New to Blu Ray

[Jammerjonn]

I've read the GB of each blu ray type of media. Could someone please tell me how long an HD movie will go on the BD-R and BD-re disc? I also found out there is also dual layer........I want to transfer some home movies off someone else's dvds that are about 3 hrs long and I don't know what kind of discs to buy, brand names, etc. Thanks!

[Kerry56]

If the movies are on dvds now, why exactly do you want to put your copies onto blu ray disks? Are you combining them from several dvds onto one blu ray? You do realize that you'll need a blu ray burner, not just a dvd burner? And blu ray disks won't play in regular dvd players, only blu ray drives in computers, or stand alone blu ray players.

If they are on dvds at the present time, I'd just transfer them to more dvds now. Much cheaper. Make an ISO image file of the dvd with ImgBurn, then burn to a new dvd. And if they are on double layer dvds now, make sure to use Verbatim brand double layer dvds when you burn a new copy. Burn at 4x.

HD video can vary tremendously, so it is hard to say just how many of these home movies will fit onto a blu ray disk. Size of the files will depend on bitrate and resolution used. If you want a recommendation on blank blu ray disks, I'd suggest the Verbatim (non-LTH variety) 25gb disks. Here is an example: http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-97238-Blu-ray-Recordable-10-Disc/dp/B003EE08S8/ref=sr_1...3638882&sr=8-1

[Jammerjonn]

thanks for your time and info. I have a blu ray burner. I'm coping the dvds onto a bluray disc so I won't have so many dvds that belong to another family member. At least three of them are close to 3 hrs long of a family reunion so that's why I am not sure what kind of disc can hold that much-I don't know how many GB it is only the time lenght.

[Kerry56]

Considering that they are on dvds now, you know their approximate size...4.3gb of data fits onto a blank single layer dvd, ~7.9 on a double layer dvd. A nominal 25gb blu ray disk will hold approximately 23.3gb, so that should give you a starting point. Your dvd disks may not be full, but these figures are close to the maximum amount that can be on them.

The actual amount of data on the disk should show up in My Computer (or Computer) on the drive icon. If the videos are split into parts, you can examine each one and find their properties, including size, using MediaInfo.

[fritzi93]

Welcome to the forum Jammerjonn.

Kerry covered a good bit, but just to elaborate on a few points:

I agree, copy the DVDs to new DVDRs. That would be simplest and guarantee they will play on a standalone DVD or Blu-Ray player. Just drop the VIDEO_TS folder into ImgBurn and it will automatically use the correct file format setting (which BTW is different from BD) and you will have a playable copy. Or create an ISO image first, as Kerry suggests.

Since you're new to Blu-Ray, you should know that DVD-Video and BD-Video are authored differently. That means they have different requirements as to the structure a standalone player will recognize and play.

You could certainly make a BD data disc to archive a number of DVD movies, but they won't play on a standalone as-is. Although it's possible you could put a *single* VIDEO_TS folder on a BDR and it might play. (After all, one can compress a BD structure down to DVDR size and burn thereto and some BD standalones will play it. These are loosely referred to as AVCHDs). But to do a single DVD like that would defeat the point of the exercise (the higher capacity of BDRs), as you'd be limited to one VIDEO_TS folder.

To put several titlesets of DVD-Video onto a BDR and have the disc play on a Blu-Ray standalone player you'd need to author them to BD. That means losing any original menus. You can author several DVDs to BD using multiAVCHD and create a new, simple menu, producing a disc that will play on a BD standalone.

As to the second part of your question, it all depends on the bitrate. Bitrate times runtime equals total length (size). Or conversely target size divided by runtime equals target bitrate. Bitrate can be variable, in other words.

Now, just in case you're using the term DVD loosely and mean Blu-Rays also (else why the mention of HD?) then again, a straight copy to BDR or BDR_DL would be easy enough. For AVCHDs, copy to DVDR or DVDR_DL.

Good luck.

[dragonkeeper]

To answer your question, if the videos are in the DVD format I would rip them (movie only) to the hard drive using DVDDecrypter. Use Vobmerg to join the vob files of each dvd into a single vob, if you have 3 separte DVDs you end up with 3 vobs, if these are DVDs that span multiple disk you can join the vobs into a single vob. I would then use multiAVCHD to create a Blu-ray image and burn to a blu-ray disk.
I've had reasonably good results with this method, and managed to reduce 100s of DVDs down to around 35 blu-ray disk.

[Jammerjonn]

Thank you all for the info. Since I've just gotten into blu ray I didn't know what to expect. It sounds like I can put most of the dvds onto one blu ray disc to make it easier. Right now it seems everyone has a dvd movie or photos covering about 100 years. Most were 16mm transfered to dvd etc. Thank you all again.

[jman98]

Thank you all for the info. Since I've just gotten into blu ray I didn't know what to expect. It sounds like I can put most of the dvds onto one blu ray disc to make it easier.

Can you put some of your DVDs onto one BluRay disc? Yes.

Will it be easier? Maybe not. Maybe you'll be lucky but if you have any issues it could be very complicated and time consuming to work on this until you can produce a BluRay disc that meets your needs. Some BluRay players are fussy about what they will play so potentially you could produce a disc that works fine on many players but won't play at all on yours.