Transfer from VHS to DVD

[soodesh]

Hi all,
I have transferred my wedding video, (which is almost 3 hours long on vhs) onto my hard drive. I use Canopus ADVC100 to capture the video from my VCR and Ulead Videostudio 7 as software. After capturing, I noticed that that the raw footage occupied 36 gigs (dv format) on my hard drive. What I want to know is will I be able to fit 2 to 2.5 hrs of edited video on one single dvd?I understand that I can store more vcd/svcd format video than dv format video on one single dvd. Can someone guide me how to fit the maximum mpeg2 video onto one single dvd if possible.
Thanks.
Soodesh

[Stas]

You can fit more video with lower bitrate or lower resolution. Depends what you want. If you want to keep the good quality than better split your wedding on 2 DVD's. One DVD fits 120 min with 4500 bitrate.

[pijetro]

What I want to know is will I be able to fit 2 to 2.5 hrs of edited video on one single dvd?

If the original footage is "Good quality", and if you set your encoder settings correctly, then the answer is yes. Your bitrate can be determined by the bitrate calculator on the lefthand side (Tools section)..

Punch in total length of video, DVD format, Audio bitrate ( i shoot for 224kbps), and viola, your bitrate average is displayed.
Use this value for your encode.

Good luck!!!

[ronnylov]

Your source is VHS and it does not need full DVD resolution because it does not have that much of detailed picture in the VHS source. You can encode to half D1 resolution, 352x576 PAL or 352x480 NTSC without loosing any resolution from the source and then you can get acceptable quality on one DVD. Encode it as interlaced with bottom field first, use 2-pass VBR with an average bitrate that fits your disc size.

[daamon]

Hi soodesh,

I second ronnylov.

I've seen people saying that they've got up to four hours of captured VHS footage onto a single DVD at a quality they were happy with - that amount would give you a bitrate of around 2,300kbps.

2.5 hours gives you a bitrate (the "average" if using VBR - recommended, and 2-Pass at that) of 3,800kbps. Should be fine for decent quality - comparable to VHS.

You can check these figures out with the DVDRHelp Bitrate Calculator.

How can you get away with a lower bitrate? Well, coz the resolution is lower there's less bits (of information). So, fewer bits means that there's fewer bits per second to be processsed - this is measured in kilobits per second (kbps). Hence why the bitrate is lower for a reduced resolution.

Because the resolution is reduced, the picture won't be as sharp, but your source is VHS anyway and the sharpness was never there in the first place (VHS res = 352 x 240). No problem.

Hope that helps...

[SatStorm]

And you'll need some filtering also.
If you use virtualdub, set static noise reduction ( 6 ) and Dynamic Noise Reduction ( 10).
You won't see much difference with your eyes, but the encoder gonna see much difference when spreading the bitrate per frame.

[thegig]

I know I'll probably get slammed but, oh well....

I use MPEG1 352x480 (deinterlaced of course) with the same filters as above, encoded @ Constant quality (90), audio @ 192 48000. I also use the Lanzos(SP?) option to resize. Comes out great - and DVDLab takes it. That is the only way I have been able to fit 4 hours on DVD and have it look good 8) .

Just my two cents.

[SLK001]

Three hours shouldn't be a problem. I transfered 4 50 minute episodes at full D1 resolution (720x480) and got them all to fit on one DVD. When I encoded them (they were FILM based, so I IVTC'ed them first), I used CCE with the NOISE FILTER set at 15 out of 20. This setting slightly blurs the high frequency stuff, so the encoder doesn't have to have many areas where it is encoding at the max bitrate. The "Q" value from CCE never exceeded 5 (which is very good).

Your video is analog video based (I'm assuming), so you'll have to encode it as interlaced material at 29.97fps. Even so, your video should come out nice.

[98lwatso]

I've used the standard settings before (which would get about 120min on DVD) and just created the final DVD on the hard drive with the VIDEO_TS. It may end up being 10GB DVD or something..

Then I use DVD Shrink to open the DVD, which re-encodes the DVD so that it will just fit on a DVD5 disc.

Works for me.

[flaninacupboard]

Then I use DVD Shrink to open the DVD, which re-encodes the DVD so that it will just fit on a DVD5 disc.

No it doesn't, it transcodes, that's entirely different. encoding to the target bitrate first time is a MUCH better option, especially when we're talking about bitrates that low.

[ZippyP.]

Works for me.

Yes it works but it is a crude method. It's much better to create a proper sized file with the encoder optimized to give the best quality.

Some ways to get more on a disk while retaining quality:
- Use noise filtering. As pointed out, it eats up bitrate.
- Use VBR encoding, either 2-pass or CQ. 2-pass gives predictable file sizes, CQ is faster.
- Lower the res. to 1/2 DVD (352x480). As mentioned, VHS is closer to that anyway.