dvdhelp.com / Easy archiving of SKY+ recorded material (UK)
What you need:
  • SKY+ satellite PVR (details...)
  • DVD Recorder with RGB input (details...)
  • DVD Writer + blanks (details...)
  • TMPGEnc DVD Author (details...)
    Preparation:
  • Ensure that the DVD recorder is connected to the RGB output on the Sky+ box. This is the bottom SCART, labeled as "TV SCART". The SCART labelled as "VCR SCART" does NOT output RGB, and is not ideal for DVD recordings.
  • Check the size of the recording you are going to make and use the best quality you can. It's pointless recording in 6 hour mode unless you really want to have DVDs with lots of low quality material on them!
  • Make sure that you can leave it to record for the duration (overnight is good). You don't want to stop the Sky+ box as it will mash up your recording. Any Sky+ scheduled recordings will still record correctly.
  • Cue up the programmes and record onto a blank DVD.
    • Processing:
  • Take the recorded DVD and open it on your PC
  • Copy the VIDEO_TS directory onto your hard disk



  • Start TMPGEnc DVD Author (TDA) and click "Create New Project"



  • Click on "Add DVD Video" and locate the VIDEO_TS directory on your hard disk.



  • The DVD recorder used for this walkthrough shows two titles on the DVD, even though they both appear to be the same. just select one and click Next.



  • As we are going to chop the video up, we can ignore the chapter infomation, so make sure that it is not checked.



  • You will now see the summary screen; Click on the "Chapter Cut Edit" button at the top of the dialog box.



  • The main edit window is very easy to use. Basically you can select a range using the positioning buttons (1) or the slider control (2) to find the beginning/end of the section you want to remove, and use "Set as start frame" (3) and "Set as end frame" (4) to mark the chosen section. Once you have selected your range, clicking on "Cut" (5) will remove that section from your final video and create a chapter break at the cut.
  • If you want to create additional chapters, then simply locate the position using (1) or (2) and click "Add current frame to chapter" (6). All chapters appear in the Chapter list on the right. Double click on a chapter to jump to it in the frame view.
  • When you have removed the sections you want to lose, and have created any chapters that you require, you can click on "OK" (7)



  • On the main dialog, you can see how much room on the DVD is used by your editing; after removing padding at the beginning and end of the recording, and any advert breaks, the recording size can drop considerably! If you want to add any other fragments that you have kept from previous edits, then you can add them here



  • Once you are happy, click "Create menu" across the top. This will give you a default menu page (or more depending on how many chapters you have)
    • Menu editing:
    Before you spend time creating your menu masterpiece, take a step-back and decide whether you need one yet..

    If you simply arching off the episodes of your favourite TV show, then you probably want to wait until you have enough to fill up a blank DVD. The menu creation can wait until then.

    If that is what you are doing, then jump to our "Merging multiple episodes onto single DVDs" page.

    If not, then feel free to create a menu now!
    Menu editing:
  • The menu facilities on TDA are changing (for the better!) in recent releases of the software, so the functionality should get better than the current options



  • Clicking on any item of text allows you to type new text, chnage font and colour etc.
  • Clicking on a chapter image allows you to choose a frame of video to use as the image on the DVD menu
  • There are a number of preset menu styles, but you can also create your own (with some limitations) - just play around - it is very easy to follow
  • Motion menus can be created, but we will leave this for another time!
  • Once you are happy, just click on Output across the top



  • This will allow you to choose a directory on your hard disk to output a new VIDEO_TS directory with all of your changes. The original set of files will not be touched, so you can go back to them and extract a different programme, adverts, etc.
  • When that has finished - which can be quite quick as no video needs to be re-encoded at all, then the directory can be burnt to a blank DVD with your favourite burning software.

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