More than one movie on a dvd?

[Slippery_Pete]

Hi all,

I could not find any information on this, sorry if it is already there and I missed it. Anyway, I recently got a dvd burner and I was able to convert an avi file to dvd using cucusoft avi converter. I then used IFOEdit to create the vob file, etc... and used Nero to burn the dvd. This all worked great and I am happy, but, the end result is a file that is just under 900 megs (it is not a high quality movie) so I have tons of space left on the dvd.

My question is can I put say three movies on there using this method? It creates a VIDEO_TS (I think it is called) folder and it looks like I can have only one of these? but I am not sure... Anyway, if it is not possible to burn a dvd like this can I do it as a VCD? I have burned VCDs in the past with a number of episdodes from TV on one VCD, would it work the same way using a number of full movies on a blank DVD?

Thanks!!

[Baldrick]

use a dvd authoring tool that can import several mpgs
dvdauthorgui (freeee)
or
gui for dvd author (freee)
or
tmpgenc dvd author (easiest)
or
dvd-lab (custom menus...).

much easier than ifoedit.

[Slippery_Pete]

kewl, thanks, I did find some more info after posting, sorry for not looking more closely before...

[jimmalenko]

There is information about this, but I remember when I first wanted to do something similar to this it was as confusing as hell to start with

We'll do Video 101 in about 3 sentences...

What is DVD(top left) tells us that the acceptable resolutions for DVD are:

PAL
Video:
Up to 9.8 Mbps* (9800 kbps*) MPEG2 video
Up to 1.856 Mbps (1856 kbps) MPEG1 video
720 x 576 pixels MPEG2 (Called Full-D1)
704 x 576 pixels MPEG2
352 x 576 pixels MPEG2 (Called Half-D1, same as the CVD Standard)
352 x 288 pixels MPEG2
352 x 288 pixels MPEG1 (Same as the VCD Standard)
25 fps*
16:9 Anamorphic (only supported by 720x576)

Audio:
48000 Hz
32 - 1536 kbps
Up to 8 audio tracks containing Dolby Digital, DTS, PCM(uncompressed audio), MPEG-1 Layer2. One audio track must have MPEG-1, DD or PCM Audio.


NTSC (NTSC Film)
Video:
Up to 9.8 Mbps* (9800 kbps*) MPEG2 video
Up to 1.856 Mbps (1856 kbps) MPEG1 video
720 x 480 pixels MPEG2 (Called Full-D1)
704 x 480 pixels MPEG2
352 x 480 pixels MPEG2 (Called Half-D1, same as the CVD Standard)
352 x 240 pixels MPEG2
352 x 240 pixels MPEG1 (Same as the VCD Standard)
29,97 fps*
23,976 fps with 3:2 pulldown = 29,97 playback fps (NTSC Film, this is only supported by MPEG2 video)
16:9 Anamorphic (only supported by 720x480)

Audio:
48000 Hz
32 - 1536 kbps
Up to 8 audio tracks containing Dolby Digital, DTS, PCM(uncompressed audio), MPEG-1 Layer2. One audio track must have MPEG-1, DD or PCM Audio.

While all this info may be confusing, the point to note is that 352 X 288 (PAL) and 352 X 240 NTSC) are both VCD resolutions and are both supported on DVD. Good news !

In short, all that is needed to make a VCD compliant file into a DVD compliant file is to resample the audio from 44.1Khz to 48Khz. Most authoring softwares such as TMPGEnc DVD Author will do this automatically for you.

[Garibaldi]

I was very confused too when I first started burning dvds. There are 2 folders on a dvd, AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS. The AUDIO_TS folder is empty, the audio for the video is in the vob files. Anyway, some useful programs that I have found are
TMPGENC:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=1#comments
TMPGENC MPEG 2 Importer Plugin:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=243#comments
Virtual Dub:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=332#comments
Windows Movie Maker 2 (win xp only):
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/moviemaker2.mspx
Slideshow Movie Maker:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=slide+show+movie+maker&s=&orderby=Name&conve...tools#comments
Audacity:
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=Audacity&s=&orderby=Name&convert=&dvdauthorf...tools#comments
You can import your avi or other file types into TMPGENC and encode them to dvd format MPEG-2 and then use another program like nero to encode them to vob files, Nero should let you have more than 1 file. Otherwise use the DVD Author GUI that others have recommended after TMPGENC. I have used it and it takes some time to learn how to use it but it works great once you get it. A great feature of TMPGENC is that you can set the bitrate, the number of megabites per second of video, for your video. I have found that I can get about 12 hour long episodes (after you cut out the commercials it becomes about 42 minutes) on 1 dvd! Since I'm backing up from my VHS and the quality with VHS isn't that great I set the bitrate for 1800. This is quite a bit lower than most DVDs, which are on average 5000 or so, but the original video quality isn't that great anyway. Virtual Dub lets you edit avi files in many different ways, including making a picture in picture effect, see here:
http://www.eicsoftware.com/PapaJohn/MM2/MM2-DoAmazingThings-Chapter2-EffectsAndTransitions.html
Movie Maker 2 can be used to edit your video and add transitions and titles and stuff. Slide Show Movie Maker (SSMM) takes your pictures and can add random transitions and easily make an avi file of your jpegs so you can make a dvd slideshow. Audacity lets you edit sound files, which is especially helpful with SSMM, which only lets you use 1 audio file with your pictures. So if you want to have more than 1 song in your slideshow, import the songs into Audacity and put them one after another and make a new audio file. Then import this into SSMM. If you have any other questions I'd be happy to help.