The maximum length of video on a DVD

[jix]

As I have heard, the size of a single layer DVD is 4.7GB and people say it can hold 120 minutes of high quality video, and up to 16 hours of VHS quality video. (is that true?)

Well, now I have a problem with making a DVD that holds more than 6 hours of video. As I have a lot of video captured from my miniDV, I would like to make them all on one single DVD. Regardless of the high quality a DVD can give, all I care is the huge size of a DVD compare to CDs. Since the quality can't really matter on a old average TV.

However, although I have tried the VCD-DVD method, it doesn't seem to work, all I heard was the sound coming out and no video is shown (distorted picture.)
I have been trying with many main DVD authoring programs, like PowerDirector/Producer, TMPGEnc DVD Author, Nero VisionExpress. But none of them gave a duration longer than 180 minutes (that's the longest.)

Now, can someone please tell me how to do a normal DVD that has a lot of videos on it (more than 7 hours, if possible) and it plays fine on the home DVD players (not the latest ones, just an average)

Thanks a lot...

[yoda313]

Hello,

Use a bitrate videocalculator found in the tools section.

Also if you use halfd1 (352x480(576PAL)) it will help.

Kevin

Though you'll definitely take a quality hit at 7+ hours... Try KDVD....

[jix]

Isn't KDVD discontinued now? I saw the webpages saying that it's not usable or something.
By the way is there any easy way to do the DVD I mentioned? Cause I have a lot of video and I need a program that does all (at least everything other than burning)

[yoda313]

Hello,

Don't know about kdvd.....

Just use a bitrate calculator to determine how small of a bitrate to use to encode the video. If you're capturing it set your paramaters to that value.

If your encoding it with tmpgenc or another program enter that value as your bitrate and you should hit the size your targeting.

Kevin

[MOVIEGEEK]

I don't know about KDVD but as a general rule I try not to make the VIDEO_TS folder larger than 4,464MB which equals 4.7GB.If your VIDEO_TS folder is larger than 4,464MB then use DVDShrink.

BTW...those bitrate calculators aren't accurate,always set the bitrate lower(>250kbps).

[jix]

I have the videos on my computer as wmv. They are as the highest resolution as to the original DV file.

Now just how to do import or convert these files? Please be more specific and detailed, thanks.

I tried with TMPGEnc Plus and made it to standard VCD, then using TMPGEnc DVD Author to make the files for a DVD. And burnt to the DVD.
Now problem comes, the audio was fine, clearly hearable. But the video was totally distorted, there wasn't any at all. All I could see was some green/red/purple lines.

Now...?

[MOVIEGEEK]

Try converting the WMV to VCD(48khz audio) first with TMPGEnc.

[jix]

I've tried what posted above. But they didn't work on my home DVD player (Philips DVD-729K)
Although PowerDVD plays fine on the computer. Is it only my DVD player problem or the disc just can't be played at all? Will it work then, on newer DVD players?

[MOVIEGEEK]

We need more info:
What format did you use +R or -R?Your Philips might only play one format.
What brand did you use?
What dvd writer did you use?

[jix]

The DVD player is Philips DVD-729
My DVD writer is Lite-On SOHW-832S
I used Melody DVD-RW with 2x while burning

[jix]

Let me just clearify my problem. The DVD produced played only audio on my Philips DVD player. The screen showed some green and purple lines and kept on flashing. I made the wmv files to standard MPEG1 (VCD format) with TMPGEnc Plus and then I used TMPGEnc DVD Author to make the audio to 48k. Burnt also with that. Now only the audio comes...

[akrako1]

Try encoding the video to DVD format (not vcd) in TMPGEnc Plus. That way the files will be in proper DVD format, and shouldn't be distorted or be missing video. Manaully adjust the bitrate in TMPGEnc Plus to get as much video as you need (use the bitrate calculator). Also, by using TMPGEnc, there are various quality enhancements you can use (unlike the DVD authoring programs). Set the 'motion search precision' to 'Slow', and make sure you're using VBR 2-pass mode. This should give you decent quality, DVD format mpeg's. Make sure that you're DVD Authoring program does NOT try and reconvert the files - they're already ready.

