I want to take the shows I have been recording through Media Center 2005 and then edit them in DVR-Edit to remove the commericials and junk, and then burn them to a DVD so then my wife can take the dvd upstairs to our standalone dvd player and watch them on that tv.  Also she likes to swap shows with friends that are on DVD.  But what I don't understand is, if you burn the .dvr-ms files directly to dvd, will a standalone dvd player be able to play these?  or does there need to be some extra conversions steps that have to take place?

I just don't get why Media Center 2005 has a built in DVD burner to burn your .dvr-ms files onto dvd if you can't play these dvds in anything but your MCE2005 pc?

Thanks

 

Well, squale, prepare yourself for a world of grief.
You have a couple of options. Either buy software that does this seemlessly, or use the free programs.
There are many advantages as well as disadvantages in getting the free programs:
Advantages:
1. there are many discussion groups that are sometimes very helpful.
2. if you understand how to use the program with all its bells and whistles, you can burn a very professional DVD.
3. ITS FREE!
Disadvantages:
1. it takes a lot of time to learn
2. you need a stable system for these programs to work properly.
3. no customer support, unless you search on the forms .

The advantages and disadvantages of buying software:
Advantagse:
1. Its very easy to use
2. Customer support
3. usually works with all DVD players
4. able to create chapters
5. sometimes free software updates
Disadvantages:
1. they're usually costly ($30+)
2. very limited (create templates, chapters, and burn)
3. usually won't let you edit out video (i.e. commercials)
4. you'll have to be carefull on how long your show(s) are, you might have to burn 1 show on more than 1 DVD.
I currently have Arcsoft MYDVD but I don't use it any more because of its limited capabilities and because DVDs aren't cheap enough for me to play around with.

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NasaTV

to bad media center 2005 diddn't include something built in to take your .dvr-ms files and directly burn them in DVD (MPEG2) format onto a dvd so you could watch these in standalone dvd player....

I'm suffering through the same issue.  In media center 2005, if you believe the on screen prompts, you are supposed to be able to right click on the recorded program name and then click to save to cd/dvd.  But this feature doesn't work for me.  I cannot understand why another software program would be required.  Are you using a new Gateway PC by any chance?

A lot of people post questions similar to this one.  If you search the “General Discussions” forum, you'll get more info.

As far as my experience goes, I can burn to DVD's directly from MCE (AS LONG AS THE SHOW HAS NOT BEEN EDITED WITH DVREdit - ie. commercials have not been cut out).  And these disks WILL play in my stand-alone DVD player.  They mention, on the download page of TGB (I think), that DVREdit is not compatible with burning DVD's.  On my system, the burning process seems to freeze when I try to burn a show edited with DVREdit.  I can just cancel the burning process and continue working as normal.

I can import my recorded TV into Sonic's "My DVD" (movie making/DVD burning software that came with my system) and burn DVD's just fine that way, as long as I don't edit them:  I can import a 2 hour movie, full of commercials and it will burn fine and be fairly small (take up 1/2 to 3/4 of the disk).  As soon as I cut out any length of video, no matter how small (even just one commercial), the size of my video doubles or triples and it will no longer fit onto one disk.  I can take that same 2 hour movie w/ commercials, cut out all of the commercials and get the length of it down to 1.5 hours w/o commercials and it still won't fit (it might fit on dual layer disks, but I have not found any as of yet and from what I here, they are pricey).  It is just a few minutes too big.  Even if I edit out the beginning and ending credits, it is still a hair too big.  I have been trying to find ways around this and there just doesn't seem to be, w/o spending a whole lot of money on professional software.  So unfortunately, I think we are stuck with the commercials for now.

Knowing how politics work, this is probable the work of the advertisers making this so.  From what it sounds like, they hate all of these new digital recording devices that make it easier to skip commercials.  Reading some of these posts on TGB, in some of the European countries, they are making it difficult to record with DVR's (MCE anyways - ie. the start time of the shows don't match the start times listed in the guide listing or the shows start times are not consistent - ie they do not start on the hour, they start a few minutes before or a few minutes after, and it varies from channel to channel, so the end of one show might be overlapped by the beginning of another show on another channel. I think I've notice that here in the US some.  There is one or two shows that we watch that have a run time of 1 hour and 1 minute.  "Lost" on ABC is one, it ends one minute after 8:00 (or is it 9:00).  Our Guide provider does a good job of listing the actual time, but sometimes there still is a conflict with another show on another channel.  I've also heard that Tivo is going to start making it more difficult to skip commercials completely, something like a static billboard commercial for a certain amount of time when you want to skip commercials, if I remember correctly)

Good luck,

ersonName>Conan KellyersonName>

 

if you have two recordings set up, say American Idol from 8-10 but then lost from 8-9, I set up so that LOST gets priority and records from 8-9 but then right after LOST is done recording, will it change channels and start recording American Idol from 9-10.  So basically I will just not get the first house of American Idol recorded?

Or will it NOT record ANY of American Idol because I gave LOST precedence?

Burning a DVD from within MCE does NOT create a DVD that can be played on a stand alone player. Its simply NOT true. Unless someone has loaded some kind of OPTIONAL software that will do the conversion to VOB/MPEG files. The built-in burning in MCE only writes the dvr-ms files to the dvd disk. This disk is then only playable in a PC.

