15hours of footage on 2 DVDs possible?

[itsme1]

Hi all,

I recorded around 15hrs of video with my DV cam and want to distribute the footage to friends. However, I dont want to have to make 15 DVDs for EACH friend. What can I do?? I've decided that I can distribute a 2 DVD set. SO I have 2 DVD discs in each set and 15 hours of video overall....what are my options?

The quality - especially the video quality - is not important at all, as long as its watchable. Am I able to compress say 7.5 hours on a single DVD?

I want the DVD to have menus, so users can pick and choose what clips they want to watch. I.e There is a requirement for menus.

But that;s about it. I have Sony Vegas 7 and DVD Author 4. I know DVD Author 4 has a feature where if your footage is going over the limit of the DVD, it can recommend a lower bitrate profile, but I REALLY dont know if it can offer a bit rate for 7 hours or so!

Please help with suggestions....Is it possible to get it down to about VCD quality or even less and fit in the all the videos?

[Forum Troll]

Compress the video with divx or xvid, and then burn them all to a DVD in data mode. Then they can view on a PC or with a divx-certified standalone player.

[thecoalman]

Use the VCD standard (MPEG1 352x240(288 PAL) @1150kbps), Note that VCD is DVD comaptible except the audio so just make sure you encode the audio at 48khz instead of 44khz. That should fit with room to spare unless you go nuts with the menus.

There's no minimum spec that I'm aware od at least for MPEG2 if you ned to go lower. 1000 is not going to be that much worse that VCD. I even did one up around 400-500kbps once messing around that worked somewhat, my DVD player didn't like it very much.

[Alex_ander]

Is it possible to get it down to about VCD quality or even less and fit in the all the videos?

In VCD quality it will take about 2DVDRs. In case of divx you can't use chapter navigation (unless you have an ultra divx certified player and author it as divx DVD in e.g. TDA3). Also many players don't support playback from data DVDR (even if they do it from CDR).

[nic2k4]

When in doubt try a bitrate calculator:

https://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm

With the audio at 128 kbps I get 1224 kbps total bitrate for one 7.5 hr DVD. Pretty close to VCD bitrate, just follow Thecoalman's directions.

[trhouse]

I would burn it to two double layer disks. The quality will be about what you get with a dvd recorder capturing in LP mode.

[jman98]

Hi all,

I recorded around 15hrs of video with my DV cam and want to distribute the footage to friends. However, I dont want to have to make 15 DVDs for EACH friend. What can I do?? I've decided that I can distribute a 2 DVD set. SO I have 2 DVD discs in each set and 15 hours of video overall....what are my options?

The quality - especially the video quality - is not important at all, as long as its watchable. Am I able to compress say 7.5 hours on a single DVD?

You can do this but I'd like you to consider 2 things.
1) Since you had to ask about this, I'll be blunt and say the odds are not good that you're going to be able to encode this as best as possible. The resulting video will no doubt be blocky. Are your friends REALLY going to watch something like this? Because what you may think is acceptible and what your friends may think is acceptible are likely to not be the same thing. Everyone is different. Some people can put up with video that most people would consider too bad to watch. Others will complain and refuse to watch with even the slightest problem.
2) 15 hours?!? Again, to be blunt, why do you think that friends are REALLY going to want to watch that much video? I've got a feeling that you think you are doing people this great favor and in reality there is too much video and nobody is going to watch any of it, except maybe 5 minutes, and you are knocking yourself out for nothing. If someone gave you a collection of 15 hours of videos of their kid playing soccer, would you really be interested in watching all of it? You don't say what your video is, but people tend to overestimate how interesting their personal video stuff is to other people.

[thecoalman]

Jman, VCD is not that bad, its not great but it's not that bad. Since your using a low resolution you get very little macroblocking. What you do lose is deatail. It produces a softer image. If you have a decent source the quality is almost/about VHS.

[itsme1]

Thank you all. Everyone had some good advice and I really appreciate it..

Dual layer is not an option for me unfortunately

I will try for MPEG1 352x288 PAL @1150kbps video and 48Khz sound as suggested and see how it goes.

I just hope this encoding will be compatible with most dvd players....

Thanks!!

[thecoalman]

I just hope this encoding will be compatible with most dvd players....

It's a standard, you won't have any more trouble with it than you can expect from any compliant DVD.

[SingSing]

I recorded around 15hrs of video with my DV cam and want to distribute the footage to friends.

