2 Hour VHS to DVD - It won't fit !!!

[tvtuna]

Any MPG to VOB experts out there.

If I captured 720 X 480 at a bit rate of 4000 and get 8-468-meg MPG files (total 3.8 GB), why does it take close to 7 GB when encoded to VOB ??

It is already at the DVD resolution with sound, where are the other bits coming from ?

I am using a Dazzle DVC II with hardware MPG compression. The quality is great. I am running it thru NeoDVD for encoding and eventual burning.

I am using NeoDVD because of the ease of automatic menu creation if you feed it 15 minute files.

I am at the lowest bit rate recommended for DVD (4000) and if I captured to a lower resolution, the encoding process would take a really long time.

Any enlightenment would be appreciated.

[WizyWyg]

Sorry, a movie at 2 hours will be larger than 4.3 GB.

[Anonymous65]

2 hour video encoded at 4Mb/sec should be less than 4 gigs. The problem is most likely that the DVD authoring software is converting the audio to uncompressed PCM. If you use 4Mb/sec video and 224Kb/sec mpeg audio, you should get about 130 minutes on a 4 gig DVD-R.

So, find another authoring program that will NOT convert your audio to PCM.

[tvtuna]

Thanks for replying.

I started down the trail of different authoring software and indeed there was a big difference. My original try with NeoDVD turned a 3.6 GB MPG into a total of 6.6 GB VOB files. By using DVDit (what a confusing program) it came down to 4.8 GB worth of VOB's.

Now - when capturing I noticed that the default had Variable Bit Rate turned off. By turning that on my MPG files came down to 2.2 GB and when run thru DVDit resulted in 3.3 GB worth of VOB's. (Testing was done on a 15 minute segment and extrapolated to 2 hours). 3.3 seems too good to be true but it looks OK.

Now - A Question ---

I was under the impression that it was proper to create the MPEG at a fixed bit rate, then feed that to the DVD authoring Program which turned it into VOB files with variable bit rate. Am I doing something wrong that might turn around and bite me by turning VBR on during the capture and hardware compression to MPEG-2 ?

[xiaNaix]

Drop the res down to 352x480. You shouldn't notice any difference if your source is VHS.

Check out this thread...

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=87563

You'll find a reply from a guy named Mitsui with an AviSynth script that works wonders with VHS. You should then be able to encode at 6000 or 5000 with no problems.

[tvtuna]

OK - I found the combination that made it all fit, so I wanted to pass it along.

I downloaded a trial version of Ulead Video Studio 6. My MPG file that was expanded into 4.8 GB in DVDit and 6.7 GB in NeoDVd was put together in 3.7 GB by the Ulead program. This is 2 hours at a bit rate of 4000 captured at 720 X 480 with 48 Khz Audio.

I just used the final stage of the program since I already had the capture in the correct format. It also has a feature for adding a menu with chapter headings, but this did not work properly for me. I don't know if their Movie Factory software includes the "DVD wizard plug in" that made it all work. My 30 days expired on that trial. I would gladly buy something if it would just work right.

Anyone have a suggestion for another DVD authoring program I can put to the test ? It would have to accept MPG not AVI since I paid $300 for the DVC II to get the real time hardware compression. I prefer not to go back to the world of ATI Wonder or DC10+ along with overnight MPG encoding, where I struggled for two months.