DVD Quality Limits

[Habby]

I have been using Pinnacle Studio 9 for some time now. Having always updated it as updates are available. Somewhere along the line I noticed that it seems they (Pinnacle) have come to the conclusion that you can put 76 minits on a disc and still have 100% quality. I always thought we were limited to about 59 minits. Don't just read this and pass. Talk to me. I like muliple answers. And by the way, I am not a Pinnacle basher. I love studio 9.

[piano632]

I think the difference is with the audio track. 59 min. is with PCM audio and 76 min. is with MPEG audio. If I'm not mistaken, there should be a checkbox for using MPEG audio, otherwise it defaults to PCM.

[jimmalenko]

"100% quality", eh ?

I just *love* software that thinks it can tell you what you can and can't do and then judges your video with a % rating that really doesn't mean much at all.

[ZippyP.]

Quality is in the eye of the beholder. IMHO, you can get 2 hours of "top quality" on a disk. The scale starts to slide after that, but VBR can squeeze even more while keeping the quality up.

Of course this requires a "top quality" encoder, a "top quality" source and someone that knows what they're doing.

[Bjs]

No problem here with slamming 3 hours worth onto a dvd .

And yes , the quality is almost as good as the original , there has been no complaints from customers .

3.6 hours is the max I would ever try , the video starts going down hill from there .

An no , vbr isnt used at anytime , avoid it like the plague it is .

[Super Warrior]

Agreed! DVD-5 can hold at least 3 hours of NICE quality video in my opinion. Anymore than that and it begins to go down.

I'd figure 4 hours on a DVD-5 would make for decent VHS/SVCD quality,which i might be satisfied with depending on what it was.Such as certain TV series discs where little effort went into it,and they are pretty much VHS quality transfers onto DVD.

Anymore than that and your entering the LOW VCD area of quality.

[Nelson37]

100% of what source, and "full quality" compared to what final output?

How many gallons can you carry? Water, oil, mercury, molten lead?

These numbers are largely meaningless.

Perfect source can still look good with lower bitrate than noisy source. Same with lo-action versus hi-action. Combining these gives you four distinct and different situations without even going into intermediate variations, number of which is infinite.

Acceptable quality on a 27" can look like complete crap on a 52" plasma.

I totally fail to understand a refusal to use VBR unless disk space is absolutely NOT an issue.

Pinnacle not known for being a top-of-the line encoder. Results given for other encoding progs likely not applicable to this prog.

[slacker]

I recently put 360 minutes of tightly edited high school football action sequences onto two dvds using Vegas, and it came out gorgeous. Wowed the team parents so much during the awards dinner that I sold 50 2-disc sets that evening, the proceeds of which go to the football program.

After much experimentation, the settings which produced the best video included using 704x480 NOT 352x480 res using 2-pass vbr.

I am really impressed with that software.

[lordsmurf]

There is no way in hell you can put 6 hours of video on a single layer DVD (or even a dual layer DVD, for that matter) using 704x480 AND get high quality output. Not gonna happen. Those parents must've all had cataracts and viewed the video on a 13" tv set.

The comment about CBR is also a bit "out there". CBR works fine on an hour of video maybe, but once you start to jump into 2 hours or more, you need VBR to optimize the allocation in a spacial confine. CBR will look marginal at best.

I just don't see how people can call that sort of stuff a good method. Then again, there are still people who insist VCD is great and Panasonic DVD recorders make clean quality video. I just don't understand that. One man's trash may be another man's treasure, but at the end of the day it's still just trash.

Not to mention this post is in the DVD -TO- SVCD/AVI area. So I assume this person is not MAKING a DVD, but rather using it as source for an SVCD or *shudder* a VCD.

[ZippyP.]

There is no way in hell you can put 6 hours of video on a single layer DVD..AND get high quality output.

Agreed, but he said...

I recently put 360 minutes of tightly edited high school football action sequences onto two dvds....

[slacker]

Each dvd held 180 minutes of video. A two dvd set contained 360 minutes of video, 10 40 minute football games edited down to 35 minutes per game, give or take a minute one way or the other. I shot the video using a tripod mounted Canon Optura 500. I edited, encoded, and burned the video using Vegas.

BTW, my point in posting at all was to suggest that anyone wishing to put that much video on a dvd experiment with 704x480 before they ASSUME 352x480 is going to come out looking better. For me, it didn't. 352x480 looked like garbage. Although not perfect, 704x480 worked and worked well. Made the whole project possible.

Good enough for the customers!!!
And, no, all 40 buyers didn't have cataracts!!! The video was projected onto a 150" movie screen (rough estimate) in the basketball gym.
Give me your address ls and I'll send you a set to evaluate!!!
No charge!!!

[InXess]

You didn't have to explain it again, was perfectly clear the first time... although I understand your reasons. Good for you.

[Habby]

I ask a question and almost start an argument. Actually I have since found the answer myself. It is the audio that makes the difference. I think it is pcm that limits me to 66 minits. But with digital stereo it is 77 minits and 5.1 surround drops it to 76 minits. Now guess what, all us video encoders are about to have our prayers answered. Ati has something called Avivo Xcode that can be used with their new cards that speeds up video rendering by 5. So we won't have to build that big powerful machine after all. It is in beta now but i have read som good reports.

[ZippyP.]

Actually I have since found the answer myself. It is the audio that makes the difference. I think it is pcm that limits me to 66 minits. But with digital stereo it is 77 minits and 5.1 surround drops it to 76 minits.

That's funny, because I thought someone else said...

I think the difference is with the audio track. 59 min. is with PCM audio and 76 min. is with MPEG audio.

[hrlslcbr]

I ask a question and almost start an argument. Actually I have since found the answer myself. It is the audio that makes the difference. I think it is pcm that limits me to 66 minits. But with digital stereo it is 77 minits and 5.1 surround drops it to 76 minits. Now guess what, all us video encoders are about to have our prayers answered. Ati has something called Avivo Xcode that can be used with their new cards that speeds up video rendering by 5. So we won't have to build that big powerful machine after all. It is in beta now but i have read som good reports.

I have the beta, and you couldn't imagine know how bad the quality is... (OK, MPEG-2 might be 'acceptable', but the other formats... crappy ).
I'd rather wait a little bit more if I can get good quality using a good encoder.

[jman98]

FYI Hobby, the word is "minutes" not "minits".

[jimmalenko]

FYI Hobby, the word is "minutes" not "minits".

FYI jman98, his/her handle is "Habby", not "Hobby"