I assume you want your friends to actually watch these DV cam video. You can make the DVD, but will your friend watch the entire 15 hours ? 15 hours is way way too too long....

Asking anyone to watch or even to search through 15 hours of material is beyond reasonable. Most people won't even watch a 4 hours movie.

Instead of putting effort to squeeze and get a lot of lo-fi video on disc. Maybe spending time to edit and get a 2 hours of interesting video, will get you some real fan.

[towtruck]

I'm going to on record as thanking jman98 for saying something that isn't always easily said, but needs to be said.

Just because we CAN do something, doesn't always mean we should. By far the best video is the kind that keeps the audience wanting more, just like good music. Send them just a bit of your best (best video, best editing, best video quality), and then in a few weeks or months send them some more. You'll learn a lot between then, and your output will become ever better!

Good luck!

[towtruck]

Post thought...

Consider Ansel Adams, or some of the other great photographers. They take thousands of photos for every one that ends being seen by anyone but him. Most get discarded.

I know from personal experience how hard it can be to cut something you've recorded, but the film cutter is your best friend...

[akrako1]

the vcd template in TMPGEnc is cbr. I've successfully altered the template and used 2-pass VBR. I'd imagine with CCE or something else, you can use more passes, and hopefully get higher quality...

[itsme1]

Once again, I thank everyone for their input. A lot of people have addressed the 15hours of video. I should have clarified earlier, this was in fact a series of classes that we all attended. I am making the video for revision and also for those who couldnt attend.

That its a video of the lecturer is a good thing because the compression should be really good, as there was very little movement.

15 hours might still be too much but thats why I intend to make menus, so people can watch which lectures they want to.

By the way, should vegas be doing the conversion from miniDV to VCD or should I leave that to DVD Architect? Whose responsibility is it? I believe both can do it...

[GeorgeW]

By the way, should vegas be doing the conversion from miniDV to VCD or should I leave that to DVD Architect? Whose responsibility is it? I believe both can do it...

You can do the conversion in Vegas 7 (to VCD). But then you will need an authoring application that allows dvd-compliant mpeg-1 video (DVD Architect does not -- it will re-encode the video to mpeg-2).

Some authoring applications that allow dvd-compliant mpeg-1 video are DVDLab PRO, Ulead DVD MovieFactory, Ulead DVD Workshop, and there are probably others...

Regards,
George

[itsme1]

Thanks for the warning GeorgeW. I must say, I am surprised that a seasoned software like DVDA 4 doesn't allow MPEG-1 video...hmmm...

That's going to throw me off a bit because now I need to get and learn another software to do the menus...DOH!

[filmboss80]

Here's a thought: why not put the material on 3 five-hour DVDs instead of two discs that would be 7.5 hours? I have a standalone DVD recorder that will handle up to 6 hours on a 4.7Gb disc. Picture quality and motion would suffer a bit for videos with a lot of motion, but since your subject matter is a series of lectures, a low MPEG-2 compression might actually work, and you can stay with DVD instead of VCD.

Blank DVD discs don't cost that much these days. I suggest the 3 DVD route instead of 2 VCDs.

[filmboss80]

Wrote my previous post hastily. I know you're not going to use VCDs. What I should have said was that you can use MPEG-2 at a low rate instead of MPEG-1.

[GeorgeW]

Wrote my previous post hastily. I know you're not going to use VCDs. What I should have said was that you can use MPEG-2 at a low rate instead of MPEG-1.

Depending on the low bitrate and resolution, sometimes mpeg-1 looks better than mpeg-2 (the few times I needed to put anything lengthy on a DVD5 disc). It might be worth testing it out both ways to see looks better with your footage...

For mpeg-1, you should be able to do CBR up to 1856kbps (and still be within spec for dvd-compliant mpeg-1 video). Of course, as you increase the bitrate from the norm VCD bitrates, you decrease the amount of time you can fit per DVD5 disc...

Regards,
George

[akrako1]

TMPGEnc DVD Author accepts VBR mpeg-1 as compliant. Is it not?

[lordsmurf]

The reason to avoid 352x240/288 on DV-shot material is you're forced to deinterlace, and you throw away have of your video data, which results in a product that is extremely poor in quality.

It's just not a smart move.

[Marvingj]

Why? Why? Why? Go from great Quality to poor Quality? Why?????

