Burning MKV files to a DL DVD

[mamasta]

Hi there,
I’m new in the forum, so I want to introduce myself, by telling you that I’m from Greece, married, I have two boys and I’m working in an Airline Industry.
I have one or two hobbies. One of them is to collect movies, especially old ones.
Sometimes I have problem to find some to buy, so I turn to Internet and here comes my request…

I have a few 720p OR 1080p.BluRay.x264 & 720p.HDDvd.x264 video files in MKV format that they are usually around 7 to 10GB and Video size from 1280x536 to 1920x800 resolution.
I use the “Convert X to DVD” tool to burn each file to a Dual Layer DVD (8.5GB size).

The result is, due to “Convert X to DVD” tool I believe, that the resolution is downgraded to 720x576, even though the file stays close to the original size, usually less, about 1 to 3GB.

I’m not happy with the result, because I want to burn the movie file in the same size, resolution, and quality, of course in a case that the movie file is bigger than 8,5GB, reduce it just enough to fit in a Dual Layer DVD.

So please, I’m asking if someone has a solution to my problem or if you can point me out another tool than the “Convert X to DVD”, which can handle my goal.
Thank you in advance and Regards.

[Kerry56]

Try RipBot264. It is free to download and use.

Do the actual burning to disk with ImgBurn, another highly recommended free program.

The problem of course is that your movies won’t play in a regular dvd player at any resolution higher than 720 x 576. You’ll need a blu ray player, and you’ll have to set output in RipBot264 as a blu ray disk and burn using ImgBurn in UDF 2.6.

Going to dual layer dvds, the only type we recommend to use is Verbatim brand. Burn at 4x.

[mamasta]

Thank you very much Kerry56
You been very helpful and I can say very fast.
I wish I can help you sometime , but it seems like you know a lot more than me.
Thank you again and Goodnight…

[MysticEyes]

I’m not happy with the result,

Are you saying it doesn’t look good?

I’ve run a few 720p mkv’s (under 2 hours) through CXD3 and put them on a SL disc. The end result has looked surprising good.

[t0nee1]

mamasta wrote,

“I’m not happy with the result, because I want to burn the movie file in the same size, resolution, and quality, of course in a case that the movie file is bigger than 8,5GB, reduce it just enough to fit in a Dual Layer DVD.”

Get yourself a bluray player or PS3 ,and you’ll be able to achieve/play your 1920x1080p, 1280x720p h.264 video files …
If you want to burn/play with regular DVD player,you’ll have to convert to standard DVD specs and in the process you’ll lose the awesome hi-def quality, as you found out…
Just be careful, b/c once you go Hi-Def you ain’t going back …At least it’s hard for me to…

[mamasta]

The result on DL DVD of course is better than DVD Or AVI, but you can’t compare it with the original Blue Ray 720p Or 1080p file…

So anyway, I try to install the RipBot264 as Kerry56 told me, but I couldn’t run it, even I had to uninstall the K-lite mega codec pack from my system, as I read in the tool help files.
The tool is “RipBot264v1.11.4-Setup”.

Any help is very welcome… Thank you.

[t0nee1]

[QUOTE=mamasta;2160992]The result on DL DVD of course is better than DVD Or AVI, but you can’t compare it with the original Blue Ray 720p Or 1080p file…

So anyway, I try to install the RipBot264 as Kerry56 told me, but I couldn’t run it, even I had to uninstall the K-lite mega codec pack from my system, as I read in the tool help files.
The tool is “RipBot264v1.11.4-Setup”.

Any help is very welcome… Thank you.[/QUOTE]

No matter how you slice it ,you will not get the same quality output by converting to other format[s]…You will/should however get great quality converting to MP4/h264,by using RipBot264 or XviD4PSP which I currently use…But as was mentioned earlier,you need an Xbox360 , PS3 or Bluray player to play .mp4…
I’m not sure about your RipBot prob…What error exactly are you getting?

Having said that ,If you want the same~ quality as the original MKV [I]file[/I],then you’ll have to demux (extract) the contents and re-package to a new format as in M2TS or Bluray structure,and burn to your DL disc using UDF 2.50 file system… There are several methods to do so(keep in mind that it’s not 100% guaranteed to be compatible and work every time…) I won’t discuss these methods since, your goal is to backup and play on [I]standard[/I] DVD player…
I find that FAVC will convert mkv> standard DVD with better results than ConvertxtoDVD…try it…

[Kerry56]

Ripbot264 requires several different programs in order to work. You must have Haali splitter, AviSynth, ffdshow and Net framework 2.0 or higher installed.

There are links to all of these at the videohelp site for Ripbot…just look in the description of the program. http://www.videohelp.com/tools/RipBot264

But Ripbot will not produce something you can play on a regular dvd player, if that is your intention. It will reduce the size of HD material to fit onto a dual layer dvd that can be read in a blu ray player.

Going to dvd-video you would be better off using FAVC as t0nee1 mentioned.

[MysticEyes]

I find that FAVC will convert mkv> standard DVD with better results than ConvertxtoDVD…try it…

In theory in should, but FAVC is still plagued by some minor bugs and some codec/filter experimentation is necessary to get it to work. Empty VIDEO_TS.IFO’s at times for one. The work around, lowering the max bitrate to 7000 seems to help, or loading the VOBs into IfoEdit to create the missing IFOs and BUPs. But that is a less than ideal situation. The latest version 1.07 will also not retain ac3 compliant audio, 5.1 ac3 becomes 2 channel. Another annoyance is anything under a 1.75 dar ends up as 4:3 letterboxed. If there is any problems with an mkv FAVC tends to choke, while the same file will readily convert with CXD3.

If the VSO folks would get off their speed kick (beginners want instant results) they could have a great little app by also offering HCenc 2pass encoding instead of the one pass ffmpeg one they currently use. The latest user selectable video processing options (padding, cropping etc.) in Version 3 are a nice touch. And subtitle support is much more complete than FAVC.

I have moved on to Mr. C’s [B]AVStoDVD[/B] a similar but much more complete free front end for many of the same apps/encoders. No .NET required and he is constantly updating his project (Mr. Odin seems to be taking some time off) and responses at his forum are quick. He has made a few assumptions on encoder choices and profiles, based on bitrate needed that I don’t completely agree with, but there are some work arounds. The ability to manually alter and preview script changes is a nice touch. Well worth looking into.

[t0nee1]

While I agree that FAVC needs to iron out some bugs with it’s mkv to DVD issue, I’ve found (no theory here) the quality output when successful (no hiccups)is far better IMO,then Cx2DVD…
For a newbie/beginner that wants “instant results” yeah ConvertxtoDVD is the way to go…
Having said that,If FAVC “chokes” I’ll just demux to elementary streams >avs script>Hcenc>Author>burn…

[Kerry56]

Thanks for the heads up on AVStoDVD MysticEyes. I’ve never looked at that particular program. I use other tools, but nice to have free all-in-one programs to recommend to newcomers.