Fitting Movie on One DVD

[rbautch]

What do programs like DVD2One and DVDShrink do to the video stream when the re-encode to fit on one DVD+R? When I try to fit a couple movies on a DVD+R, I usually encode as SVCD with 48,000 audio and then shrink using one of these programs. Is there a less-lossy or more efficient way to do this up front in the original encode?

[Kelso]

If you encode to SVCD then recompress with another program to make it all fit, then you are DOUBLE compressing. That is not good, and you are losing a lot of quailty. Especially since you are first re-encoding to SVCD.(lowering the resolution)

I would just use DVDSHRINK right off the bat. Just start the program and let it compress the original DVD files down to somethng small enough to burn. I have always been very happy with the results. The new v3.0b5 gives really good quailty.

You asked what the DVDSHRINK does to the video. It 'transcodes' it.
As stated on www.doom9.org - "transcoders are based on algorithms designed to recompress an MPEG-2 stream in real-time for TV broadcast. These programs can transcode an entire DVD movies in only a few minutes, because they do not have to decode and re-encode the entire video stream, but only part of it. I will not go into a detailed explanation of the mechanisms used as they are quite involved but basically what you get is a size (and hence quality) reduction per time unit that cannot be rivaled by regular MPEG-2 encoders (though the latter category can yield better quality). DVD2One was the first program to be based on these principles, now DVD Shrink is the first free program to offer this functionality."

[ImaWeTodd]

I disagree a bit with kelso.

Double encoding == bad
Shrink == maybe

If you are going to the trouble of making svcds (that you can put on a dvdr), you should just calculate their size ahead of time and use the appropriate bit rate for them to fit.

This would give you a better quality result than the shrink method because:
- The frame size is smaller for svcd, and therefore less bits are needed per second.
- A good multipass vbr encode would do a better quality job than a single pass transcode. (As said in the doom9 quote)

Having said all of that, the shrink method would be much easier/faster. Also, svcds on a dvd are a strange animal. Why not just go to D2 and be compliant?

[rbautch]

Thanks for the great responses. As you can tell, I'm still learning. I'm now using the bitrate calculators to figure the rate I need up front without using any transcode software. I've abandoned the SVCD encoding in favor of DVD compliant encoding, and using the 720x480 or 360x480 frame size depending on the source. This is working great. Thanks again.