How many hours can i get on a dvd-r? and how?

[Neomorpheus]

Hi, I've used dvd-shrink a few times and succesfully backed up some dvds. but i'd like to know how many hours could i fit on a dvd-r if i didnt really mind about quality?
In dvd-shrink the manual compression only goes down to about 50% so if i wanna compress more to fit more on a disc what would be the best tools to use?
Thank you.

[ghoster]

just run it though dvd shrink again. but if i was going to put like over 2.5 hours on a dvd i would use dvd2svcd or something like that....

[Neomorpheus]

Thank you, i'll try that.

[jimmalenko]

We should mention re-encoding also.

You can fit 7 hours on a DVDR using VCD standards and around 3-6 hours using SVCD standards.

How much would you like to fit on one DVDR ?

[Neomorpheus]

Id like to try about 6 hours.
Iv bought some dvd episode box sets and im tryin squash em down to as few dvd-rs as possible. Im not really bothered too much on quality because ill only be watching these on a small tv.

[jimmalenko]

So I'm guessing you would like to put approx. 6 episodes per disc, and perhaps a custom menu on each ?

[Neomorpheus]

Ther only 21 mins each so prob about 15 or 16

[FulciLives]

I recently calculated this in another thread ...

If you use the TMPGEnc Wizard Mode called DVD NTSC/PAL LOW RESOLUTION template then you can easily fit 6 hours on a DVD using a video bitrate of 1400kbps with MP2 or AC-3 at 256kbps and that should leave enough overheard for your DVD Authoring stage.

I took a very high quality Xvid file I had made myself from a DVD using 640x480 1500kbps video bitrate and this high quality source actually looked pretty decent using that TMPGEnc template with those bitrate values. I suspect it turned out so good because the source file was very good. The worse the original is then the worse it will look at low bitrates.

That template uses MPEG-2 with a resolution of 352x240 for NTSC and 352x288 for PAL ... I feel "safer" using MPEG-2 than MPEG-1 on a DVD eventhough I know MPEG-1 is supposed to be OK.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Please note though that any resolution that uses half height (i.e., 240 instead of 480 for NTSC or 288 instead of 576 for PAL) you are basically throwing out one field of each frame and this will result in a "jaggy" looking picture that I find to be somewhat unacceptable. I did get good results but I mean in terms of no real noticeable compression artifacts ... in short a clean picture. The "jaggies" weren't too noticeable but only because I only tested my sample clip on a 13" TV.

In short I wouldn't used this low of a resolution unless I was working with a source that started that low. Instead I would do Half D1 (352x480 NTSC or 352x576 PAL) but then you need to use a much higher resolution to get a really nice quality pic. So you might want to try Half D1 at around 3000kbps to 3500kbps video but of course that ain't 6 hours per DVD disc.

[jimmalenko]

Sounds good John.

Although I must add that I find VCDs acceptable, and have produced IMO pretty good results using TMPGEnc's standard VCD template. I then let TMPGEnc DVD Author resample the audio for me. Whatever floats your boat I guess.

[indolikaa]

Very interesting. Some ideas to try...

[W_Eagle]

I use 1/2D1 (352x576/480), encode with TMPGEnc in CQ mode, with Minimum Bitrate of 1400 Kbps and maximum Bitrate of 9000 Kbps, encode the audio in AC3 with bitrate of 193 Kbps and get easily 5 to 6 hours per DVD-R. If the file size is too long, I shrink a little bit with DVDShrink.

[handyguy]

Panasonic dvd recorders can do 8 hours, the new ones on one dvd. However, 4 hours or LP mode is about all one should do for a quality picture.

[andyp1]

Panasonic dvd recorders can do 8 hours, the new ones on one dvd.

Not on a DVD-R they can't.