How-To burn a Video-DVD via Media Portal

[Ralph]

There is a little program called MpgII2DVD that was written more than one year ago by CyberVillain.

It was written for the software called myHTPC which is the predecessor of Meedio / Sceneo TVCentral.
It’s just a plain and easy way burning your recordings from HDD to DVD and watch them on any DVD-Player.

What this Plugin can do:

- burning your recordings (mpeg2) to DVD
- creating a Video-DVD that can be played by a DVD-Player
- shrinking large recordings to fit on a Single-Layer DVD
- can burn one selected file or a whole folder

What this Plugin can’t do:

- cannot create any DVD menu
- cannot create chapters
- cannot trim or edit files


This is a How-To for those who want to burn a recorded file to a Video-DVD via Media Portal.
This should be a work-around until there will be a Plugin for Media Portal.
I thought some people would find this helpful.


Note: CyberVillain agreed to use and publish his MpgIIDVD.exe but he also would like to point out, that this program is no longer supported by him.
Right now he wrote his program as a Plugin for Meedio and unfortunately he doesn't think of swiching to Media Portal at the moment.


This Plugin uses several Open Source and Freeware programs, to convert and burn your recordings.
These programs are bbdmux, DVDauthor, mplex, mkisoft, Rejig, PVAStrumento and ImgBurn.
I put them all into the MpegII2DVD folder, only ImgBurn should be downloaded separately, it will be used for burning the files to DVD.

Let’s get started:

1. Download and unzip the following files.

MpgII2DVD
ImgBurn


2. Install ImgBurn

3. Open the MpgIIDVD.ini (in the MpgIIDVD-Folder) and change the options to your special needs.

This is how my MpgII2DVD.ini looks like:




[Background]
Specify the path of the background you would like to use.
- I created 4 backgrounds for the default Media Portal-Skins with a resolution of 1024x768.
(It seems to work only with this resolution)

[VideoTempFolder]
Specify the path for temp-files

[DVDBurner]
Specify the path of ImgBurn.exe

[MultipleFiles]
on = MpegII2DVD tries to burn all files in the selected folder to DVD
off = MpegII2DVD burns only the selected file to DVD (recommend)

[Auto delete]
on = MpegII2DVD deletes temp-files automatically after burning (recommend)
off = after burning you have to hit C to clear temp-files, otherwise they won’t be deleted

Save your settings and close MpgII2DVD.ini


4. Open Media Portal-Setup and go to ->Plugins -> my Programs, enable and Setup my Programs.



- Add Child -> create a new Directory-Browser
- Launching Application: set the path to MpgII2DVD.exe
- File Directory: set the path where your recordings are stored
- File-Extensions: .mpg,.mpeg

It should look something like this:



Close my Programs and close Media Portal Setup by clicking OK.

Note: This Plugin can only handle Mpeg2-files!
Before using this Plugin, your recordings have to be converted to Mpeg2-files!
DVR-MS or TS-files doesn't seem to work!



5. Start Media Portal, my Programs



go to Burn DVD,



select your file, press enter and lay back.



Here we go:



Progress bar is only an indicator.
When starting conversion it may take some minutes (up to 20min), until the progress will be shown.


That’s all...
For me it works quit good and it's a plain and simple way making my recordings portable for watching on my girlfriend’s DVD-Player.


Special thanks to CyberVillain!


Enjoy and have fun
Ralph

[spraycleaner]

how does this plugin know WHAT to burn?

[Ralph]

You can select your file within Media Portal from the folder you've specified at point 4 ---> File Directory (should be the folder your recordings are stored).

I added a screenshot to How-To to make that clear.

I hope it will work for you?

Regards
Ralph

[LawnGOD]

I installed the software and can select files from menu. Script starts and progress bar gets to approx 80-90% and files are being processed. I get an MpgII2DVD error saying "Run-time error "76: Path not found. I have tried everything I can think of so far, and nothing works. It seems as if the only thing remaining to do is burn the DVD. I know the DVDimage.iso file get made. Maybe it is something with my DVD burner. Its a Pioneer DVR-109. Below is my mpgII2DVD.ini file and debug.txt file. Any help would be appreciated. If you need more info, just ask.

Thanks in advance,

MpgII2DVD.ini
[Background]
C:\temp\MpgII2DVD\MpgII2DVD\Blue Two background.jpg

[Font]
Arial

[FontSize]
22

[TextColor]
white

[ShadowColor]


[VideoTempFolder]
c:\TV

;<DVDiso> is the path to the iso and <DVDpath> is the path do the folder that contains the DVD data

[DVDBurner]
C:\Programme\DVD Decrypter\DVDDecrypter.exe /mode isowrite /start /src "<DVDiso>" /dest D: /close

[MultipleFiles]
off
[debug]
on

[AutoDelete]
off

Debug.txt
C:\temp\MpgII2DVD\MpgII2DVD\cPVAS.exe "C:\temp\MpgII2DVD\MpgII2DVD\output.ajb"


