DVD18 to DVD-R question

[TazRulezAll]

I have the movie The Stand on dvd. It is a single DVD that is double-sided and dual-layered (DVD18). I want to back it up onto a single DVD-R. I Ripped it to my hard drive and tried to run it thru DVD Shrink. The problem i have with that is it won't compress it enough. I have to run each side thru then run it thru together (3 times total). That isn't going to work because it will take too long. I tried DVD2ONE and but i don't want to join the 4 parts into one movie file. The only other option i can think of is to run it thru TMPGEnc and convert it to VCD then burn it. BUT, DVD-Lab doesn't read MPEG-1 files too well. All I get is green thumbnails and a green preview. I want to make my own menus and TMPGEnc DVD Author doesn't set the menus as root. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[johns0]

Unless you want uber crappy results put it on to 2 dvds cause the movie runs 6 hours long,if you really want to get it onto 1 dvd then you can lower the resolution to 352x480/576 and bitrate of around 1500 kbps with 192 kbps sound of ac3 or mp2 using 2 pass vbr.Dvd2svcd works great for this type of project.

[TazRulezAll]

I have VCDs that have movies over 2 hours long on it and the bitrate is about 650 instead of the normal 1150. the quality isn't the best, but it works. like i said it is a backup of my dvd.

[XL3/\/7]

Try re-encoding the file in MPEG-2 with CCE. I think you can do it with TMPGEnc as well but I've never used it cos of all the negative feedback I got. That way you can keep your mpeg-2 stream in a lower bitrate, since you don't mind the crappy quality. Search the guides for Robshot's method on using CCE and you will get the best quality possible.

[Shudder]

Just curious, if you're backing up what's essentially 2 DVDs that happen to be stuck back to back, what's so important about making them one? These days it's less than a buck per disc, you're really gaining nothing.

[TazRulezAll]

Well I figured since i put the matrix trilogy on 1 DVD-R, which is a little over 6 hours, I would be able to put the stand on 1 DVD-R. Also, I put all 7 Nightmare on Elm Street movies, which i had on VCD totaling 11 hours 10 min, onto 1 DVD-R.

[Shudder]

And that is beneficial how? All it does is avoid popping in another disc, which takes 8 seconds, all for consideralbly DRASTIC degradation in quality.

[Gurm]

Yeah, why not just put them all on one T-180 VHS tape running in SLP? That's going to give you BETTER quality than what you're getting with that many movies stuffed onto one DVD.

Now, I'm going out on a limb and assuming you DON'T mean that you have the movies in some other format (like DIVX/XVID) and are putting them on a DATA DVD-R.

I only mention this because lately I've been coaching my friends about DVD conversion and one of them just didn't get why the AVI's he burnt to a DATA DVD didn't work in his Pioneer set-top player. *sigh*

- Gurm