[mythtv-users] Save recording on DVD?

[Rod Smith]

On Sunday 10 August 2008 04:39:28 pm Mark Knecht wrote:
> My wife is asking if it's possible to save a recording of the Olympics
> opening ceremonies on DVD. Is there some simple way to do this?
>
> SD recording file from a PVR-150/250 which is currently about 10GB so
> I suspect it's too large for a single DVD.

10GB is within spitting distance of the capacity of a dual-layer disc. If that 
10GB includes commercials, then after editing them out, it would probably fit 
on a dual-layer disc. OTOH, dual-layer discs are likely to be less archival 
than single-layer discs, so you might need to compress it down or split it 
across two discs. Compressing it is fairly easy with MythArchive, although 
it'll take the system a while (possibly hours) to churn on that file. (A tip: 
Don't burn directly to DVD; create a file and then burn that manually. That 
way you can check the file first to be sure it's OK.)

If you want to split an existing file into parts, it's possible, but you've 
got to juggle files. First, copy the original file to a backup location. (You 
may need to figure out which one it is in the recordings directory.) Then use 
MythTV's editing features to lop off part of the file -- say, the second half 
if you want to break the file in two. If the file's already in MPEG-2 format, 
your best bet is to select lossless transcoding options; that's quick and 
results in no loss of quality. When you're done, you should have a file 
that's roughly half (or whatever) the original file's size. Copy that to a 
video directory and move or copy the original backup file back in its place. 
Select another lossless transcode and MythTV will recognize the original 
recording in its full size. You can then repeat the process, but this time 
lop off the part that you preserved the first time around. You'll now have 
two (or more) files, each sized to fit your DVD. Use MythArchive to burn them 
without re-encoding them. Of course, there are lots of variants of this 
procedure that involve different types of transcoding or other details. You 
could also use non-MythTV tools to do this sort of thing.

-- 
Rod Smith