DVDR mode recording time

[plugger1]

I am a newbie and have searched for the answer to my question with no luck. DVDR cases give various modes of recording with times up to 4,6 and even 8 hours, much as vcr tapes. Obviously quality would be affected as in the vcr recording, but can this be done and how? Even if the quality drops to 80 % this seems much the easiest way to get the longer DVDs written to a 4.7 gig dvd. If this isn't possible, why are the blank DVDRs showing these modes? Thanks in advance.

[Vejita-sama]

Hmm? To the best of my knowledge there are no "recording modes" for DVD. The final size is based on the bitrate you choose.

Which DVD-R's are you referring to with this 'mode' information. Now various software capture/authoring programs have different 'modes'. Normally high (720x480 ~7500kbit/s) medium (352x480 ~3500kbit/s) and low (352x240 ~1800kbit/s). But that varies from program to program.

If you're question is how much video can you fit on a DVD-R and still have high quaility... well no one can really answer that. The problem is that quaility is a subjective term. Some peopel thing that the quaility of IC looks great (looks like crap to me thou )

The higher the bitrate and resolution the better the quaility. As you lower the bitrate you can fit more movie per disc, but quaility goes down. However, if you lower the resolution (720x480 -> 352x480) the acutally kbits/pixel goes up! And really the human eye cares more about the vertical resolution.

So different people have different settings/views on what's the best way to get the most video per DVDR disc. For home movies I normally use 352x480 and set the bitrate to what ever I need to get the 'whole project' on one disc. That can be from as low as 3500kbit/s (encoded with 3pass VBR in CCE) or 7500kbit/s (CBR as this is pretty mux the max supported bitrate [once you add audio]).

[plugger1]

Thanks for the response and I agree with your statements to this point. I am looking at a Memorex part no 3202 5555 which is a DVD+r and on the label it states modes HQ 1 hr, SP 2 hrs, LP 3hrs, EP 4hrs, SLP 6hrs, SEP 8 hrs. It list a quality for each. The implication is that you can set a quality much as a video tape. I have decent equipment a Sony 500 recorder, dazzle 200, and other software. Prior to this I have made numerous vcds and am graduating, I hope, to a better medium. While this is my first post I have been a reader and believer in this site for over a year and never had to ask for information before. Puzzling.......
Plugger1

[flaninacupboard]

The discs are labelled in refernce to standalone dvd recorders, where you would set the recodring mode just like vhs. this is completly irrelevant if you're burning the disc on a computer, as you can use whatever bit rate you please, the standards allowing anyhting from around 19 hours (look like -utter- shite) to only 70 or so minutes.

[plugger1]

And so the story ends, thanks for the answer.
Plugger1