How Much Footage Can You Get On DVD When Burning Home Movies?

[Endless1122]

Hi everybody,

Just a quick question, how much footage, or what has been the maximum amount of footage you have got onto a 4.7gb DVD, when capturing from a DV cam.

The reason is, I have been trying to get 2 tapes, one 1 hour 32 mins, and the other, 1 hour 10 mins on dvd, but can never burn them to DVD as they are always a few more gig the can fit on one!

So, if you have got the same amount of footage as me (or more) on DVD, how did you do it?

By the way I'm using PowerProducer, and by default the footage is in MPEG-2 format.

Hope somebody can help!

Thanks for your time 8)

[Baldrick]

You can store several hours/dvd if you lower the bitrate = lower the video quality. You just need something better to convert to dvd mpeg2 format where you can control the output size like tmpgenc xpress and then author the mpeg file to a dvd.

And read https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=305824&highlight=

[thecoalman]

You need to adjust the bitrate, lower bitrates = smaller file size at the expense of quality. There's a bitrate calculator here for determining what you need: https://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm

BTW you can fit quite a bit on DVD if you are so inclined. Realistically using a VCD resolution and bitrate you can get over 7 hours but at a very reduced quality. 2.5 hours won't be that bad.

[ofbarea]

You can also fit around 4 hours of video if you reduce the resolution from 720x480 to 352x480. It all depends on the tradeoff of quality vs. size that you would like to make.

[gadgetguy]

All of the above is true, but Camcorder video is usually shaky and usually doesn't compress well so the quality falls off pretty quickly when encoded. To maintain the best quality, I wouldn't go much more than an hour per SL DVD, or 2 hours DL DVD. But you need to experiment with different bitrates on the footage you have. If you can go a lower bitrate with what you deem as acceptable results, then you can fit on as much as you like.

[SingSing]

I find two hours of home video will bored most people to tear. So I edit them down to about 80 minutes, and burn it.

[thecoalman]

I find two hours of home video will bored most people to tear. So I edit them down to about 80 minutes, and burn it.

I usually loose interest while it's being filmed.