Personally, I'd refute the 16 hrs VHS video quality on 1 dvd. Low bitrate video tends to have artifacts and 'blocking' that you defenetly won't see on a vhs tape. Maybe camparing to VHS long format (6 hrs per T-120), it may be more comperable - but VHS should still look better.

My suggestion, seperate the video onto multiple DVD's. DVD's ordered online cost only about $.50/disc.

Good luck.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Your problem sounds like you are using a PAL DVD in a NTSC player...or vice-versa.
Check the settings in TMPGEnc:
PAL=25fps,720x576
NTSC=29.97fps,720x480

[jix]

Yeah the DVD played fine on the PC. But on the DVD player it's another story. The file originally was PAL (from wmv) I converted it to NTSC in MPEG1/2. But my DVD player plays both PAL and NTSC, so why would that really matter?

[jimmalenko]

Pardon my opinion, but this thread is a classic case of a newbie providing the bare essentials of information in the first place, and then providing trickles of new information as the thread goes along. It is best to state the whole process from go to woe as early as possible, as it means anyone trying to help you doesn't have to assume or guess certain parts of your method. In future threads, please detail the problem you are experiencing, what you started with, what you'd ideally like to end up with, and a step by step with links to any applicable guides you followed to achieve this. It makes it much easier for us to help you, and you get the answer you need quicker, so it's a win-win situation

/Rant over


Now, DVD newbies 101 is now in session ...

I'm going to go through the whole process, every step of the way, because it seems pointless to just give you snippets of information in this case. So bear with me ...

As I have heard, the size of a single layer DVD is 4.7GB and people say it can hold 120 minutes of high quality video, and up to 16 hours of VHS quality video. (is that true?)

In isolation, time is irrelevant. To quote myself from another thread:

1. To find out the final size in MB when we know the rest:
length in seconds * combined bitrate in Kbps)/8192 = size in MB

2. To find out the combined bitrate we can use to hit a given size:
8192 * size in MB/length in seconds= (video + audio) in Kbps

so you can see, that length, in isolation, means nothing. If we need to fit a certain length onto 1 DVD, we set the size to 4464MB and adjust the bitrate so that it fits, according to equation 2 above. After we have worked out the length we want to fit onto 1 DVD, and calculated the bitrates we need to achieve this, a possibly ugly issue raises it head - appropriate frame size.

To quote myself again:

Sometimes the bitrate determines what frame size we should use, other times the source. It is best to choose the nearest resolution to your source, always rounding down where possible. Choose between 352 * 240/288, 352 * 480/576, or 720 * 480/576 (there may be times when you have a resolution smaller than 352 * 240 - that is OK, you'll just have to use 352 * 240). Your source's frame size is the first half of the Aspect value in the picture above from GSpot.

Given a perfect (DV/DVD quality 720 * 480/576) source, I use the following:

If ave is < 2000kbps, I'd use 352 * 240/288 ave CBR
If ave is > 2000kbps & < 5000, I'd use 352 * 480/576 2-Pass VBR (min 1000 ave ave max 5000)
If ave is > 5000kbps & < 7500, I'd use 720 * 480/576 2-Pass VBR (min 1000 ave ave max 9000)
If ave is > 7500kbps, I'd use 720 * 480/576 ave CBR

where ave is the calculated video bitrate.

If a resolution is "forced" because of the source, keep this in mind when perusing the above chart (ie. if your nearest resolution is 352 * 240/288, there is no point using a bitrate > 2000kbps).

However, we're talking about some serious squeezing if we need to get 6+ hours onto 1 DVD, so I would modify the above to:

If ave is < 1000kbps, I'd use 352 * 240/288 2-Pass VBR (min 100 ave ave max 1500)
If ave is > 1000kbps & < 2000kbps, I'd use 352 * 240/288 ave CBR

again, where ave is the calculated video bitrate

So, you have now calculated the bitrate you need to fit x hours onto DVD, and you have chosen an appropriate frame size and encoding method for this bitrate. The next step is to actually encode the file, and I would recommend this guide. If you choose to follow that guide, you will probably realise that we've already done the bitrate calculation beforehand in this case. That's OK, just skip it if you already know what bitrates to use. For a lark, you could even do it again just to check that your maths was somewhere near the ballpark. At any rate, The GSpot bit is important, as is the TMPGEnc step. The ffmpeggui step is up to you, but recommended by me.

