Dual Layer question

[kmmoore]

Hi,

I haven't bought a dual layer burner yet, but it is on my to-do list (providing it will do what I need it to do). I have a question for you guys out there who have one and would appreciate it if you could let me know if the following is possible?

I record sports games off TV (usually football) and burn them to DVD. Currently I use 1 DVDR per half to keep good quality. Would it be possible to use a DL disc to put each DVDR onto its own layer, so 1st DVDR with the first half on layer 1, and 2nd DVDR containing 2nd half on layer 2 (I want to avoid a layer break during the action). Then have a front end menu with chapter points to points in each layer ?

Each DVDR I have is 4Gb or less, so should fit on a layer no problem.

Appreciate your time.
Thanks,
Kevin.

[guns1inger]

It is possible, providing the following is true

1. You have authoring software that allows you to select where the layer break will be

2. Your burning software doesn't override this and change the layer break position

3. Your existing footage meets the requirements for layer breaks. I can't remember exactly which way it goes, but I believe layer one must be larger in data size that layer two (it may be the other way round).

[rebarlow]

Just curious- have you checked out the prices for dual layer medium? Verbatim dual layer disks for $12.90 @ superstore. If I was recording something as easy to break up onto two disk as a football game, I would be cheap enough to "suffer" through swapping out two single layer disks and pocket the $10+ savings.

[solarfox]

Just consider the minute or so it takes you to get up and swap discs to be your own little "half-time break."

Guns1inger has it right, unfortunately; getting the layer break precisely where you want it presents certain problems on recordable dual-layer media, since there are limits imposed both by the software and the physical requirements of DL media which you can't really do anything about.

For certain, it couldn't be done by recording in real-time; you'd have to capture the game to your hard drive, and author the disc afterwards... and at that point, wouldn't going through and trimming out all the commercial breaks let you fit the whole game onto one DVD-R anyway? I've never actually sat down and timed it, but it sure seems like in a 3-hour football broadcast there's at least an hour of commercials, and if you got rid of those and compressed your footage to 5500Kbps VBR, with a 128Kbps MPEG audio track instead of 44 or 48KHz PCM (for a sporting event, I can't imagine you'd need more than that!), you ought to be able to get two hours of actual game time on a single-layer DVD without too much trouble...

[kmmoore]

Hi guys,

Thanks so much for all your replies. Was away earlier so couldn't reply sooner.

I read your posts and have come to the conclusion, that for the sake of getting out of my chair during half-time (or when I run out of Bud, whichever is sooner) to change the disk, it seems a lot of hard work. I think I will just stick with your idea of leaving the game on 2 discs.

As for getting all of the game onto 1 DVDR, yes, it is possible, I edit out the commercials, have no pre or post game show and the usual running time is about 2hr 25min, which I can fit on if I keep the bitrate to sub 4000 . So I will do that for the time being, until some time when dual layer authoring and burning is a bit more user friendly.

Thanks again for your help, much appreciated.

Cheers,
Kevin.