Best way to fit 225 minutes on a DVD

[sniffles]

While trying to author with Nero Vision, even though I pick a quality that says it can fit 360 minutes of video, my video files still do not fit on a standard DVD. I considered just using Nero to compile the DVD without compressing the files and then using DVD Shrink to compress to below 4.7 GB, but then DVD Shrink could not compress the video far enough. I have five 45 min episodes of a TV program recorded as MPEG-2 @ 6000 kb/s. Does anyone have any suggestions for effectivly reducing this 11 Gig DVD to under 4.7 gigs with conversion and/or compression?

The less loss of quality the better. (I do know I will lose quality but preferably I would like to keep the number of conversions/compressions to a minimum).

Thanks!

[sniffles]

Okay well right now I am trying Nero Vision to take my DVD down to 10 gigs. DVD Shrink should be able to get that to below 4.7 no problem. However, I fear that the quality of the resulting DVD will be amazingly crappy. So please, any help on my first question is appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

[johns0]

To get that amount onto dvd encode at 2500kbps at 192kps audio 48khz at 352x480/576 resolution with tmpgenc.

[sniffles]

My res right now is 720x480. Do I need to adjust your res to something else? Obviously using the same height will distort the video. =(

Thanks for the help!

[johns0]

Use 352x480 and the picture will come out right,it gets resized properly.

[daamon]

Hi sniffles,

I was gonna ask what the resolution of your MPEG2 was, and suggest the same as johns0 and for the same reasons.

Thought I'd post anyway, just to support johns0's suggestion:

Compressing 720 x 480 to an effective lower bitrate would look crappy. However, lowering the resolution to what's known as 1/2 D1 (the 352 x 480 suggested - or 352 x 576 for PAL), means less bits and so a lower bitrate can be used without adversely affecting quality - it just won't be as sharp, but not horrific.

1/2 D1 is a valid resolution for the DVD spec.

[sniffles]

Okay I am encoding right now... since it's going to take a few hours I'll post back with what happends tomorrow morning.

[sniffles]

Awesome! It worked. It took my 2.5 gig MPEGs to 900 MB each, perfect to fit on a DVD now.

I appreciate all of the help!

[daamon]

No problem. Glad to have been of help...

[sniffles]

Ack... TMPGEnc was on the last file and it crashed @ 44%.

Gotta figure this out now.

[daamon]

Mmm... Bad frames perhaps? Not sure how to check for these in MPEGs as I only really work in DV AVI then encode to MPEG2.

Report the error message and see if anyone else can help. Sorry.