If you complete all of the above successfully, you're almost home. The next step is to author, which turns your MPEG-2 compliant video and your audio into IFO, BUP and VOB files (required for DVD compliance), and allows you to add chapters, create a menu etc etc. I prefer TMPGEnc DVD AUthor for this task because its pretty easy to pick up and IMO uncomplicated in achieveing most basic tasks.

Once you've authored, then it's burn baby burn. The first time you do this (and any time you experiment with DVD Video), it might pay to burn to a RW, just to check that you've got everything down pat.

There's plenty of reading and understanding to be had with what has turned out to be a novel, but it is important that you understand everything I've talked about above, and as I mentioned at the top, it seems pointless to only give you snippets when you need to know the full story.

If you have any questions about anything I've recommended, please quote the particular statement and myself and anyone else here can assist you.

[lordsmurf]

To answer the original question, no completely false.

Bitrate controls the amount of data on a disc. Resolution determines how the bitrate is used, and thus determines the picture quality (PQ).

DVDs can generally hold up to 4 hours in excellent quality. Anything beyond that is severely inferior in most cases. It's not a gradual drop, it happens very abruptly.

[vhelp]

TGIF everyone :P

moviegeek wrote:

BTW...those bitrate calculators aren't accurate,always set the bitrate lower(>250kbps).

Actually, the calculator(s) are correct. It's the MPEG encoder that is not.
Well, not, *NOT* but rather, how they use the bitrate.

For example, if I'm encoding at 8000 (8k) bitrate, using CBR mode under (ie, TMPG or CCE)
my bitrate distribution will not be be exactly 8k. It will be somewhere's between
7k and 9k (a good gues, but depending on the encoder and the video source)
So, you'll get a signe wave (I'm doing my best to describe) but, there are thoese
encoders that will use the *exact* bitrate you use, and will bive you a perfect
flat-line bitrate distribution.., which is what you want, if you are using
CBR mode, and a given bitrate.
.
My DVD Xpress is an perfect example of this flat-line I was just talking about.
No spikes.
And, if I use VBR mode instead, it distributes the bitrate where it needs, but
(ie, using 8k bitrate) and only bumps (up/down) the bitrate where necessary,
which is not too often,. But, that's the nature (and design) of this device.
I'm very satisfied with the hardware encoder. Really.

-vhelp

[FulciLives]

I would never try to put more than 4 hours on a single DVD disc. In fact I have never tried to put more than about 3 hours.

If you want to fit 4 hours with 256kbps audio (be it MP2 or AC-3 format) then the video bitrate has to be approximately 2250kbps and that is very low for Half D1 resolution (352x480 NTSC or 352x576 PAL). Using a lower resolution like 352x240 NTSC or 352x288 PAL totally destroys the image and while some might if not most might find 2250kbps video fine at Half D1 you surely can't stretch it out 2 more whole hours without dropping the resolution (unacceptable) or getting massive MPEG artifacts (if you leave it at Half D1 resoution).

Solution?

Split that 6 hours up into 3 hours each on one DVD disc.

Then if you use 256kbps audio your video bitrate can be approximately 3100kbps which should be excellent at Half D1 resolution (especially doing a 2-pass or multipass encode).

Anyway you slice it I would forget trying to get more than 4 hours per DVD disc.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Skynet107]

The most I've ever done on a DVD was 6 hours @ half-DVD rez (352x480) 2 channel 192K DD audio. The bit rate was 1500 average I believe. The video had little motion (a series of lectures) so the quality was actually very good. Also, CCE is fantastic at low bitrates.

You will not get away with this if there is significat motion in the video source.

[Cornucopia]

IIRC, there was a similar post to this, but for VCD a while back (~2002). It had a number of good suggestions, from myself and others, about the kinds of things you can do to tweak the bitrate lower without completely losing the quality. Do a search on my past posts and you might find it...

