How do I easily record a Windows session (with audio) to DVD?

May 23, 2006 7:28 PM

How do I easily record a Windows session (with audio) to DVD?

a friend of mine is a golf instructor. He uses one particular app (V1) to show students their golf swings. Right now he records the video output of the PC and the audio from a microphone straight to a VHS tape. A lesson is about 45-50 minutes.

What would be the best way of setting this up so that he could record directly to DVD instead?

posted by fsmontenegro to computers & internet (8 comments total)

DVD recorders
posted by Mr. Six at 7:31 PM on May 23, 2006

I know about DVD recorders, but I was wondering if this can be done using the PC and not just replacing the VHS recorder with a DVD recorder. This was not only one can move from VHS to DVD but actually save space as well...

But thanks for the suggestion!
posted by fsmontenegro at 8:03 PM on May 23, 2006

I think a consumer one-click type of digital home movie editor/DVD authorer application would do the trick used in conjunction with an equally easy way to get that app's output into dvd video format. I can't suggest any apps, but my gut instinct is that his current method is far, far less troublesome just as long as it is serving his current customer needs; and, alternatively, if he needs to move to DVD, a consumer DVD recorder used in place of the VHS recorder would be much more usable and troublefree.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:14 PM on May 23, 2006

You'd use something like Camtasia...but the problem will be in that it'll require a conversion to mpeg2 and then authoring to DVD (even if it's easy.)

Just recording via a hardware DVD recorder will be almost RT (realtime).
posted by filmgeek at 8:16 PM on May 23, 2006

I don't know of any software that can capture video and audio signal and burn MPEG-2 to a DVD-R disc in real-time. You'd need a digitizer board and you'd probably be recording to a harddisk-based file system. From that intermediate step you would then author a DVD.
posted by Mr. Six at 8:17 PM on May 23, 2006

I'd like something similar too. What I need is a black box that sits between the monitor and the PC and records everything to a hard drive or something. I've got some game stuff I'd like to record, but software-only solutions nuke the frame rate. Anyone got any ideas? Bonus points if it's flexible enough with supported resolutions to cope with 3840x1024.
posted by krisjohn at 8:28 PM on May 23, 2006

HDTV DVRs
posted by Mr. Six at 8:31 PM on May 23, 2006

I would try something like the free Wink to record the windows session, and then convert to DVD using one of the many flash to DVD conversion programs that are out there (Google "convert flash to dvd"). Maybe Total Video Converter will do the job.
posted by SNACKeR at 5:08 AM on May 24, 2006