200 Minutes of MPEG-2 to one DVD-R?

[GangstaRap]

I have one 200 minutes XviD movie weight 2.8 GB.
I want to convert it to MPEG-2 DVD movie,
my question is - how much quality will i lose if so?
will the quality loss be noticed?

should i convert it to 2 DVD-R's?
or maybe one is enough?

THANX ! ! !

[ronnylov]

The abslolute maximum I have used with letterboxed 4:3 and full DVD resolution on a single layer DVD is 3 hours (around 3 mbit/s video bitrate) and at this bitrate I could as well have used half resolution and it looks about the same. So I suggest that with 200 minutes you are better off using half DVD resolution, that is 352x576 (PAL) or 352x480 NTSC. Or if you use a dual layer DVD then it should be OK with full DVD resolution if using variable bitrate and 2-pass encoding.

If you notice the quality difference is hard to say. I think you will notice some degradation but it can still be watchable. The resolution is probably worse (I do not know anything about your source video resolution) but it may not been noticed on a standard CRT TV.

[GangstaRap]

ronnylov, thanks for for the reply man!
My DVD player doesn't supports DualLayer DVD-R...

my only option now is SingleLayer DVD-R...

So I suggest that with 200 minutes you are better off using half DVD resolution, that is 352x576 (PAL) or 352x480 NTSC.

so what your saying is that i should choose low resolution to my video in order to get the best result?

[ronnylov]

Yes, you need to lower the resolution to be able to fit 200 minutes of video on a single layer DVD without loosing too much quality. Otherwise you will get distorted picture with blocks or mosquito noise because of too heavy compression.

There are only few resolutions available in the DVD Video specifications. For NTSC you can choose between 720x480, 704x480, 352x480 and 352x240. For PAL replace height 480 with 576 and 240 with 288.

Or if you prefer better quality you need to split it to two discs becasue your player does not support dual layer. 100 minutes full resolution per disc should be no problems at all for a normal movie. If it is from a shaky video camera then you may want to split it to 3 discs to get maximum DVD quality.

[jman98]

should i convert it to 2 DVD-R's?
or maybe one is enough?

THANX ! ! !

This would be my recommendation for best quality and then you won't have to re-encode to a smaller resolution like you probably should if you want to fit everything on one disc.

[GangstaRap]

OK,
i guess i'll just fit it to 2 DVD-R's with full resolution...

Thanks for helpin me!!!!

[GangstaRap]

ohh, another thing i forgot to mention is the i'm encoding to BDVD, not DVD...
(i'm using DIKO)
does it matter?
i mean - your advice to me goes for BDVD as well?

Thanks a lot!!!

[Balefor]

OK look you shold have told us that it was Blue-Ray DVD in the first place. 200 Minutes of Movie will definitely fit on one BDVD if it is at maximum quality giving you the best picture. I mean come on! BRDVD is a big difference from Single layer or dual layer regular DVD. The size on a single layer BRDVD is 25GB! So what have you got to worry about? You could add several 200 minute movies at Max Quality and still have plenty of room left. And dont wast the space untill you can use it fully. I always make it a rule to not waste any space on any kind of media dics that is wrtiable. But please you should have known already that BLUE-RAY DVDsx have 5.82 Times the space capacity of a normal single layer dvd. 1.5MB/s was reccommended to fit the movie on one single layer. For 200 minutes. That uses the full disc yes. But BRDVD as I said have nearly 6 times the space. So use your imagination.

[Nelson37]

Considering the cost of a Blu-Ray blank, to which I can only respond "Holy Shit!", plus the quality loss from the initial Xvid encode, adding in the additional loss from a second encode to MPG2 and probably resize, I wonder if purchasing the DVD might be a better option?

[steveryan]

GangstaRap doesn't mean Blu-Ray, he was referring to BDVD which is totally different - http://www.vmesquita.com/forum/

[Nelson37]

Oh, it's another KVCD clone.

