DVR-MS to DVD using Nero
Nov 15th, 2006 by darryl
Recently I have started to burn some recorded tv shows to dvd using Nero. Most people can use the Sonic plugin which optionally comes with media center to accomplish this task. However, my media center pc which is sitting in the basement does not have a dvd burner.
My technique for burning tv shows to disk involves using an evaluation copy of Nero Ultra Edition Enhanced to test it out. I essentially copy the dvr-ms files from the media center pc to my office pc, which has a dvd burner. I then use the Nero Vision program which comes with the bundle to create a rudimentary menu system (because I am a) lazy when it comes to this and b) not artistically inclined at all), and encode the files onto the dvd. So far, I have been using re-writable dvds and it has been working well so far. If anyone has any other suggestions let me know.
So far, my initial impression of Nero will have me making the purchase once the evaluation period is up.
This capability is in the box with Vista.
Windows Movie Maker can now natively edit dvr-ms files and natively burn a video DVD.
Another fun way to do this would be to use dvrmstoolbox to create an mpeg-2 file with the commercials automatically stripped and then use a DVD authoring tool to burn to DVD. But that doesn’t buy you much more than you already get with Nero.
My personal preference? Run MCE on the upstairs machine and use the MCE burning engine (SonicEncoders in XP, builtin with Vista) to create a DVD over the network. Or just get a $50 DVD burner for the machine downstairs and run remote desktop.
I’ve been using Nero 7 Ultimate to do the burning. Comes with a tonne of stuff. The burn to dvd is great. Also lets you edit the dvr-ms, encode to xvid (if you have the codec) which shrinks the 3 gig 1 hr show to to 330megs with no real loss if you are just storing on the hd.
I tried dvrmstoolbox and it didn’t cut any commercials out of the file I wanted. Perhaps I didn’t set it up right.