Pros and Cons of Extended Play 6 Hr?

[XDelusion]

What are the advantages of using a DVD for 6 hour play over 2 hour? Are there disadvantages, resolution or sound quality limitations?

[bbllc]

One thing that I have noticed is that your picture quality will really suffer.

[gshelley61]

You'd need to encode at Half D1 resolution (352x480) to get 6 hrs out of one 4.7GB DVD. Might be OK for VHS transfer.

[andyp1]

What are the advantages of using a DVD for 6 hour play over 2 hour? Are there disadvantages, resolution or sound quality limitations?

It sounds like you are asking about Standalone DVD Recorders there. Saying advantage of 2 hours over 6.
If you are , I wouldn't record over 4 hrs on a disc , 6 hours is very noticable quality loss.

If you are not asking about DVD Recorders please just ignore me.

[FulciLives]

To get 6 hours on a DVD stand alone DVD recorders use a resolution of 352x240 for NTSC or 352x288 for PAL

This is bad!

I will explain why

NTSC has a height of 480 and PAL has a height of 576

With INTERLACED video (all captured video is INTERLACED) you really have 1 frame made up of 2 fields.

So the frame is 480 for NTSC and 576 for PAL but it really is 2 fields of 240 for NTSC and 2 fields of 288 for PAL.

Most of the perceived resolution in a video image comes from this height measure.

So when you do 352x240 or 352x288 you are "throwing" out about half of your resolution.

This causes two main probelms.

One the resolution is cut in half. The fields are every other line. So field one is line 1, 3, 5, 7, etc and field two is 2, 4, 6, 8 etc

So when one field is removed you have every other line in the image. This can cause a "stair stepping" effect in the image. A 45 degree line won't be a line but look like stairs.

It can be subtle (on a 13" TV for example) or very noticeable (on a 27" or bigger TV).

The other problem is that movement might not look as smooth or fluid as it was before. To most people this is perhaps even more subtle than the loss of resolution.

Basically you have the following two resolutions which are good to use:

FULL D1 which is 720x480 NTSC or 720x576 PAL
HALF D1 which is 352x480 NTSC or 352x576 PAL

After HALF D1 is 352x240 NTSC or 352x288 PAL ... not sure what that is called ... but many people just call it VCD resolution since that is the resolution a VCD uses although it can be used on a DVD.

FULL D1 looks best but HALF D1 can look nearly as good and depending on the source is just fine to use. For instance VHS video has limited resolution so oftentimes HALF D1 looks perfectly fine.

In short HALF D1 is the lowest resolution you should use and about the longest running time you can fit on a DVD at that resolution is about 4 hours. After that the bitrate becomes too low for an acceptable image.

In fact I wouldn't try to put much more than 3 hours at HALF D1 if you really care about quality.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
FULL D1 is 720x480 NTSC or 720x576 PAL but you can also use 704x480 or 704x576 and in fact many stand alone DVD recorders use that 704 width however every commercial made DVD I have seen has used 720 for the width.

[XDelusion]

Sounds like something I'll reserve for cartoons Only!

Thankx for the advice.

FulciLives: I just happen to be on a Italian horror flick myself, trying to aquire what ever I can happen across. I am DYING to locate an up to date copy of Beyond the Darkness. Sounds VERY VERY awsome!

http://classic-horror.com/reviews/beyonddarkness.html

[roylayer]

That is one of the best explanations of video resolution that I've seen, FulciLives. As a matter of fact, I've saved it for future reference.

The only thing that I would add is that there is one case where it's better to use 352x240 for NTSC or 352x288 for PAL... if the source AVI that you're trying to encode from is already at that resolution. In that case, the 480 or 576 resolution is already lost, and trying to encode UP in resolution could cause some problems in quality.

[FulciLives]

That is one of the best explanations of video resolution that I've seen, FulciLives. As a matter of fact, I've saved it for future reference.

The only thing that I would add is that there is one case where it's better to use 352x240 for NTSC or 352x288 for PAL... if the source AVI that you're trying to encode from is already at that resolution. In that case, the 480 or 576 resolution is already lost, and trying to encode UP in resolution could cause some problems in quality.

Yes I suppose this is true.

