Bitrate for home video

[BartzCa]

I have been reading through the forum archives and found tons of great info, however I still have one question.

Most of what I am creating is just home movies shot on Digital 8 camcorder, transferring to DVD. No real fast motion or action, just Kids birtdays christmas etc...My Question is this, I'd like to put about 1 1/2 hours per DVD. Is it really necessary to use 2 pass VBR or can I save time by using CBR. I can fit the 1 1/2 hours on 1 DVD with a bitrate of around 6500. What do most of you use for this type of video? I guess the long and short of my question is how low is too low a bitrate for normal home video? As these are home videos I can't imagine the camcorder is capturing at such a high frame rate that my encoding at that bitrate will blur the motion.

I do realize I can (and have) tried different settings and check the quality but with such an increadible resource as this forum I'd like some input from the hard core users.

Thanks in advance!

[bugster]

I guess the long and short of my question is how low is too low a bitrate for normal home video?
Thanks in advance!

I am afraid there is no hard and fast answer to your question. Basically the final quality is what matters and as this is so subjective only you can make the final decision.

One of the big problems with encoding home video is that they are mostly shot using hand-held cameras. This introduces camera shake which simply eats up bitrate in your encoder. You may see no quick pans or fast movement, but the encoder sees it all the time.

If you are happy with the quality of 6500kbps CBR then great, stick with it. If you want higher quality, try 2-pass VBR or even CQ. However, in the end its up to you what quality you are willing to accept.