DVD Back with DVD Rebuilder

[The Edmeister]

I am new to this Forum and fairly new to all this so please be gentle with me.

What I am looking to do is back up a DVD that I have already ripped to my hard drive using DVD Encrypter. I only want the main movie which is about 6GB (or approx 3 hours of video) in size and I want to put this onto a 4.7GB DVD-R and keep the best possible picture quality that I can.

I have been using DVD Shrink to back up movies but I have found that it really only works with movies of around 2 hours up to 2 1/2 hours as movies and file sizes over that have a real drop off in picture quality even with the deep analysis checked so I've been looking to use some other software and therefore I am going to give DVD Rebuilder a go and I have downloaded the free version of that.

No here's my question which maybe a bit dumb but please humour me because as I said I am fairly new to this. In DVD Rebuilder when I use the HC encoder how do I know what the final output file size is going to be and therefore know that it will fit onto a 4.7gb DVD-R?

In DVD Shrink it has a compression settings which tells you this but I don't see this in DVD Rebuilder?

Does DVD Rebuilder automatically limit the re-encoded file size to 4.3gb in the output path directory?

Again sorry if the question is a bit dumb and any help would be greatly appreciated.

[archaeo]

You've made a good choice in looking at DVDRebuilder w/ HC to backup a lengthy movie. DVDShrink does have it's limits, as most decoders do. Encoders are superior in this regard.

To answer your question: Choose 'movie only' in DVDRB, and DVDRebuilder will automatically adjust compression to fit final files to a DVD5.
When you run the initial 'prepare' phase, DVDRB will display the compression level as well as the high, low and average bitrate on the disc.

Remember that it's not just the compression level that determines acceptable quality - I've backed up discs that were compressed down to 50% and have had excellent results, on the other hand, I've also done compressions at only 80% that had macroblocks, etc.. It has much more to do with bitrate and the content of the film.

And by the way, HC encoder is a good choice for the free encoders. good luck.

[The Edmeister]

Archaeo thankyou very much for your reply and for the information and the help that you have given me which is greatly appreciated.

Just out of curiousity, what is a good bitrate to back up a Dvd movie of 3 hours or so onto a DVD5?

Thanks again for your help.

[guns1inger]

DVD RB will work it out for you, however the simple answer is as much as you can give it. 3 hours with a 5.1 audio track is really pushing the friendship. You are looking at an average bitrate of around 2930 - 2990 kbps (depending on the audio bitrate). With a stereo track you will get a little extra, but not much.

It is about this time that you should consider either half-D1 or a DL disc.

[The Edmeister]

Thanks for your help.

I'll give the 3 hour movie a go with a normal resolution first and see what results I get with that but I will keep in mind what you said about halving the horizontal resolution.

Thanks again.