Fitting 2.5-3 hours DV on 1 DVD-R

[travtufts]

I have a theatrical performance that ran around 2.5 hours and after editing and graphics etc. it will be closer to 2.75 hours. After reading through the topics I couldn't find a comprehensive Mac topic on squeezing extra video for commercial distribution--i.e. the DVD needs to look as professional as it can coming from the original miniDV footage. I will be using DVD SP to create the DVD.

I have all the tools available, Bitvice, Apple Compressor, DVD2One etc. What is the best way to compress the video so that I can fit more than 2 hours on one DVD-R? Resolution change without poor quality on TV? Bitvice's DVNC filter?

Any and all help would be very appreciated.

[Vintageman]

I would use Bitvice and set it to about 6mb average and set your highest level to at least 9mb if possible then once you have that mv2 I would save the audio as mp2 48khz at 360 at least ( if you really want nice audio save as AC3. Once you have those 2 files author as VIDEO_TS folder with Missing Mpeg Tools. You will probably be left with a 8 or 9GB file. It's way to big to fit on one DVD but that's where DVD2One will help. Just save it as a 4300mb file with DVD2One and burn with Toast.

PS: What's going to take the longest is the conversions. DVD2One should take no more than 2 hours and Toast will vary depending on what kind of burner ( 2x or 4x ).

[sdm]

you could also set bitvice or to encode around 3000kbit/sec average, with a maximum of maybe 4000kbit/sec.
Some people will tell you that this is much too low. It may be okay - try a test to see if the quality is acceptable.
use A.pack to compress your .aiff into AC3.

you can use the resulting files in dvdsp.

[fravel]

Make a HalfDVD (Half D1), 352 x 480, around 3000 vbr. It's one of the DVD standards and has great quality. Go to lordsmurf's site to get complete info:

http://www.lordsmurf.com/

Good Luck!

[pants]

dsp 2 won't work with half d1 files for some reason. at least that's whati heard on the apple dsp forum. check there to make sure. definitely ac3 the audio, i'd do it 192 kbs, the video size you should use a bit rate calculator to help, try this one,

http://dvd-hq.info/Calculator.html

or
http://www.wiredinc.com/bitrate.html

definitely 2 pass vbr, you'll need a low bitrate for sure, avg. rate like 3.75-4, high maybe at 4.5

is spliting it over 2 dvd's an option?

[travtufts]

Thanks to everyone for their help and different insights. I'm well on the way to solving my problem.

I'd rather not split over two DVDs if I can avoid it because the distribution is fairly extensive and it would save a lot of $ to keep it on one.

[bugster]

I am not a Mac user, but I do know my bitrates. To fit 2h 45 on a DVDr with 224kbps audio, you need to encode with an average bitrate of 3400Kbps. This is marginal for Full D1, use 1/2 D1 if you can. Also, if using multipass VBR, there is no reason I can think of not to set the max to 8000kbps (or even 9000). After all, it is the average value that determines the file size.