home video to dvd: resolution issues

[hickmanbetty]

Like millions of other people, I want to convert home video to dvd. I am primarily interested in archiving the video rather than creating fancy dvds. I know how to capture the video from my camcorder using iMovie on my mac. However, I am interested in knowing options for archiving the video and how each affects the resolution of the video. I've searched for discussions on this, but have failed to find much info on this topic, particularly info that is understandable to a neophyte like me.

Any pointers or info would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

-Betty

[guns1inger]

Keep the running time under 70 minutes and you can use the highest allowable bitrates for DVD and keep them at the original resolution. If your source is very good (tripod, stable, well lit) you can get decent quality up to around 100 minutes.

If you keep it as DV and burn as data you can put around 15 minutes to a disc. The best archive, however, are your tapes. Keep them safe and use them as your master.

[thecoalman]

The resolution has relatively little to do with the file size, it does however dictate what bitrates you can use but that's for another topic..

Anyhow I'm assuming you have a DV cam? If you want to archive them get a external drive or couple of them and archive the original DV-AVI to them. You'll have exact copies as the originals, as mentioned keep the original tapes. What I do is archive to external drive which I keep at my house and take the tapes to relatives house so I have two copies in separate locations. I keep the drives here so I have easy access to them if I need it. DV is more 3X the bitrate of what you would use on DVD and its fixed, you can't change it. It requires more than 3X space. Roughly 14gigs per hour.

If you need to conserve space you can archive as DVD compliant MPEG2, I wouldn't go lower than 720X480(576 for pal) at 8000kbps. The bitrate on MPEG can be changed, the lower you go the smaller the file size. That resolution is the same as DV-AVI but the bitrate is much lower. This will slightly degrade the original footage but overall you won't see much difference however if money and space is not concern archive as DV-AVI and again as suggested keep your tapes.