So the question is - is there a third-party add-in software product that will upgrade MCE to be able to burn the type of DVD disks that all of us wants? This add-in software should not require us to leave the MCE interface. It should just upgrade the built-in Sonic burning software so it will no longer be crippled and will burn real DVD formatted DVDs that can play on  stand alone players.

Any ideas?

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I have since loaded sonicencoders.msi and am able to create a DVD that can be played on a stand alone player.

Ive been using the sonicencoders.msi (freeware included with MCE but must be installed seperately) to enable full video DVD recording in MCE2005. Its seems to work great - and uses the MCE interface and remote - no mouse or keyboard required. No coasters and pretty good quality too and plays in all stand alone DVD players Ive tried. I've even had it shrink content to fit with minimal degredation in quality. Beware though that it sometimes takes a very long time (hours) to burn a disk - especially if it needs to shrink it to fit.

My question is - what's the difference between sonicencoders.msi and Sonic Primetime and Primetime Deluxe? I think sonicencoders.msi is a cutdown version of Primetime. Also, what does Mydvd add to the equation? Do I need to buy both Primetime/Deluxe and Mydvd if I want an MCE and Windows interface?

The Sonic web site does a poor job of comparisons.

I can make dvd's from my media center computer that do play on my stand alone dvd player. You have to pick video DVD and it will not let you have that option if you are trying to burn protected content.

A few years ago I did make a DVD, I believe with the Sonic myDVD software.  It was a miserable horrid experience that took hours and involved HP tech support and was so terrible that I never ventured back to the world of Media Center DVD recording again.

This is a HUGE problem.  HP advertises that these machines support DVD recording and then users buy them and take them home and find that it's not quite as easy as the false advertising would suggest.

I wasted hours yesterday trying to burn a dvd for the second time.  I wrote a post about how horrible an experience it was at:

http://thomashawk.com/2005/02/my-ensy-weensy-little-problem-with.html

If Microsoft, HP, Sonic, Emuzed, or whoever the hell else folks want to pass the buck to on this one want to ADVERTISE this capability -- it should be much easier.  This is a shame and adds to the perception for the average regular Joe that a Media Center PC does not belong in their living room.

Also it is simply amazing to me how little the tech support professionals, even the advanced level tech support professionals, at Hewlett Packard know.  It really is a total joke.  I can't believe I paid $99 for an upgrade package to include additional technical support for my Media Center PC. 

I would have more luck calling my barber up and having him walk me through a problem with my Media Center PC than an HP tech support professional.

I used a demo of the sonic dvd software, downloaded and installed no problem. Just a couple of presses with the remote and it worked, anyone can do it

I think the problem is with the self builds you have to buy the software so it doesn't work out of the box, but with a built box it should work ok.

The sonic program even makes a nice menu on the DVD

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Ian Dixon MVP
TheDigitalLifeStlye.com home of The Media Center Show

My Dell Media Center PC is a couple of months old and I have been able to burn 12 to 15 dvd's from recorded TV.  Primarily kid shows & movies for my son.

I have also edited the files first with dvr_edit to trim the beginning and ends of the program as it conatins a couple minutes of extraneous recording.  I haven't tried to edit out any commercials, too time consuming.

All I do is right click, create dvd, video dvd, name it and go.....works all the time......well most of the time....sort of...

I have had a problem with some burn sessions sticking at 2 or 3% and then just hanging there.  I've even left it over night without success.  It only seems to a problem with certain programs/movies.  I've trying to figure out the pattern without success.  At first I thought it was related to the program 'fitting the content' but then I've had a couple others lock up that didn't need to shrink.

Is there a way to tell if it is 'protected content'?

Having tried nearly all the rest, the product that has given me the most consistent results whilst allowing enough options has been Nero Vision Express 3.

Use DVRedit, take the commercials out and any padding first, then use Nero Vision Express 3 to either export out to .mpg or transcode and burn.

With most other products I always seemed to get the hanging problems and sound out of sync issues. NVE 3 also multitasks very well which helps.

This isn't a remote point and click solution though, but it suits me because I transfer the file to my pc in the office and edit-convert-burn there, leaving my living room MCE machine free for use.

I keep reading that you can't burn dvd's from mce2005 that will play in a standard dvd player without 3rd party software.  I can tell you, I've had no trouble.  I'm a new mce user, I just bought a new dell with mce2005,  I already had a dvd burner so I didn't order on in my system.  So it did not come with sonic or any other dvd burning software.  As my first test, I recorded a Seinfeld episode off TV, burned it to a DVD using the menus in mce2005, and it plays in all 3 of my dvd players in my home (sony, panasonic, samsung).  I have not tried any editing yet, so what i'm recording still has comercials.  The only problem I've had in my other tests is file size.  In best mode, I can fit 88 minutes on a DVD, 113 in better mode, 143 in good, still not enough for a 2 1/2 hour movie.  Maybe that's what you need a program like sonic for - to shrink down a 10GB dvr-ms file??

The ability to create standalone DVDs is an optional extra included when you buy a 3 pack of MCE software. Therefore if you have a commercial MCE PC you will be able to do it, if you've built your own with a single copy of OEM MCE you won't.

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---------------- "But TiVo could do that nine years ago!"