3 AVIs to DVD low quality or medium quality to drive then DVDshrink?

[johnharlin]

I have noticed that when I tried to convert three movies from AVI to one DVD using either convertxtoDVD or Nero, the programs set a degree of quality: high, medium or low. For example, when I wanted to convert three AVI movies to one DVD, I would be prompted that I can only do so in low quality and the resulting file space used was about 3.8 gigabytes. So I would still have about 700 megabytes that wasn't put to use to help out on the quality. I have found no custom adjustments in those programs where you can adjust between low quality and medium quality to use the total file space of a DVD.

If there is no such custom quality adjustment, would it not be better for example to convert all three movies in medium quality to your hard drive and then use DVD shrink to lower the quality to fit on the DVD to get the benefit of the the full 4.5 gigs of a DVD in order to get better quality movies between low and medium and then burn it to DVD?

[louv68]

johnharlin,

What I do:
1. TheFilmMachine to convert .avi's to output the elementary streams (.mpv/.ac3)
2. Author the DVD with something like DVDStyler
3. If it's oversize, I use DVD-Rebuilder to reencode to fit onto a disc.
Do a little reading on how to use these programs. You'd be surprised what you can do with these free tools.

Are each of your 700MB files movies? If so, putting 3 movies onto a single layer disc will look like crap no matter what tool(s) you use.

[johnharlin]

Yes, they are each about 700mb and when converted to DVD in low quality come out to about 3,800mb. I just wanted to utilize more of the DVD space to get a little better quality. I don't really understand why TheFilmMachine and DVDStyler are better than ConvertxtoDVD and I don't understand why DVD-REbuilder is better than DVDShrink but I will take a look at them.

[louv68]

Output size setting in ConvertXtoDVD:
Settings / Encoding / Target Size / Custom / Change to something like 4470 or so.

[guns1inger]

ConvertXtoDVD encodes based on the quality of your source. It obviously believes that the quality doesn't warrant the full amount. To be honest, it is probably right. Trying to force three full length movies onto a single layer DVD at full0D1 (which is all ConvertXtoDVD can do), will look like crap, even if you do use the extra 700 MB.

If you must follow through on such a folly then you need to learn how to squeeze the maximum you can from your source, which means learning how to encode properly, and not use short-cut tools such as ConvertxtoDVD. It will take you longer, and the quality difference will probably be around 10% for the extra 200% effort required, but that is the way it goes.

Seriously, if you want to get something decent out of this exercise, put one movie per disc.

[MysticE]

I have noticed that when I tried to convert three movies from AVI to one DVD using either convertxtoDVD or Nero, the programs set a degree of quality: high, medium or low. For example, when I wanted to convert three AVI movies to one DVD, I would be prompted that I can only do so in low quality and the resulting file space used was about 3.8 gigabytes. So I would still have about 700 megabytes that wasn't put to use to help out on the quality. I have found no custom adjustments in those programs where you can adjust between low quality and medium quality to use the total file space of a DVD.

If there is no such custom quality adjustment, would it not be better for example to convert all three movies in medium quality to your hard drive and then use DVD shrink to lower the quality to fit on the DVD to get the benefit of the the full 4.5 gigs of a DVD in order to get better quality movies between low and medium and then burn it to DVD?

With Nero Vision you can manually set the video bitrate to exactly fill the disc.