Why can I not fit as much on a dvd-r as a regular movie can?

[rhupertgee]

I caputured about 55 minutes of video to my HD, 10.2GB. I setup Pinnnacle Express to burn the disc and it said I only have 3 mintues left. Why can I only burn about 60 minutes of video to a DVD-R when I know movies out there are longer than that. For example, I have Spaceballs and I know it is a DVD-5 single layered disc, and the movie is 1hour 36mintues. Not to mention the extra video, commentary, and menu system.

Is there a compression that is better or just as good for me to capture the video in that would allow more space?

[androidsdungeon2002]

Firstly, i take it you have set pinnacle express to export your footage to mpeg-2 video, and mpeg audio (not pcm)?

Secondly, you will find that footage from your camcorder (if that is what you have captured), does not compress as well as movie footage. Movies are shot in such a way that the scene is mostly quite static, the camera is not moving around all the time. Also, when the camera is moving, it is doing so slowly, and in a regular fashion. The camera is focused on one person or thing at a time. Camcorder footage is not so static. You have probably filmed it by holding the camera in your hand, and so the picture has a subtle shake to it, or the scene is very busy (i.e. lots of people in the background). DVD video compression works by removing elements from the picture that do not change, therefore if your footage is very busy, then lots of htings are changing from frame to frame, and thus the compression system cannot remove so much. You will find that the average bitrate of a movie that fits on a single layer is roughly 4.5MBit/sec, whereas i find my camcorder footage is around 7-9MBit/sec, which is around double the rate! Therefore you cant fint so much on.

Also, as i dont use Pinnacle Express, I dont know how it handles the audio. Some programs like this do not compress the audio, and leave it as PCM, which is uncompressed. Some programs however, compress the audio with an mpeg (or even dolby digital) compression algorithm, which reduces the bitrate of the audio by around 3-5 times, again which allows you to fit more on your dvd.

On average, i would say 50-70 mins of your home movies on a dvd is sensible. Not only from a quality point of view, but anymore and you will find freinds or relatives getting bored anyway!!!! lol!

Hope that helps! There are plenty of websites explaining dvd compression technology if you want to read more about it.

[eatin sammiches for lunch]

to make sure we are on the same page.......you are capturing video then burning to a dvd-r , correct.

well if so u need to check your capture settings if youre capturing mpeg realtime lower your video and/or audio bitrates to make the filesize smaller....if youre capturing to avi then encoding to mpeg you need to check the encoding seconds lowering the encoding bitrate will save u space also.