Size vs. Length of movie

[RWKing]

Can someone please tell me the deal with DVD+- R/RW's. Can they only hold 2 hours worth of video or can they go over that and hold 4.7 GB of data?

I've been using the technique to rip and burn 2 layer movies with dvd decrypter, dvd2one, and copytoDVD with no problem. However I'm reluctant to do this to a movie over 2 hours (ie: "Catch Me If You Can", "Gangs of New York", "LOTR-The Two Towers")

[ktnwin]

Sure you can fit more than 2 hours on a DVD-R. Someone has put upto 6 hours on it (352x240 res.), I have put 3 hours on one disk with quality equal to the original VHS tape (which is excellent to start with)

[Craig Tucker]

A DVD can hold 4.7 GB of data, the size of the video file you create depends on 2 things bitrate and duration.

So you can have a very long video with a low bitrate and get it to fit, although the quality of the picture will suffer.

Or you can have a shorter video with a higher bitrate and hence a better quality picture.

The quality of the picture assumes of course that you have a good quality source to start with.

If you lower the bitrate enough you can get 10, 15 even 20 hours of footage on 1 DVD but you probrably wont be happy with the picture quality.

I have got the whole of the first series of friends to fit on 1 DVD, 22 episodes I think, but the quality of the picture was very poor. But then the original quality was poor as they were low bitrate divx files to start with so no point throwing high bitrates at them, they are not going to get any better.

[RWKing]

Thanks for the info. Can anyone tell me using the method to rip and burn movies (DVD2ONE and Copy to DVD), does this automatically put the size of the file to 4.7 GB regardless of the length of the movie?

[jaxxboss]

YES and no. For a DVD RIP You can use those , also dvd shrink. There are guides available. Just an extra step needed if the dvd is a 10 vise a 5.