How do I fit 2 hours of home movies on 1 DVD?

[SPerkins]

Ok I thought I knew what I was doing. Here's what I've done:

I've got 20+ 8mm tapes and 20+ MiniDV tapes to transfer.
I captured a few 8mm tapes from my old 8mm camcorder via my MiniDV digital passthrough. A 2 hour tape yields a 26Gig AVI file. Before I knew better, I used Sonic MyDVD 5.0 Deluxe to pull in the entire AVI file, clip a few scenes out, and burn to a DVD. Sonic told me I needed 2.6Gig more space on the DVD, so I split the video up and could only fit an hour and 15 minutes on it.

Did some research, and found out about TMPEG Plus. Encoded that 26GB file at 8000kbs using TMPEG Plus (and settings recommended here) and this yielded a ~9GB file. I pulled it in to Sonic and it told me the same thing, that the DVD needed 2.6GB more space to fit the 2 hour video. So I re-encoded it at 4000kbs and got a 3.7GB file.

This won't fit on a DVD either!

I must be missing something, I thought I could get 2 hours of DVD quality video (at least close to the quality of the original source) on a DVD. The quality of the encoded video drops off noticeably at 4000kbs vs. the original AVI from the 8mm tape.

Thanks. This is my first post.

Steve

[bottle-necked]

Sonic is pretty lame when you take an AVI file to it. It looked at the AVI and said it's not DVD compliant so it encoded it using it's "Best" setting. You saw what kind of file size that gives you. You should read the help file in Sonic and look for the part about encoding and compliant files. You will see what happened.

To calculate a 2 hour movie on a 4.7G blank I would use this formula:
4350/120=36.25 (a dvd blank minus overhead is 4.350G. Divided by minutes equals 36.25 megabytes a minute.
36.25/60=.6041 (my allowed 36.25MB/m divided by 60 seconds equals my allowed 604,100kB/s.
.6041x8=4.8328 (Convert bytes to bits. Total 4.8328 mega bits per second allowed. Video + Audio)

Using constant bitrates (CBR) you would be allowed 4.8Mb/s minus your audio. Using 256k audio that's about 4.576Mb/s (mega bits per second) video.

You would not use constant bitrates so you would assume by these calculations that your average bitrate (VBR) should be 4.576Mb/s. You want decent quality video so set the maximum bitrate to say 6.0Mb/s. The program can go up to 6 but will try to average 4.576.

I usually capture a few 1 minute clips and reverse my above calculations and see how many minutes at my settings I can fit on a blank. Different programs, systems, etc, will need different settings. You'll just haft to test to find the setting to fit your needs. Some video compresses better than others also.

The project you stated that was a couple gigs too big I would of tried DVD Shrink on the project folder. I have had good luck using that program expecially when I get myself in a bind like you discribed.

Also, Sonic probably didn't use MPEG1 Layer2 audio so your audio file size was probabaly very large also.

Good luck.

[davideck]

I have transferred over 50 2-hour SVHS tapes to DVD using a Haupaugge PVR-250 with excellent results. Video Bitrate = 4500 kbs, Audio Bitrate = 384 kbps. This provides 124 minutes on one DVD.

[indolikaa]

Bottle-necked hit the nail on the head. Sonic MyDVD likely created an LPCM audio file, and that's huge. That will cut into your total video time dramatically. I have a version of MyDVD that came with my burner, and it does the same thing.

With an LPCM soundtrack and burning near the edge of the disc, you could shoot for a video bitrate of 3500, but you better be using quality media. This is also not the best bitrate for Full-D1 (704x480) resolution, which your MiniDV tapes would likely justify using. However, at Half-D1 resolution (352x480) a 3500 bitrate is acceptable.

For these reasons, you may find MyDVD to not be the ideal software for your needs.

[SPerkins]

I have transferred over 50 2-hour SVHS tapes to DVD using a Haupaugge PVR-250 with excellent results. Video Bitrate = 4500 kbs, Audio Bitrate = 384 kbps. This provides 124 minutes on one DVD.

Davideck,

So did you set your MPEG settings in the TV card to DVD Standard? How did you feed audio into the card?

[davideck]

SPerkins-

I set the MPEG settings for DVD Program Stream.
The card has stereo audio inputs.

[Randall Flagg]

Bottle-necked hit the nail on the head. Sonic MyDVD likely created an LPCM audio file, and that's huge. That will cut into your total video time dramatically. I have a version of MyDVD that came with my burner, and it does the same thing.

With an LPCM soundtrack and burning near the edge of the disc, you could shoot for a video bitrate of 3500, but you better be using quality media. This is also not the best bitrate for Full-D1 (704x480) resolution, which your MiniDV tapes would likely justify using. However, at Half-D1 resolution (352x480) a 3500 bitrate is acceptable.

For these reasons, you may find MyDVD to not be the ideal software for your needs.

Amen. That's why I deleted MyDVD after just one use and found that out the hard way.

[SPerkins]

Sonic is pretty lame when you take an AVI file to it. It looked at the AVI and said it's not DVD compliant so it encoded it using it's "Best" setting. You saw what kind of file size that gives you. You should read the help file in Sonic and look for the part about encoding and compliant files. You will see what happened.

To calculate a 2 hour movie on a 4.7G blank I would use this formula:
4350/120=36.25 (a dvd blank minus overhead is 4.350G. Divided by minutes equals 36.25 megabytes a minute.
36.25/60=.6041 (my allowed 36.25MB/m divided by 60 seconds equals my allowed 604,100kB/s.
.6041x8=4.8328 (Convert bytes to bits. Total 4.8328 mega bits per second allowed. Video + Audio)

Using constant bitrates (CBR) you would be allowed 4.8Mb/s minus your audio. Using 256k audio that's about 4.576Mb/s (mega bits per second) video.

You would not use constant bitrates so you would assume by these calculations that your average bitrate (VBR) should be 4.576Mb/s. You want decent quality video so set the maximum bitrate to say 6.0Mb/s. The program can go up to 6 but will try to average 4.576.

I usually capture a few 1 minute clips and reverse my above calculations and see how many minutes at my settings I can fit on a blank. Different programs, systems, etc, will need different settings. You'll just haft to test to find the setting to fit your needs. Some video compresses better than others also.

The project you stated that was a couple gigs too big I would of tried DVD Shrink on the project folder. I have had good luck using that program expecially when I get myself in a bind like you discribed.

Also, Sonic probably didn't use MPEG1 Layer2 audio so your audio file size was probabaly very large also.

Good luck.

I tried DVDShrink but it appears to only support shrinking VOB files. I'm sitting here with an MPG file. Is there a direct correlation between the size of the source MPG (that's been encoded from an AVI) and the size limit on a DVD. I guess I'm asking if a 4.3 gig MPG should fit on a DVD perfectly.

Steve

[handyguy]

If you have that much conversion to do you might get a Panasonic e50 dvd recorder or whatever they have at the moment. Just plug in your s-video or a/v from your camcorder to the panasonic, put in a dvd-r disk & push record. You can get 4 hours of very nice video on one dvd that way with titles & chapters.