Sonic My DVD: Why can you fit so little on a dvd???

[kaoru21]

Sonic My DVD will only let me fit 3 avi episodes (roughly 150 mb each) on a dvd. What the hell? Is there any way to fit more? Anyone familiar with this?

[BJ_M]

well dvd is mpeg2 (or mpeg1 rarely) so lets assume you are converting a DiVX to mpeg2

since you might be starting with a low bit rate DiVX (since you didnt give to much info) a better choice might be to convert it to 1/2 D1 or even mpeg1 ..

it sounds as if you may be converting so really low bit rate avi to maybe full dvd bit rate ... which is a useless proposition ..


give some more detail on your source files and how you are converting them ..

[hotwings]

also you might want to check out how the program is converting your audio. NTSC DVDs have the stipulation that they must have a dolby digital or pcm audio track to be standard. If you are allowing the program to make standard DVD files for you, there is a good chance that it is converting your audio files to standard pcm (which takes up gigantic amounts of space), since dolby digital is a proprietary format and most 'affordable' DVD authoring programs don't have the capability to encode to Dolby due to royalty fees etc.

[BJ_M]

soft encode has not been for sale for over two years now .. and it was over 900$ i think

[hotwings]

Oops my bad, didn't check up on that since i don't use the program personally, sorry for the bad info..

[Greg12]

i know dvdit pe can do dolby

[wulf109]

MyDVD does indeed convert audio to PCM when you create a DVD. PCM for a two hour movie would probably use about 1.5GB's for two hour movie compared to 400MB's for ac3 or mpeg audio.
Don't use MyDVD,use Tmpeg to convert avi to DVD mpg and Spruce Up to author.

[kitty]

I agree - I think MyDVD is crippleware that is bring sold or given to the uninformed. The uncompressed PCM audio takes up too mush space on a DVD-R. For those of us without Dolby encoders I highly suggest MPEG audio as it is alot smaller.

[Bodysurf]

soft encode has not been for sale for over two years now .. and it was over 900$ i think

And that is a shame. It is a great program -- pretty much like every Sonic Foundry software I have ever used is.

Minnetonka Audio makes a software Dolby Digital encoder for between $599 and $995 depending on whether you need stereo or 5.1 audio.

I am unaware of any other standalone software Dolby Digital encoder besides that now.

[kaoru21]

It's kinda the same thing with ulead dvd movie factory except I can fit a little more. I was just letting the authoring program convert the avi, because I have troubles with TMPGEnc. I guess I'll just try to convert to mpeg2 with TMPGEnc first and hopefully it'll work out. thanks.

[furball6969]

Did you select a DVD-R media or CD media?

[kaoru21]

Well I select the on I want to make of course. I tried both and when I import a file to dvd it takes up like over a gig and does the exact same thing for vcd. I couldn't convert with TMPGEnc because of unssupported file errors so I used MegaPeg to convert to mpeg2 dvd. Then I took those files and tried them and could fit what I wanted in Ulead DVD Movie Factory 2 demo, but it converts them anyway and then after it converts and finalizes vobs it says there is not enough space on the disc. I even change the settings for half dv or whatever which should fit up to 4 hours on a dvd but it doesn't work. Maybe that setting is diabled in the demo(I hope that's the problem)?

[Deckedout]

Since people here are talking about the same problem I am having, I'll post my question here. I too have MyDVD and in the BETTER setting it uses a set 4mbps bit rate and along with the uncompressed audio, it will only allow 100 minutes max. to burn to a DVD. I want to take our home videos, which are closer to two hours in length and burn them to a DVD. Does anyone know what authoring software can accomplish this, probably with only allowing an audio compression like Dolby Digital, will save enough space? I hope? I don't want to have to drop the quality down to GOOD which is 2mbps. I'd like to keep the cost under $500. Please help .

[unclebud]

ulead DVD Workshop 1.2 will take a TMPGenc encoded file and not reencode if it is a compliant DVD file. A 30 day trial can be used without any restrictions except for shorter motion menu times. I've made 2 hour and 20 minute video DVD's with no serious quality problems.

[furball6969]

I could have sworn that I posted a reply to this about a half hour ago, imagine my surprise when I looked here and don't see it.

Anyway, I will try to re-create it as close as possible.

Okay, just because you select a DVD compilation when you start the program doesn't necessarily mean that a DVD-R media is selected. Go to File - Project Settings and select a DVD-R under 'Set Output Size'.

[dun4cheap]

I have come to like the ARCSOFT Showbiz. Not only will it convert the files, it will then burn it to DVD with one click. The mydvd has some kind of bug where it does not estimate the space for the conversion properly. The Showbiz once again works perfect. Put all the clips you want into the project and select make dvd. It will convert it then burn it.

[BJ_M]

I could have sworn that I posted a reply to this about a half hour ago, imagine my surprise when I looked here and don't see it.

Anyway, I will try to re-create it as close as possible.

........

yes - you caught us , the moderators were playing a game of random post deletes called thread poker ..

[dcsos]

"I agree - I think MyDVD is crippleware that is bring sold or given to the uninformed"

I vote #2 After MUCH EXPERIMENTATION
I found MY DVD will only burn just over 3.8GB of stuff to your 4.7 platter ...
It seems a full .9GB is used for formatting....

First, I dragged 3.9 GB of stuff to MY DVD..... unless its a bug..It said TOO BIG..
Then I dragged again one file and its audio, this time 3.75GB, and VOILA, success..

What a low capacity and my files were compliant MPGEG-2 plus already encoded audio companion unmuxed 48,000-224mps

The project had one menu and button in each case...

A week later, I tried to drag a file 4gigs (3.99 or the file limit-plus the sound...NO GO...It was too big...It allowed me to author with the file to the HDD... MY resultant DVD VOLUME was over 5GIGS on the HDisk!

[Craig Tucker]

yes - you caught us , the moderators were playing a game of random post deletes called thread poker ..

Full House, your deal.

[Coop]

I noticed as well that DVDit does Dolby, however it seems limited to 2 channels only. If I understand correctly, PCM encoded audio takes up much more space, which might have something to do with it. (3) 150 meg AVI files only add up to just over a gigabyte of data, which should easily fit on a DVD. Something doesn't seem right.

[jopereira]

ulead DVD Workshop 1.2 will take a TMPGenc encoded file and not reencode if it is a compliant DVD file.

However, it does seems to re-mux when we have AC3 audio in it. I'm not sure about it, but it doesn't hurt either.