DVD-R copy

[satch_1]

Hi
lets say i made a DVD-R movie after i encoded xvid to mpeg-2 then burning it on DVD-R with a menu & subs , my question is if i want to make exact copy of this DVD-R how long it will take on 4X writer & 4x DVD-R media ? , coz i`ve heared it will take from 30-40 min & not 15 min as 4x should do .

[andyp1]

15 minutes is the approx time it would take to burn a film to a 4x DVD-R from the hard drive .
On the fly copying of DVD-R is not the most reliable method to copy a DVD-R. It is better to copy to your hard drive first and burn from there i.e double the time but far more chance of a successful copy.

[jimmalenko]

BURNING will take 15 mins as you have said. The whole process will take longer because you will need to get the source files onto your Hard Drive. Don't even think about burning DVDs on the fly.

[satch_1]

Cool , i have another question .
if i want to make a DVD-R from mpeg-2 file that`s encoded from xvid with AC3 sound , will the DVD-R handle 155 min with xvid quality ?or it will handle like 120 min ?
thanx alot guys

[jimmalenko]

It can handle whatever time you want it to handle simply by adjusting the bitrate. Quality is another kettle of fish altogether.

You can put 7 hours of VCD quality viewing onto 1 DVD-R. I personally have put 6 hours on at 352 x 288 1500kbps and it looks pretty good on a 68cm TV.

Use the bitrate calculator here to work out what you need your average bitrate to be to fit 155min onto a DVDR. Use this as your average bitrate when encoding to MPEG-2. Perhaps author and burn the resulting MPEG-2 to a DVDRW to test the quality. If its up to it, immortalise it onto a DVDR.