shortening home vids that are 3hr to fit DVD

[dlh5701]

I'm kind of a newbie, but probably know enough to be dangerous. I use Pinnacle Studio 8 to copy my VHS tapes to DVD. The ones that are 2 hrs fit right on the DVD. I have some vids that are longer and cant make them fit the 2hr4min DVD max length in Studio. I also have DVD Shrink and have used it for DVD copying and have noted that it has the ability to shrink videos (that is if you can get them loaded into Shrink).

Here's the question. With what I have and maybe some other freeware or relatively inexpensive software, how do I go about taking the 3hr movie and "shrinking" it to fit onto a DVD? This may be a simple question but I cant find any info in the posts on how to do this. Maybe I am not looking in the right places. My thoughts are to take Studio and finalize the movie in an ISO, AVI or MPEG format then see if I can load that into DVD shrink. DVDShrink wont even see the AVI or MPEG Studio creates. It does see an ISO but since I am going through several conversions, what is the quality going to be like?

Any Guidance???

[yoda313]

You should have the option to author a dvd of any length in your pinnacle software. Tell it to author the dvd on the harddrive and don't burn a disc. From there you can use dvd shrink and open your video_ts folder that was created and shrink it to another folder elsewhere on your drive - that will fit your single layer dvd. I've done it many times in the past. Now I don't anymore since I got Tmpgenc Dvd Author 2 - it has a built in transcoder - it SHRINKS the files BEFORE it burns the dvd. It doesn't add much time at all to the process and saves you the hassle of authoring once then opening shrink and processing it again.

[INFRATOM]

Try dvd rebuilder it does a very good job it also applies some filters. But most people would say when you author select max size of 4.3 gigs so you don't have to re-encode twice to get a better quality. If you already have your video_TS folder try dvd rebuilder use the free HC encoder its much better than dvd shrink.

[dlh5701]

Thanks to you two on this. To Yoda313, I have tried what you say, and it is very possible I am missing a simple step, but DVDShrink wont recognize the Video_TS files. The way I do it, is to use the open file button on Shrink. I then browse to the folder and there is nothing there. Shrink does not see it. Now what? Is there a special mode Shrink needs to be in?

[guns1inger]

What is in the video_ts folder ?

[dlh5701]

Let me look tonight. I believe it shows the file names as Video_TS. In looking in various places on the Internet for some answers, I saw where someone out there made a comment that Studio uses proprietary file structure for capturing video. Is this right??? Dunno.

[TheFamilyMan]

Appling the amount of compression needed to fit that 3 hours into a single DVD will most likely cause a very noticable decrease in the picture quality, especially if it's home footage shot using a hand held camcorder. Something to consider...

[FulciLives]

I'm with TheFamilyMan on this one.

3 hours of home made video (i.e., camcorder footage) is too much for a single layer DVD disc.

Just split that 3 hours up into 2 captures of 1 1/2 hours each and be sure that you use a MPEG-2 DVD setting to optimize for a running time of 1 1/2 hours (i.e., it should FILL the disc).

In fact for home made video some people would argue that 1 hour per DVD disc is optimal and to split that 3 hour VHS across 3 DVD discs!

I mean DVD media is cheap now-a-days. You want stuff like home made video (i.e., not replaceable) to look as good as possible. If that means using more DVD discs then so be it!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[gshelley61]

The near constant image motion inherent with hand held video footage makes it very challenging to convert it to MPEG2 (DVD). One hour per single sided DVD ensures minimal (certainly not visible) motion encoding artifacts... if the footage is analog (VHS, 8mm, etc.) there is video noise being encoded, too. This all requires a high encoding bitrate to avoid compression artifacts.

2 hours, 3 hours? There will be lots of macroblocking and mosquito noise on those DVD's

[dlh5701]

Thanks to everyone. I get the message. Just put it on there straight, no compression.

[dun4cheap]

I would try to maintain a 7000 Bitrate and you will be fine. Split it to multiple DVDs or use duel layer. You could also store it back on to the DV tape, or keep it on the hard drive and wait until you have an HD or BR burner.

[FulciLives]

I would try to maintain a 7000 Bitrate and you will be fine. Split it to multiple DVDs or use duel layer. You could also store it back on to the DV tape, or keep it on the hard drive and wait until you have an HD or BR burner.

Full D1 resolution at 8000kbps CBR MPEG-2 with PCM WAV audio will fit about 1 hour on a single layer DVD recordable.

However at that those settings you can easily fit 3+ hours onto HD-DVD and 5+ hours on a Blu-Ray disc. That's single layer as well.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[dun4cheap]

The quality from 7000 to 8000 is not that drastic especially if the source video is just DV. If its HDV then there maybe an advantage. But then you always run the risk that some players choke at anything above 7500. So at 7000 for the video then 384 for audio you leave yourself a little buffer. As for HD, if your source is not HDV or HD then you just as well store it in an SD format.

Anyhow, just beware when making DVDS at such a high bitrate.

[FulciLives]

The quality from 7000 to 8000 is not that drastic especially if the source video is just DV. If its HDV then there maybe an advantage. But then you always run the risk that some players choke at anything above 7500. So at 7000 for the video then 384 for audio you leave yourself a little buffer. As for HD, if your source is not HDV or HD then you just as well store it in an SD format.

Anyhow, just beware when making DVDS at such a high bitrate.

There was a time when I would have said something similiar i.e., don't use too high a bitrate. For instance a video CBR of 8000kbps with PCM WAV audio is a bit close to the "upper bitrate limit" of the format but NOT all that close.

In "the old days" I would have said use 7500kbps with PCM WAV audio or if using MP2/AC3 then limit yourself to 8000kbps for the video.

But I think those days are "done". DVD players have gotten much better at handling the playback of DVD-R (etc.) discs and if you use quality media (like Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim) and if you have a quality burning program (like ImgBurn) and a half way decent burner ... you shouldn't have issues with "high" bitrates.

So a video bitrate of 8000kbps is fine with PCM WAV audio and if you are using MP2/AC3 audio then you can even push the video bitrate up to 9000kbps if you want.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman