Creating An Insanely Long Play DVD.

[Jale86]

Hi, I'm not new to video encoding, but this is the first time I'm doing this. I'm trying to make an extremely long play DVD of about 30 hours of video. I'm 100% sure this is possible, because I got two 30 hours Dragon Ball DVD. The video quality is obviously very bad due to the low bitrate and that's why I have come here.

The problem here is that I'm trying to fit all 153 episodes from the first Dragon Ball series, which I believe they're 18-20 minutes each. Whenever I try to convert them to DVD, all of the DVD authoring tools I've used so far won't let me reduce the video bit rate lower than 1.6 Mbps, which is very frustrating. As for audio bitrate, there's no problem at all.

Each episode are in .avi format with the following characteristics:

• 320x240 video resolution.
• 15 frames per second (fps).
• 64 kbps mono MPEG-3 audio.

I know the standard DVD resolutions are 720x480, 704x480 and 352x240. This doesn't bother me at all since 352x240 is the one I'm gonna choose. Same for the frame rate (23.97 fps). The real issue here is the video bit rate. I want to set is as low as 256 kbps or 192 kbps, but there's no DVD authoring or converting tool which allows so.

The one million Dollars question: ¿Is there any converting tool or DVD authoring software that allows me to create non-standard DVD movies? I tried looking at the videohelp.com guides such as AVI to VOB or AVI to DVD with no luck (at least the AVI to VOB section is empty).

Any help will be appreciated. Many thanks and keep up this nice site.

[redwudz]

I think the project is doomed to failure, but have you tried a standalone MPEG encoder? I was able to set TMPGEnc encoder down to 352 X 240, 29.97 @ 300Kbps CBR. If you are using MP3 audio, you may have problems playing the file with anything but a computer. I'd go for MP2 mono, low bitrate audio.

If you really want to look into all this, check out the Portable Video Forum. If you view it on a 2 " screen, you can get away with really low resolutions. But I wouldn't use MPEG.

[Cornucopia]

Tell us which MPEG encoding and DVD authoring tools you have used...

I quickly just tried TMPGenc (352x240@29.97 and 350kbps) and DVDMaestro and had no trouble with the compile. Man, does it look like crap, though!

Scott

[Jale86]

I know it will look like crap, but like I stated before, I want to fit them on a single 4.7 GB DVD. As for the audio stream, I can convert it to AC3 or MPEG-2 with no problem.

I have TMPGenc Plus (the one that supports MPEG-2 video) and I get .mpg files instead of the .vob files. If I happen to use this DVDMaestro app, will this keep my bitrate when converting .mpg (MPEG-2) to .vob (DVD) files?

EDIT: Holy crap! DVDMaestro for $5,000?

[guns1inger]

DVD Lab Pro will author will also author VCD resolution material without re-encoding.

Just out of curiosity, if you know the quality will be crap, and don't care that it's crap, why bother ?

[garrisonkw]

guns1inger - If your source files look like crap to begin with, storing 30 + hours of video on one playable DVD is a pretty big benefit in terms of easy and accessable storage.

Jale86 - I would personally buy some Slim6 DVD cases - the kind that hold six DVDs but are only about two regular DVD cases wide. Then I would divide the 153 episodes into six chunks and encode six seperate DVDs. From a storage standpoint, you aren't taking up that much space. Additionally, if you have any photo editting skills, you can make yourself a pretty slick looking DVD case. I've done similar things with other long running anime series in the past.

[Abond]

I tried before some years to push the content to the insane, but 30 hrs for DVD is quite a bit.
Anyway some recomendations.
You need to address two issues mainly for the source to create playable and watchable DVD - bitrate/compressability/resolution and the framerate.
1. Filtering and resizing
Avisynth. There is no other way. Use FitCD to get the script for VCD target and set it for max of overscan (it is 3). You can even increase the overscan values to 5 adjusting the resizing and addborders values (it is insane, but so is the project anyway).
This would be a big help for compressability.
Use Hybridfupp avisynth finction for resizing and filtering (search for it in doom9, last version is 0.92a or 0.92b, the package comes with all used plugins IIRC) Use some of the presets. Four of them could be of interest - "low", "HybridQ", "anime1" or "anime2". Try to encode with every one to see what is the result. As a preprocessing you may use RemoveGrain pluguin with some aggressive mode (4 or 8 ). So the script may look like:

Avisource("path\to\file.avi", false)
RemoveGrain(mode=4)
HybridFupp(272,160,preset="HybridQ")
AddBorders(40,40,40,40)
ChangeFPS(20)

2. Encoding
HC Encoder. IMO best encoder for lower mpeg2 bitrates. Try to test all three modes (best, normal, fast). Use some low bitrate matrix. Encode at 20 fps (if there is some custom setting) otherwise use 23.976 (it doesn't matter).
3. Adjustment the framerate for DVD. NTSC DVD require 29.97 fps and not 23.976 fps. Now as it is almost double of the source fps you should expect some jerk at panning or zooming scenes. I don't know never tried such thing. So you use DGPulldown custom 20 to 29.97 fps convertion (it is not encoding).
4 Authoring. I would use GuiforDVDAuthor.
Test it with RW disc. Good luck with this.

[manono]

So you use DGPulldown custom 15 to 29.97 fps convertion

Nope, for NTSC the lowest framerate that can be pulled down is 19.98fps (2/3 of the output framerate). To make it play as smoothly as possible, I guess he'll have to pretty much duplicate each frame with a ChangeFPS(29.97).

[jagabo]

Simply duplicating frames to go from 15 to 30 fps won't be a problem as far as compressability is concerned. Exact duplicate frames require very little bitrate with MPEG codecs.

[Abond]

Nope, for NTSC the lowest framerate that can be pulled down is 19.98fps (2/3 of the output framerate). To make it play as smoothly as possible, I guess he'll have to pretty much duplicate each frame with a ChangeFPS(29.97).

He,he, I knew there is some restriction, though didn't know exactly numbers. At first I thought for something like Assumefps(20,true) and to use the scritp for audio (without false in avisource line), but was not sure it will work..
I don't know how ChangeFPS work, but I think it will leave every other frame interlaced. With such bitrates it will be really ugly
maybe something like:
LeakKernelBob(order=1)
ChangeFPS(29.97)
is more appropriate

[manono]

I don't know how ChangeFPS work, but I think it will leave every other frame interlaced.

Hehe, you should look it up:

ChangeFPS changes the frame rate by deleting or duplicating frames.

http://avisynth.org/index.php?page=FPS

If, as I assume, the source AVIs are progressive, so will be the results after ChangeFPS.

[Abond]

Good, I will update the recomendations, but trying to keep the frame numbers low anyway.

[Cornucopia]

Couple of things to think about (assuming one's going to try this):

DVD supports only MPEG2 and MPEG1.
At such LOW bitrates, MPEG1 would look better.
At such LOW bitrates, it doesn't make any sense to use anything but 352x240NTSC (or288PAL), aka CIF/SIF/¼D1.
This means Progressive/DeInterlaced.
This also means, resize down.

With FrameDuplicating to 30fps (29.97 really) and doing the highquality resize and deinterlace in AVISynth (and perhaps some NR thrown in, to boot). The MPEG1 encoder won't be SO starved for material. Me, I'd use TMPGEnc(especially for MPEG1), but I'm sure others could recommend a few high quality alternatives.

What about VBR? Let's say you get the AVERAGE down to 300-350kbps, doesn't mean it can't peak higher. AFAIK, DVD spec allows VBR even for MPEG1 material.

Scott

[Jale86]

Couple of things to think about (assuming one's going to try this):

DVD supports only MPEG2 and MPEG1.
At such LOW bitrates, MPEG1 would look better.
At such LOW bitrates, it doesn't make any sense to use anything but 352x240NTSC (or288PAL), aka CIF/SIF/¼D1.
This means Progressive/DeInterlaced.
This also means, resize down.

With FrameDuplicating to 30fps (29.97 really) and doing the highquality resize and deinterlace in AVISynth (and perhaps some NR thrown in, to boot). The MPEG1 encoder won't be SO starved for material. Me, I'd use TMPGEnc(especially for MPEG1), but I'm sure others could recommend a few high quality alternatives.

What about VBR? Let's say you get the AVERAGE down to 300-350kbps, doesn't mean it can't peak higher. AFAIK, DVD spec allows VBR even for MPEG1 material.

Scott

Exactly, just that I didn't know DVD also supports MPEG1. I though it was a VCD-only thing. I don't remember if that 30 hours long DVD was encoded as MPEG1 or MPEG2, but it doesn't matter anymore. Now that I know which MPEG format to use, I would like to know of a good program that converts a MPEG1 movie directly to VOB (DVD) without re-encoding the whole thing. It's painful to re-encode a +30 hours movie, isn't it?

As for the menu and other additions is not a priority to me. I have everything set, I just need to convert all of them into a DVD readable format.

[Abond]

GuiforDVDauthor

[Cornucopia]

If you are making VCD-compliant MPEG1 (like I said, I like TMPGEnc here), 352x240@29.97fps, but just change the bitrate to be VBR 538kbpsAVG, 3000kbpsMAX, 0kbpsMIN (266kbpsAVG if using SL instead of DL discs), with audio being ??64kbpsMonoMP2??.

This should be 'pert near compliant with what most DVD authoring apps expect, so shouldn't require ANY re-encoding, just the authoring (compiling into VOBs) and burning.

BTW, I ---STRONGLY--- recommend that you use a DL disc. It'll make a huge difference in bitrate, which might be the difference in compatibility with some players vs. others.

Good luck!

Scott

[[edit: I'd like to see it work out JUST so that we all know it could be done. Like Mt.Everest--"because it's there"]]

[sacajaweeda]

I managed to get about eight hours of borderline watchable video onto a DVD-R a few times. But only to see if I could do it.

[boing]

LOL, for shits and giggles I just used SUPER to encode some smut with the following settings:

192kbs Video

128kbs Audio

352x240

29fps

After having watched it on my VLC player at full screen, I have to say that I would be far from upset if I bought a disc that had 30 hrs of footage at this level of quality, mind you, we are talking about filth, but then again, the OP doesnt seem too bothered about obvious artifacts

LOL, I might give this a whirl myself