To Gangsta, most of the advice you have been given applies to DVD. You are making something else. All the standard rules go out the window.

[GangstaRap]

Thanks for the help guys,
but i'm afraid steveryan's right....
i didnt mean a Blue-Ray DVD!
I dont really understand the different between DVD and BDVD...
but someone told me its not the same,
and i can compress much more BDVD on DVD-R then DVD...
i just dont know how much.
twice?

Thanks again!

[guns1inger]

BDVD is like XDVD (or is it DVDX) in Tmpgenc Xpress is like KVCD. Basically they are tweaked matrices and adjustments to allow for very low bitrate encoding. They are questionable as to how compliant they truly are within the DVD specification, so they may not play back successfully in all players. To me they are a false economy. They are not DVD quality, and you can get better quality by using a high quality encoder at half-D1, or by splitting the file. Discs are cheap.

If quality is important, do touch them. If it's not then by all means.

[GangstaRap]

guns1inger,
thanks for postin man.
actually i'm using DIKO for a long time now,
and the quality is great!
i also tryed to play my DVD-R's in several DVD Players and they all played it without any problem.
the BDVD quality sharp enough for me,
i'm just thinking that if BDVD uses other algorithm (like KVCD...) so maybe i can compress more BDVD on DVD-R then actual DVD format...

[45tripp]

Compliancy shouldn't be much of an issue.
It's just using the bvcd matrix.
Even if long gops were used it shouldn't be much problem.
Unless non-compliant resolutions are being attempted, i certainly wouldn't worry about compliancy.

Quality is another issue.
You'll have to cram hours into a dvd with that matrix.
If you attempt higher bitrates with it, the result will be shit.
I can't say i have an interest in trying but I'm pretty sure 200 mins at full resolution and using a more standard matrix will still look better.
Almost 3Mb/s is not that low considering an xvid source. It depends on other source attributes though.

You can use this tool to create/import other matrices to DIKO
http://psyrep.tripod.com/id12.html

gl

[GangstaRap]

45tripp,
thanks for the help man!
i didnt catch this whole matrix idea, i'm really not that smart hehe...
but thanks anyway!

[lordsmurf]

All the years I've been at VH (first as a browser, then as a poster), I've watched people get smarter about video.

They've learned to avoid crappy stuff:
- all-in-one software
- Nero for anything other than burning
- bad media
- inferior DVD recorders
- cheap VCRs
- free encoders
- non-compliant "10 zillion minutes on one disc" templates

Why are we moving backwards again?

It feels like 2001 all over again.

For the love of video .... stop using crap.

You have 4 choices:
- Make two SL discs at Full D1 res with good bitrate
- Make one SL disc at Half D1 res with good bitrate
- Make one DL disc at Full D1 res with good bitrate.
- Make crap

Why is everybody seemingly using the 4th choice so much lately? There are millions of posts on this forum, 18000 of them are mine, discussing proper methods to work with video.

[GangstaRap]

first of all - thanks for postin man!

They've learned to avoid crappy stuff:
- all-in-one software
- Nero for anything other than burning
- bad media
- inferior DVD recorders
- cheap VCRs
- free encoders
- non-compliant "10 zillion minutes on one disc" templates .

i'm always avoiding this staff except one thing.
free encoders,
i dont see the problem in free encoders.
theres a lot of crap within the payware encoders too!

anyway - i dont see whats wrong with DIKO.
i think its great.

and i think i'll take your advice,

- Make two SL discs at Full D1 res with good bitrate

Thanks again man!!!

[lordsmurf]

It's not so much the fact that they're free, but rather so many of them have major quirks, limitations and flaws that are never fixed. The commercial encoders (TMPGenc, CCE, MainConcept, Procoder) tend to fix them, if they even had a flaw to begin with.

I refer to MPEG-2 encoding, of course, given the topic. Some other freeware, for other formats, works quite well.