How much space to allot for chapters?

[44echo]

How do I calculate how much space to leave on my DVD for chapters? I'm using TDA and I encoded about 2 hours of video so it will just fit on the DVD. I only have 13 of 34 chapters created and I'm over the limit already.

Does anyone have a general rule on how much space they allow for chapters?

Thanks.

[redwudz]

I generally allow 200MB for authoring, and that's probably on the high side. But if you use motion menus or a lot of graphics, that can use a fair amount of space. This is assuming a standard DVD-5, ~ 4.37GB disc. Figure about 4GB or a little more for your MPEG-2 file and you should be fine. You really won't notice much quality difference if you take away a couple of hundred MB from your video.

Be aware that not all programs measure your video size accurately or consistently. TMPEGnc can have that error. And Nero may err on the high side and tell you a 4.483GB is a full disc. Shrink says 4.7GB is full. But Shrink and Nero will actually make the disc well below the true ~ 4.37GB size.

In general, if you use quality DVD media, you should be able to use most all of the space available. With cheaper media, which I would not recommend, I would keep the total DVD size about 200MB less.

Note: This is just an opinion and not necessarily a recommendation.

[lordsmurf]

Chapters don't take space, that's nothing but navigation data. Are you actually referring to thumbnail videos?

[Bjs]

Not me , they can be any length ... and according to the info , have 254 chapter's per title , the 255 is start point .

Though pgcedit now has been fixed to trap this too only 134 chapter point's , or somewhere's about ... seem's anything containing more than 100 chapter point's will be slow to open in pgcedit ... or even lock it up ... thankfully I have a guide for getting past that issue already .

[44echo]

Chapters don't take space, that's nothing but navigation data. Are you actually referring to thumbnail videos?

I kind of thought it was just a marker in the video. That's why I was surprised to see how much space it took up. This is the first time I used this many chapter though.

The default setting was to use chapters with thumbnail pictures. I turned the chapter display off and it freed up some space. Now all my chapters should fit.

Thanks guys!

[44echo]

Good call, LS. I picked the wrong template and motion menus were checked too. Bonehead move on my part.