C:\temp\MpgII2DVD\MpgII2DVD\mplex.exe -f 8 -o "c:\tv\input.mpg" "c:\tv\demuxed.mpv" "c:\tv\demuxed.mpa"


C:\temp\MpgII2DVD\MpgII2DVD\dvdauthor.exe -o "c:\tv\DVD" -x "C:\temp\MpgII2DVD\MpgII2DVD\config.xml"


C:\temp\MpgII2DVD\MpgII2DVD\mkisofs.exe -o "c:\tv\DVDimage.iso" -publisher "MYHTPC" -volid "" -dvd-video "c:\tv\DVD"

[Ralph]

Originally Posted by LawnGOD

I installed the software and can select files from menu. Script starts and progress bar gets to approx 80-90% and files are being processed. I get an MpgII2DVD error saying "Run-time error "76: Path not found. I have tried everything I can think of so far, and nothing works. It seems as if the only thing remaining to do is burn the DVD. I know the DVDimage.iso file get made. Maybe it is something with my DVD burner. Its a Pioneer DVR-109. Below is my mpgII2DVD.ini file and debug.txt file. Any help would be appreciated. If you need more info, just ask.

Thanks in advance,

MpgII2DVD.ini

[DVDBurner]
C:\Programme\DVD Decrypter\DVDDecrypter.exe /mode isowrite /start /src "<DVDiso>" /dest D: /close

Hi LawnGOD,

yes indeed dvddecrypter doesn't seem to start.
Do you use a german version of WinXP?
Please can you check if the path of dvddecrypter is right?

Let me know if this helps.

Regards
Ralph

[LawnGOD]

Thats it! Ralph, you are a genius!
As soon as I saw your post I knew what the problem was. No, I am not using German ver of XP, but I am using US ver.
Btw, I read your post at work and "rushed" home to fix the problem (I have been frustrated with this one for days.)
My path to DVDCrypter was wrong. I changed the path in the .ini file to C:\Program Files\xxx\xxx and the DVD burned straight thru.
I am now much happier. Thank you.

I do have 1 question though. When the DVD burned, it only burned the first few mins of the show. I know that the original .mpg file was a full hour (3.8Gb). Is there a way to adjust what gets "created" from this process?
Thanks again for your help. I owe ya!

[Ralph]

Just to get it right.
You have a mpg2-file thats about 60min and 3,8gb?
But only the first minutes were burned to dvd?

That’s strange!
3,8gb should fit on a regular dvd even without the need of shrinking.
Please make sure, you have enough space for the temp-files (best would be twice as big as your selected file)
And please make sure that your dvd is empty before burning.

I have enabled the option in dvdvdecrypter to erase dvd-rw automatically before burning.

What exactly do you mean by:

Originally Posted by LawnGOD

Is there a way to adjust what gets "created" from this process?

Regards
Ralph

[LawnGOD]

Yes.
Strange thing though. I did one show. 3.8G and approx 60 mins. the one I told you about. Only burned the "Lead-in" of the show. First few mins. Looks like it was attempting to edit out commercials and only burned the commercial.
Then I compressed another show. Same show, diff date. 3.8Gb and 60 mins. in size. The entire show burned this time. All 3.8G. Plays flawlessly.
I am using DVD-R media in a Pioneer DVR-109 burner w/ 150Gb + of free HD space. I will burn a few more and post more consistant results when I have them.
My question was along the lines of "does your process clip commercials out?" and "Is it possible to change or add to your process via a batch file or script?"
I cant tell you how much I apreciate your process and your assistance in helping me get it running. It has made my HTPC a really kickin machine.

[LawnGOD]

Just finished Burning a 2hr. 2min. DVD....flawlessly. The original .MPG file was 7.78Gb big. The MpgII2DVD transcoded it down and turned it into a 4.5G .ISO file before it dropped it onto my DVD-R. I recorded the video, compressed it and burned it to a DVD-R WITH ONLY THE REMOTE! Using only the remote has been my goal from the start. I wanta start messing with "comskip" to see if I can do away with these nasty commercials before I burn to DVD.
Everything seems to be running perfectly (so far). I will continue to test.

Can thank you enough Ralph. You really helped me out in a frustrating moment.

[Ralph]

It's good to hear that it works for you.
I like it very much, too. Getting my recordings burned to Video-DVD via remote is quit a nice thing.

I posted this How-To to offer all MP-Users the possibility to burn their recordings via remote, too.
Since this mpgIIdvd.exe was written by CyberVillain for myHTPC I think changing the process, to integrate some edit or cutting features, won't work without the sourcecode.
So long this is only a workaround, until we got a real plugin for MP.

I tried comskip with an epsiode of Lost and it worked pretty good.
The only think that still bothers me a bit is that it took about 40 min. and I needed to use my mouse. :?

There were some discussions about integrating comskip, but I don't know the status.

Thanks for the positiv feedback. I think we need more of that.
MediaPortal offers so much possibilities to adjust to everyones special needs.
And right now, imho there are to many pessimists out there.

Keep on burning
Ralph