Examples:
Pre-process the source AVI by--
1. Resize to ~240x180 and add black borders all around to pad out to 352x240. (Good for concentrating the motion vector bit allocation)
2. HEAVILY apply DVNR, Posterization/ColorReduction(Maybe even Black&White!), FrameRate reduction/Temporal Posterization (Less motion artifacting), etc.
Then--
3. Use example of KVCD/KDVD and tweak the GOP structure and Matrices. (Less I-frames, Better use of Q, more efficient compression)
4. Filter/BandwidthLimit and DynamicRangeLimit the Audio as well. (Use MPEG2-Layer2 compression--22k,mono,~32-64kbps. Allocates less to Audio, more to Video)
Also, use MultipassVBR, use LongestSearchLength, 8bitQuantize. etc.

Of course, you could always get a DL drive, too, and double your length!

Scott

>>>>>>>
edit:
I know that's going a little bit nuts, just wanted to take somethings to the extreme. One of these days, I'm going to do it just to see if I can set a record.

[lordsmurf]

Fulci, PROCODER is the only encoder I know of that can, in software, do an excellent job at 2000-2500k bitrate Half D1 with no major loss in quality. But the source MUST ABSOLUTELY be good.

[FulciLives]

Fulci, PROCODER is the only encoder I know of that can, in software, do an excellent job at 2000-2500k bitrate Half D1 with no major loss in quality. But the source MUST ABSOLUTELY be good.

As far as I know AviSynth doesn't work with PROCODER so that makes it worthless to me.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[vhelp]

@ fulci

- - Use MakeAVS w/ your AVIsynth scripts

-vhelp

[FulciLives]

@ fulci

- - Use MakeAVS w/ your AVIsynth scripts

-vhelp

Huh?

What are you saying?

I was trying to say that AviSynth does NOT work with PROCODER. Therefore using PROCODER is NOT an option for ME.

If there is a way to use AviSynth with PROCODER then please correct me and tell me how.

I don't understand what you just said vhelp

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[The_Doman]

I was trying to say that AviSynth does NOT work with PROCODER. Therefore using PROCODER is NOT an option for ME.

I am using the Avisynth with Procoder.
It just works ok for me.

I only have to proces the audio separately because of some issue's with the Avisynth program itself.

[FulciLives]

I was trying to say that AviSynth does NOT work with PROCODER. Therefore using PROCODER is NOT an option for ME.

I am using the Avisynth with Procoder.
It just works ok for me.

I only have to proces the audio separately because of some issue's with the Avisynth program itself.

Well the last time I tried ProCoder there was no way for it to work with AviSynth but I guess they have since changed that? I do admit this was a LONG time ago and I do recall reading that ProCoder has had a major "upgrade" since then.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[vhelp]

@ fulci

MakeAVS ...

My appoligies if I mislead you w/ regards to this app. It was an app that I
used a long time ago. I can't find it on my hd (lost in one of my sys crashes)
I did a search through google (for ya, and myself) and I could not find this
app. I can't remember exactly where I got it from. But from my memory,
it create a "frameserving mechanism" for those that were having problems
with frameserving their AVI files.
.
What I was on about here, was that if you still could not get your AVS scripts
to work w/ procoder, I was suggesting you use MakeAVS for it and see if it
works. That was all
.
I was going to test this out for myself w/ my procoder v1.5 but I
could not find makeAVS anywheres to test for ya. For that, I am sorry for
having failed you in this area.

I wish I could find this app. I'm a little upset I can't go further. Anyways.

Cheers,
-vhelp

[Cornucopia]

It think I have a copy at my work. Will check tomorrow...

Scott

[Cornucopia]

No, I don't have a copy after all. But I did find this on the web:

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/Detail_Desc.asp?agr=N&ProductID=367&DwnldID=316

HTH,
Scott

[manono]

This gives you something to try if quality is not an issue.

What's the point if none of the resolutions you created is DVD compliant? No decent authoring program will accept anything with those resolutions. And the ones that will I wouldn't use.

For more information Come visit my Google+ Community at https://plus.google.com/communities/103708154617564770519

So you joined up here and dredged up a nearly nine-year-old thread just to spam us with your site?