Multiple episode video capture to DVD

I have captured several episodes of my kids' favourite animated show, and want to put them on a DVD+R. I am capturing in MPEG2 (720X480) DVD quality (6000 bitrate I believe), and use Ulead VideoStudio 7 to edit and save each 11-minute episode, as it's own file. Then I use VideoStudio to save 10 episodes (I chose 10 for a reason as will become apparent in a moment) as a DVD compliant VOB, IFO, BUP video structure, that on it's own, could easily be burned to a DVD. The issue I want to address is that only 10 episodes with menus fit per DVD+R using Ulead, and I would like to fit many more if possible. I've been scouring the forums for suggestions, and there are several guides out there for joining multi-episodic DVD's and flipper or multi-disc DVD's, but nothing that specifically addresses the process of authoring several MPEG 2 files to a DVD compliant structure, then burning to disc. In my research, I have come to experiment with TMPGEnc DVD Author and DVD2One (which I love). What I've done is create separate DVD folders with Ulead, each containing 10 episodes, menus and chapters. Then, I've loaded each folder into TMPGEnc DVD Author (latest version). The original chapter points are retained, but menus are not. So, I create very simple menus which work fine. Then, TMPGEnc DVD Author outputs everything to a single DVD file ready to burn. Once this is completed, I run the "new" DVD files through DVD2One 1.2.2. to compress, and then write to a DVD+RW with Copy2DVD (latest version). I always get a "write failed error" in Copy2DVD, even after manually adjusting the output size lower and lower in DVD2One to try and get everything to fit. The disc will play, however only 16 episodes will work of the 20 that I try to create on the disc. Is there a limit to how much DVD2One can compress? I've used it very successfully to back up several of my DVD's and never encountered a disc that had too much data to burn to a single DVD+R. Is my problem that I'm trying to put way too many episodes on one DVD+R? Has anyone had success doing something similar? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Caliburn

Your problem lays mainly on the encoding part of the project and not on the authoring. U r capturing at constant bitrate of 6000 whereas a variable bitrate of min 500 max 9000 as given by CCE is much more efficient qualitywise and space. Your eps shouldn't require such high bitrate. Capture at 720x480 as u do now, but save in avi dv if your hd space allows. U ll end up with 2gb per episode that u can encode to mpeg2 using CCE and author in videostudio, dvd Author u name it. Put 20 of them or 25 of them in a project and shrink if oversized by dvd2one.

I thought that bitrate might be the culprit. Thanks for the quick response. Caliburn

I figured it out. Instead of first running through Ulead Videostudio to create chapter points (which was the only reason I did this), I just loaded the MPEG files into TMPGEnc DVD Author straight away, and it allows me to set chapter points. Then, press output and 76 minutes later its done. I'm really impressed with this program, it does a great job. I've burned 24 - 11 minute episodes to a DVD with motion main and chapter menus, and the quality is outstanding. Good luck to others who try, and thanks for the input. Caliburn