[thecoalman]

Why? Why? Why? Go from great Quality to poor Quality? Why?????

Everyone keeps harping on the quality, we're talking about a class here. He's not making a hollywood movie production or trying to preserve home video. Seems perfectly reasonable to me and why should anyone care anyway, he's aware he's going to lose a lot of quality and it doesn't matter to him.

The quality - especially the video quality - is not important at all, as long as its watchable.

Sounds to me like he has 15 hours of someone standing in front of a podium droning on, why would want to see it twice anyway. I'd imagine the audio itself would work just as fine. BTW itsme1 you can do that too and get it all on one disc.

[lordsmurf]

Why? Why? Why? Go from great Quality to poor Quality? Why?????

I feel the same way.

I've been here for going on 4 years now. And while I've seen many questions cease (do to the information now available on the site via simple searches), we still get some folks that are as thick as a military bunker wall.

If the material is "not important" then make it an audio-only presentation. If video needs to be on screen, then make it look good. Either do this crap right or don't do it at all.

That's my take on it.

[itsme1]

I'm in the process of chopping the raw video as much as possible. If I can get it down to 12hrs or so, I might have other options available - 3 DVDs, SVCD or whatever. I should be finished in a day or two, and once I know the total time, I can reasses what my options will be. 15hrs is an rough calculation.

I've addressed this before, but it seems a lot of people here are shocked about the "quality" or lack of. Once again, it's not THAT important because it's not a scene on the beach with a glorious sunset. It's a video of an instructor teaching the course. VHS video quality would be great for this purpose as long as the sound is pretty decent as well. That may shock a lot of you, but it really shouldnt. I think it would be a greater shock for people to be dealing with a 6 DVD set and having to change their DVDs.

Again, this has nothing to do with being "thick as a military bunker wall", it's just what is required for the given situation and circumstances. As much as everyone would like to see HD video of an instructor so you can zoom in to see his zits and plaque on the teeth, I think it's overkill for the requirement .

I can't make an audio only presentation because:
1) He uses the blackboard/whiteboard.
2) A lot of the body language will be taken away
3) It's boring listening to something when you could have watched it. Would you enjoy listening to the Discovery channel or watching it?

Also keep in mind that I am trying to keep costs down. The more DVDs, the more $$$ for each set.

Thanks for your views and comments..

[trhouse]

Your comments reminded me of a project I started on in 2005, which was to transfer many VHS and VHS-C family tapes to dvd. I created samples of captures using different recorders for the people involved to view. Later I created double layer samples as well.

They liked the double layer product and went out and bought the disks for me to use so I had no out of pocket expense. Why not make up some samples for your friends to view and see what they think before investing more time?

[lordsmurf]

Anything below 352x480 MPEG-2 interlaced video is not "VHS quality" but something much lower. Think along the lines of "Youtube quality" at best, by using 352x240. Your throwing out so much video data that you may as well not bother watching it. That's my whole point.

Discs only cost 50 cents or less.
The 15 hours fits 4 discs in good quality.
So four discs, about $2 per set.
If $2 each is too much to swing, buy less beers. (I went to college too.)

[itsme1]

OK, it's time to reassess my options. I've got the video down to:

12hrs 35 mins, based on the individual timings below.

min/secs
79:03
64.45
63.25
77.41
76.15
64.06
67.03
79.35
56.40
58.34
67.16


Please remember I have to do a menu as well, so that will take up some space.

I recall someone suggesting that if I got it down to 12 hrs, I got still make it DVD compliant, or maybe, it's easier just to go with 3 DVDs as also suggested above.

lordsmurf, each DVD might be only 50 cents, but you have to think about the fact that I need to print on each DVD and also get 3 DVD holding case as well.

What do you guys think?

[lordsmurf]

If you want to go cheap, why not skip the DVD cases? Just use sleeves. If you must have cases, then get some from meritline.com. Those are not the best quality ones, but they are the cheapest.

Again, if cost is most important, skip the inkjet work. Neat handwriting is just as good. If you must print on discs, then buy Verbatim 4x inkjet media on clearance.

I find it pretty silly to spend money on ink work and cases when, at the same time, you make the content look like crap.

As much as I cannot stand hearing this cliche myself, I think you've got the priorities mixed up.

352x480 @ 2000k VBR = 4 hours, which can look good. Use a really good encoder, or a really good DVD recorder (NOT a Panasonic! NOT TMPEnc!).