M2V doesn't fill the DVD

[nettroller]

I used http://members.dodo.net.au/~jimmalenko/AVI2DVD.htm guide to convert my avi to a DVD using TMPG plus 2.5.
Avi length is 2:05:2 (audio 160kbits/s), I used the Bitrate calculator to come up with a ave of 4664.
I followed the guide and used these settings:
ES (video only)
2 pass VBR (min 1000, max 5000 and ave 4664)
Highest quality.
The resulting m2v file is only about 3.2 gig.
My question - since this movie is over 2 hours - I'd have thought I'd be using the whole DVD? Where did I go wrong?
I don't know if it matters ..but when I started encoding, TMPG said it would take 30 hours, but it was actually finished in 22 hours.
If I'm going to have to redo it - I'd like to get some advice on what I can change to create a full DVD.
Thanks for any and all responses...

[steveryan]

I'm no expert in this VBR thing but surely it depends on what the footage is? I.e if there's lot's of fast motion then more bitrate is needed? So if your footage doesn't contain lots of fast motion scenes the bitrate will be lower which equals less disc space.

[nettroller]

Well...you know more about the VBR than I do
Should I just trash the VBR idea and go with the CBR at 4664 ave?
I assumed the VBR would give me superior quality..I didn't mind the extra time it took if it was going to be worth it for the end product...

[sanjayk]

Try encoding ES video at CBR bitrate=5000. Make sure no other apps are running on your system while encoding is going on.

[DarrellS]

How big were the original AVIs?

I put 24 XviD episodes that were around 50 minutes each and 400MB on DVDs, 4 per DVD and none of them completely filled the DVD. The largest one was just over 4GB. I have no complaints about the finished DVDs. They look as good as the original XviDs.

How does it look on your TV? That's what matters. Your not going to get a high quality Movie from a low quality movie by raising the bitrate.

I guess my biggest question is why everyone insists on using TMPGEnc when they can knock out all the confusion of what settings they need to use and cut the encoding time way down by using VSO DivXToDVD? Your AVIs don't have to be DivX just because that is what is listed in the name. It will handle alot of different file types.

[nettroller]

Thanks for the responses...

Try encoding ES video at CBR bitrate=5000. Make sure no other apps are running on your system while encoding is going on.

I will try that ...at the moment..I'm running it again with 2 pass VBR ave 5000. If it's no good, I'll try your suggestion of CBR.

How does it look on your TV? That's what matters. Your not going to get a high quality Movie from a low quality movie by raising the bitrate.

I guess my biggest question is why everyone insists on using TMPGEnc when they can knock out all the confusion of what settings they need to use and cut the encoding time way down by using VSO DivXToDVD?

I guess I'm using TMPG because most of the posts/guides seem to refer to this as being the best - being a newbie, I don't know..and the amount of programs to do the same thing is a bit overwhelming - I'll try the program you've suggested though - I think I have guides for most of them now...what's one more
And to answer your question about the quality on my TV - it's terrible..and I was under the impression the 668MB avi was of good quality.
Thanks again.

[DarrellS]

I guess I'm using TMPG because most of the posts/guides seem to refer to this as being the best - being a newbie, I don't know..and the amount of programs to do the same thing is a bit overwhelming - I'll try the program you've suggested though - I think I have guides for most of them now...what's one more

Yeah, I'd probably make a couple of guides if I knew how.

And to answer your question about the quality on my TV - it's terrible..and I was under the impression the 668MB avi was of good quality.
Thanks again.

That is what I was afraid of. A 2 hour movie should be pretty big, even compressed as DivX or XviD. I would say no smaller than 800MB.

I was playing around last night trying to find a good capture resolution with my card and software for AVI and the closest I could get to the recommended 480x480 was 320x480 and when I tried to convert to DVD resolution, it looked like total crap so I guess I pretty much have to capture at full resolution or capture straight to MPEG-2 instead of AVI.

[guns1inger]

For VBR encodes I would push the max up to around 9000. 5000 is way too low for action scenes. If you are particularly paranoid, as some arounf here are, make the max 8500 instead.

[ronnylov]

According to your link to the used guide you have probably used half-D1 resolution (352x576 PAL or 352x480 NTSC). An average bitrate at 4664 kbit/s is quite high for that resolution and the source may be easily compressed. I think TMPGEnc has maxed out and can't make any better quality at this resolution (at least on parts of the file). Increasing the maximum bitrate like guns1inger suggested above may help but I suggest also increasing the resolution to 704x576 PAL or 704x480 NTSC.