How can I burn a 2.5 hrs movie onto a DVD ??

[Welliep53]

I just saved my vacations movie into multiple avi files. I used a combination of Pinncle and Nero 7 to create my vacation DVD and found that it only allows me to create a an hour DVD movie.

Can someone please tell me what can I do s.t. I can create a DVD home movie to store the 2.5 hrs movie using the SP format (that supports 120 min) ? If I need additional software to compress the avi before burning the dvd, what software should I purchase ?

If I use, the SP format vs fine format (60 mins), how much movie quality is lost (50%) ?

Your advise/suggestion is greatly appreciated

Regards

[mats.hogberg]

By encoding it at the correct bitrate.
Use the bitrate calculator.2.5 hours would mean a video bitrate of 3800 kbps, assuming audio @ 224 kbps.
<rant>
If an encoder hides such an important piece of setting as bitrate behind "dumbed down" madeup acronym like "SP" or "fine format", I'd uninstall it at once.
</rant>
/Mats

[Richard_G]

At 3800kbs bitrate using full frame resolution, the quality may be a bit grim. Re-encode using Half D1 (352 x 480 if NTSC, 352 x 576 if PAL) at 3500kbs and you'll get over 2.5 hours per disc and the quality will still look pretty good.

As Mats says though, if you are using software that only gives you preset encode settings, you may need to find a better encoder to do it properly.

[TheFamilyMan]

If you are interested in preserving picture quality, it may be impossible to save 2.5 hours of vacation footage on a single DVD, unless you shot almost all of your footage using a tripod. With my camcorder footage (hand held), I'm lucky to get 90 min. of excellent quality footage onto a single sided DVD (MPEG2 encoded with TMPGEnc Plus).

[mikiem]

You've recieved several great suggestions -- sure more to come.

"SP format vs fine format (60 mins), how much movie quality is lost (50%) ?"

In case it helps, SP & LP etc. are only really applicable to old vhs tapes, and here you're much more concerned with the bitrate &/or the amount of compression used when you vid is encoded to mpg2 (or other formats) before burning to disc. The more compression you use, the smaller the files, but also less quality is preserved -- it's a tradeoff.

Besides the amount of compression, the size of the file depends on how much data there is to compress. The classic example of a talking head in front of a plain background has little data to preserve. That same talking head with a background of an amusement park, or a field of flowers, has a *lot* of extra data. Movement (ie. no tripod) means extra data, as does any noise in the video.

Generally a retail DVD holds around 1.5 hours of video per layer at high quality if that helps, but remember it's from a *Very* good source. In your case you can either make the file(s) smaller, or spread them over multiple discs. Increasing compression, reducing frame size, or using something like DivX (if you have a capable player) makes the files smaller.

[greymalkin]

unless you are wanting to burn to dual layer. Then 2.5 hours should allow you to keep pretty good quality @ a combined bitrate of 7mbps.

you'll need to create a chapter break shortly after the halfway point of the video, prefereably at a scene change and burn with RecordNow Max 7.3 for max compatibility.

just another option if you have the capability and don't mind spending around 3-5 dollars per dvd.

[handyguy]

Or get a panasonic dvd recorder. They do LP mode which is 4 hours on a dvd, it looks pretty decent. But they also have a recording mode that auto calculates the space so it fits.