Compression...how much is too much?

[bluntman72]

At what ratio or percentage of the original do you consider too much in terms of compression? Where do you draw the line where video and/or audio quality of the original was compromised?

Just curious.

TIA

[Dre]

Depends on the DVD. I watch every DVD before I do a final burn to make sure the quality is acceptable.

[ZippyP.]

Strictly personal choice. Some people have higher standards than others, you need to test and decide for yourself. 8)

[holistic]

How long is a piece of string

For home (personal) video (VHS-Hi8) 4500+ is my minimum average.
With my DV stuff - i have also found 4500+ to be sufficent.

2500-4500-8000 2passVBR
Tweeked (as required) if necessary for high motion scenes.


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[SquirrelDip]

Also depends on your purpose...

Most my backups are for road trips (6 inch LCD) or for my son (2 year old). I backup mostly with half D1 at 1500 (+/-) and use original sound track. Generally fit 5 to 6 hours on a single DVDR.

Quality is more than adequate - these also play decent on my older 27" Sony. Noticable artifacts on a 36" but still very watchable.

[gll99]

Depends on your goal. Compressing to avi depends on your codec. If you use an wmv9, xvid or divx type codec you can be happy in some cases compressing a 2 hour movie into 700mb. Other avi codecs may look terrible at 3 to 4 times that size.
For mpeg video VCD (mpeg1) or svcd (mpeg2) the basic compression is decided for you. You can vary the results slightly or go off spec but basically a good vcd will require about 1 cd per hour of video while a svcd will need about 1 cd for every 45 minutes of video.
I have put 2 full dvd movies (just under 4 hours) on 1 dvd using dvdshrink and dvdlab (for menus) and been quite happy with the result. The movies had some light blotches in the dark areas on rare scenes but then I didn't use the full analyse feature. I can't blame dvdshrink for that plus the fact that I was squeezing 4 hours on a dvd disc not the normal 2 hour single dvd5. Some of my classic movies I would never try to put more than 1 on 1 dvd disc because I would not tolerate those slight imperfections.
Among other things, your choice of compression will be influenced by the quality of the source material including any filtering, the framerate, the codec, the storage medium, your playback unit and your personal preferences and willingness (or lack of) to accept imperfections.

[overloaded_ide]

One of my DVD9 disks was compressed nearly 50% with DVDshrink in default mode/settings and played perfectly as far as I could tell.

Alot probably depends on your playback devices too.

Using a Norcent Dp 300 DVD player and a Sanyo True Flat TV 20" I did the 3 hr Two towers and Fellowship ring movies, both disks look great!
Pefect as far as we can tell! On a 52" tv, well I don't know, I don't have one

My 3 hour disks are so clear and crisp and nearly 3d, looks as if you can reach right into the tv and pick leaves off the trees!