I didn't think of it since I hardly ever work with files of that resolution.

You can resize from 352x240 to 352x480 but then you will need more bitrate and overall it probably is a waste to bother doing that.

- John "FulcLives" Coleman

P.S.
I've seen BEYOND THE DARKNESS in fact I have an uncut PAL VHS of it. Never did get the DVD though I heard the quality was really nice. It's a sick sleazy cheap film. It's far from being "good" or anything like "art" but I admit it does have an "odd" appeal to it

[XDelusion]

I have heard that Beyond The Darkness was recently re-released on DVD uncut.
Just watched Zombie Hell House aka House By The Cemetary last night, and it was pretty good, could have been perfect if the sound track was a bit darker and serious, and of course if a few sceens were changed up just a tad so that the characters did not appear totally stupid (the father).
Was great to see that little blond freak of a child get blood sprayed across his face and what not, too bad he didn't die though. God he was annoying.

[FulciLives]

I have heard that Beyond The Darkness was recently re-released on DVD uncut.
Just watched Zombie Hell House aka House By The Cemetary last night, and it was pretty good, could have been perfect if the sound track was a bit darker and serious, and of course if a few sceens were changed up just a tad so that the characters did not appear totally stupid (the father).
Was great to see that little blond freak of a child get blood sprayed across his face and what not, too bad he didn't die though. God he was annoying.

That KID is totally annoying

He is in a few other Italian horror films though HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY is his largest role.

As for Lucio Fulci my favorite is THE BEYOND

There are now 2 really nice remastered DVD releases of BEYOND THE DARKNESS. There is a USA NTSC DVD and a Dutch PAL DVD both I think were taken from the same "film to video" master.

[XDelusion]

Heh, I just noticed you live right next door to me, I'm in Ohio, but will prolly be moving very close to you in about a year.

Speaking of Penn state, Tom Savini drove to Michigan last year to sign autographs at some random fair grounds haunted house deal.

Anyhow, everyone there was too young to know who the guy was, so I got a chance to stick around and talk to him for a couple of hours (like an utter groupy). I had a great time. He gave me the good word that the script for Night Of The Living Dead 4 was complete, and that they were just waiting to shoot...

[FulciLives]

Heh, I just noticed you live right next door to me, I'm in Ohio, but will prolly be moving very close to you in about a year.

Speaking of Penn state, Tom Savini drove to Michigan last year to sign autographs at some random fair grounds haunted house deal.

Anyhow, everyone there was too young to know who the guy was, so I got a chance to stick around and talk to him for a couple of hours (like an utter groupy). I had a great time. He gave me the good word that the script for Night Of The Living Dead 4 was complete, and that they were just waiting to shoot...

Last I heard FOX gave Romero a "green light" and locations were being scouted out for actual filming.

But until I hear this is actually shooting I don't want to believe it because it will mean getting disappointed when I hear that it isn't happening.

Romero seems cursed anymore when it comes to getting any new project off the gound.

But of course I hope it does happen

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[chanchan]

I have a question for ya'll....

I have a ton of episodes of DVD quality animation that is in .AVI format and roughly 25 minutes each episode. I have been burning them 4 episodes to a DVD, but know some people who put anywhere from 8-10 episodes on a DVD. My question is how many of these episodes can I fit on a DVD before there is any quality loss? I want to keep the episodes at DVD quality, but it's starting to take too many DVD's. Thanks for the help. [/i]

[FulciLives]

I would use Half D1 resolution which is 352x480 NTSC or 352x576 PAL

I would use a video bitrate of 3500kbps but don't do a CBR encode.

I woud do a 2-pass or multi-pass VBR encode. Set the MIN to 2000kbps the AVG to 3500kbps and the MAX to 5000kbps

Use 256kbps MP2 audio or better yet 256kbps AC-3 audio.

At those settings you should be able to fit about 6 episodes per DVD disc assuming each epside is approximately 25 minutes give-or-take.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[chanchan]

What if I wanted to do it at full resolution... about how many episodes could I fit?

[edit] If I was going to put 148 mins full D1 resolution (NTSC) using 224kbps .AC3 onto a DVD-R would there be any loss of quality?

I would be converting the .AVI's with CCE SP and using DVDit! to author the folder.