A small part of my business requires that I take narrated videos when writing property condition reports, proposed repairs for out of town owners, etc.,
I take my own videos and use a couple of different programs, now mostly Nero to convert different formats to .vob and the embedded .bups and all the other files and embeds that allow different format files to play on a DVD player. Works like a champ. I edit, trim, adjust view angles, compress, transcode, convert, etc, and put the video on DVD with a menu.
Here's my problem. I have a video that has come my way from another contractor that does inspections, but anything on the computer other than emailing his grandkids is out of his skill or interest level. He has a video that he took of some questionable work that will need to be addressed, and the video is an important part of his case. However... it is impractical to think that everyone will have a computer, and since this will probably be going to court the courtroom will have a DVD player ready to go.
So motormouth (also known as me) tells his contractor buddy that "for a fee" I will convert his video, set up a logo background on his DVD, and include live menu buttons to access different job site areas. He is thrilled as the attorney he is doing this for wants to be able to distribute the DVD as a pre-emptive strike to all concerned parties to see if they can all settle out of court. So of course, he wants the most professional looking video possible.
The rub: Someway he has the only remaining copy of the on site video in .WMV format. He has a "hi res" (not hi def) cameral that takes roughly DVD quality, so a 30 minute video is about 60+ minutes to convert to DVD. That part isn't so bad; but the output is.
I have tried numerous other programs, since I had problems with Nero in the conversion. Nero did the best video conversion, but the actual sound won't sync 100% and ruins the narration - AND, to boot, one of the vid files was only 27 minutes ling and Nero took an hour and 40 minutes to transcode, build the DVD structure, file sturcture, the menu buttons and burn. Others are certainly faster, but the video on some, especially the fastest ones, really stinks.
I have tried pay programs, free programs, demos of high dollar programs, and none of them look very good to me. If the clarity is right, the colors are off. If the colors are good, the video will hiccup every once in a while. If the colors are good and there are no hiccups, the rendering will be fuzzy. I have even gone so far as to slow down the drive speed, change DVD blanks, and leave the computer to work on this as a single task after a hard boot with all other programs closed.
I am stumped. And I refuse to turn in a piece of crap that will embarrass me and my friend.
I have been doing this type of stuff as a hobby for years now and never had this much problems or such low quality output. Does anyone here have a favorite piece of software or pieces of software to get me out of this .WMV hell? I have tried about 6-7 different highly rated converters and am just about out of patience.
Any suggestions? Sure would like to hear from anyone with ideas....
Robert