comes out" You'll more than likely be able to improve, but if it's too bad there may not be any way to enhance. I suppose now would be a good time to admit that I'm only just getting into video clean-up myself, so i don't know that much about it. You'd get far more detailed advice from far more experienced people at http://forum.doom9.org

 

[Seekermeister]

I guess it just proves how little that I know about such things, but I'm having a problem just creating a print screen to upload. The only programs that I could get the file to play in, were either Hauppauge's nanoPEG editor or WMP. When I tried with WMP, only the GUI appeared in the image with a black screen. When I did the same with nanoPEG, the image appeared, but independently from the GUI, superimposed on a black screen within the editor's GUI, which remained stationary, when scrolling the GUI image. It seems as though Irfanview is only able to work on the GUI image, not the movie shot itself.

I imagine that it is simple, but at this point, just uploading a proper screenshot is a challenge.

 

[tailschao]

That's the fault of WMP, not your file. Bloody M$! There is a workaround though. In WMP, go Tools>Options and on the performance tab, disable hardware acceleration. Apply and OK, then restart WMP, open the video file, and use <ALT+PRINT SCREEN> to take a screen shot. Then past into image editor of your choice, save and upload.

 

[Seekermeister]

The option to use hardware/software accelleration was grayed out, but I used the slider to reduce the video accelleration, and it seemed to work. I tried to crop the GUI, but that didn't work, but I was able to zoom in and see the image pretty well. I'm not very familiar with sites such as Image Shack, so I'm not positive that the upload worked properly, but here is a link that I chose from the options:

http://www.picoodle.com/view.php?srv=im...6/12/19/f_WonderLii_3e44m_c752a0eb.jpg]

[/URL]

EDIT: The vertical line on the left side of the image scrolls constantly from the right to the left side. The rest of the blurring is constant.

EDIT 2: Well, not really constant, but I wouldn't be able to describe any particular pattern.

 

[Seekermeister]

I loaded the movie into Virtual Dub and went looing for some kind of filter that might work, but found nothing. So I Googled this, and found a website that had 92 of them for download. Not really knowing what each of them were for, I downloaded all of them. I didn't really know how to install them, so I just clicked on a zip and then on the .vdf inside. It popped a window that x64 didn't know what to do with it and asked to search the web for it's source program. I shut it down and have been pondering it. Is the problem that I did this in x64? I would have tried in x32, but I'm getting ready to reinstall the OS, and don't even have VeeDub installed yet. Can these filters be installed manually?

 

[tailschao]

You have to copy the .vdf's to your X:\XXX\XXX\VirtualDub\Plugins folder. Then they're accessible in VirtualDub via Video>filters. I'm sorry to say that that line is most likely gonna have to stay. The other artifacts look like the side effects of heavy compression, either on transmission or through the capturing process, as opposed to bad reception. Give section 7.1 and 7.2 of this
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/capture/start.html
a read. There seem to be some colour problems, they're most likely fixable, but anything I suggest from here on will be just guesswork, so I really do think you should ask in the capturing section of Doom9's forum. Sorry I couldn't be of more assistance

 

[Seekermeister]

Hmm, I went into VeeDub's folder, looking for a plugin's folder, but all that I found were some .exes, with no way to copy anything to them. At the moment, I'm using x64 and I don't remember is VeeDub came in different flavors, so I'll have to checkout their website.

I can live with the live, if need be, but I doubt that the other noise is from compression, because it is consistent with other station's reception, so I think that it is merely a transmission...or more accurately a reception problem. I'm not sure what you mean by colour problems because, other than some commercials that I intend to cut, the film is in black and white.

I'll checkout your link, and perhaps I will understand better. Thanks.

 

[tailschao]

Just copy the vdf into the plugins folder, they will be recognized and loaded by VirtualDub when you start it. By colour problems I mean:
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/5852/fwonderlii3e44mc752a0ebpo2.png
look close at the top of the capture, there is some light green and blue hue. Luckily it is so slight that a conversion to greyscale covers it up completely, so that's not a problem.
Grey scale conversion:
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/6108/fwonderlii3e44mc752a0ebcd0.png

 

[Seekermeister]

You didn't understand...there is no plugins folder. Actually, there are no folders at all. The slight color tinges didn't really bother me, but the conversion also took away the color of the broadcast station/s logo...that I do like.

 

[Seekermeister]

I rebooted to MCE and downloaded the x32 version, and it is totally different and creats a directory as expected. So I guess I'll have to stick with MCE for this kind of operation. I went ahead and extracted a couple of the filters to the plugins folder, then opened the GUI. The only thing that looked like an acess point to these filters was under Video>Filters, but the window was empty, despite the fact that they were supposed to automatically load on startup. I saw a button to add filters, but before doing that, I thought that I would check with you first.

 

[Seekermeister]

I went ahead and hit the add button, and lo and behold, there were already alot of filters to choose from. I guess the filters that I downloaded were optional. Now the question is which to add...all or part of them. Not knowing what each of them are for exactly, makes it a matter of trial and error. Considering how many that there are, that would take some time. How are the filters used?