lowest vbr possible on dvd-r?

[onetrueday]

I'm in the process of fitting as much of my home videos onto a single dvd-r as possible.

I ran through all the encodings to make all of mpegs into 2000 vbr dvd-ready files. Set the menu's up with tmpgenc dvd author and nero burned it.

dvd player wouldnt read it, errored out.

So, what's the lowest i can go?? quality isnt too much of an issue.

[Dennis1968]

did you have a VIDEO_TS folder with al the ifo, bups and VOBs?
The minimum files needed for a DVD-Video to boot are Video_TS.ifo, Video_TS.bup and Video_TS.vob. all located in the VIDEO_TS Folder. No other files that do not have the three extenetions can be in it.

What template did you use to burn it in Nero?

[dcsos]

Dennis, onetrueday stated he used TMPG author to make the DVD.
This would take care of generating the files you asked for without telling the user it did so...
And the nero question is good because if he used other than DVD Video as the "burn template", this might've caused the errror.

All this to let you know you can certainly encode the MPEG-2 at very low bit rates and the DVD should still work
Please don't go below the bit rate of VCD or 1150MB/SEC..
Anyway- thats a bit rate for less than 720x480 area -and anything less looks EXCREBLE

[onetrueday]

dumb... dumb... dumb...

I put them in the wrong folder, or actually no folder at all. I've done this a couple of times sucessfully too.

I tried it again, ensuring to put them in the video folder and everything worked!!

I was impressed with the video quality, given all the movies were at 2000 video bitrate.

[i_am_dave]

onetrueday,

What was the source of your home movies? VHS? DV camera? 8mm?

I am asking, because if your source material was VHS, you can greatly reduce the amount of space needed by encoding in 1/2-D1 resolution.

[onetrueday]

most of it is from a miniDV, however the firewire port has ceased to work.

So, i'm currently using a dazzle hollywood_DV; which I'm returning in the next day or two. I have a radeon9800 pro aiw currently being shipped.

I would love a linky on exactly what you're talking about. I run a small business converting vhs/camcorder to dvd and would greatly benefit from any knowledge.

[i_am_dave]

Most VHS material has a maximum resolution of 352x480(NTSC) or 352x576(PAL)

As you already know DVD resolutions and MiniDV have resolutions of 720x480 and so on, commonly known as D1 format.

You gain no quality by encoding VHS material at Full D1 resolution.
Runnin Half D1 cuts the amount of data almost in half, this allows you to encode at a lower bitrate and put more on a DVD.

I have placed almost 4 hours of VHS onto a single DVD without any visible loss in quality.

I used the following TMPGeng settings:

CQ 65
Min bitrate 500
Max Bitrate 3000

Depending on the amount of motion in your video, you might be able to qork with the quality factor or the max bitrate to fit even more.

[funkguy4]

Most VHS material has a maximum resolution of 352x480(NTSC) or 352x576(PAL)

As you already know DVD resolutions and MiniDV have resolutions of 720x480 and so on, commonly known as D1 format.

You gain no quality by encoding VHS material at Full D1 resolution.
Runnin Half D1 cuts the amount of data almost in half, this allows you to encode at a lower bitrate and put more on a DVD.

I have placed almost 4 hours of VHS onto a single DVD without any visible loss in quality.

I used the following TMPGeng settings:

CQ 65
Min bitrate 500
Max Bitrate 3000

Depending on the amount of motion in your video, you might be able to qork with the quality factor or the max bitrate to fit even more.

I will second everything in this quote! Except for, well, you can probably fit more than four hours onto one DVD.

[onetrueday]

I see...

So, of course you'll capture at the full 720x480 resolution. However, you'll encode it down to half that.

good thinking! you'll maintain the quality and drastically cut down on the size.

I just couldnt believe the quality at 2000 vbr. There was a loss, but it was barely noticable considering how much I was able to squeeze on one disc.

thanks!

[funkguy4]

I see...

So, of course you'll capture at the full 720x480 resolution. However, you'll encode it down to half that.

good thinking! you'll maintain the quality and drastically cut down on the size.

I just couldnt believe the quality at 2000 vbr. There was a loss, but it was barely noticable considering how much I was able to squeeze on one disc.

thanks!

Looks like you've successfully helped someone, Dave!