more than 3 hours on dvd from dv avi

[phatpg]

hi,

i have been doing dv capturing and converting for awhile now and got a few friends who are asking me to do alot of their dvd's

anyone know how to get more than 3 hours on a dvd - and what would be the maximum? also - how much will this effect quality???


thanks


P

[offline]

Opinions differ, but in my experience about four hours
is the maximum you can do (on a DVDR "5") and keep
at least VHS quality.

Anything more and you have to start looking
at ways to save space (reduce audio quality) and / or
reduce resolution to prevent the usual artifacts, like
macroblocks, which appear at low video bitrates.


Note that as you try and fit more, the importance
of multipassing more than 2x, increases.

As a (very) rough guide (NTSC)

3-4 hours at 720x480 4000 VBR
4-6 hours at 480x480 2500 VBR
6-8 hours at 352x240 1100-1500 VBR

[phatpg]

are those manipulations possible in most conversion software or are there specific ones that are more useful?

[offline]

Any mpeg2 encoder can do it. The most popular
include Procoder, TMPgenc & CinemaCraft.
Plugins are available for editing suites like
Premier or you can frameserve.

There are
guides and even some templates available
with "ideal" settings that people have found
useful. It all depends on what encoder or
encoder plugin you are using.

You might even want to check out dual layer
DVD recording.

[jimmalenko]

Probably should also mention to use a bitrate calculator such as this one to work out what bitrates to use. All you need to know is your running time and the bitrate you'll use for your audio (in the final product) and it will give you the video bitrate you need to use. You might also benefit from reading this guide, as it has some basic bitrate Vs resolution suggestions.

[Wile_E]

TMPGenc 3.0 has a feature called Extended DVD (XDVD). It allows for several hours of video on a 4.7GB disc at "good" quality but with 60GOP.

[ofbarea]

I usually use 720x480 resolutions for videos up to 3 hours.

I also use 704x480 for VHS transfers. I just truncate the black bordersin this captures. I also use this resolution for videos of up 3 hours

When I whant to put from 3 to 6 hours I use 352x480 resolution.

Usually for Videos of 6 hours or more I just convert them to 352x240 MPEG1 streams.

[guns1inger]

480 x 480 is not a DVD compliant resolution and may not play back correctly on all players.

[badahab]

I usualy put about 4 hours on disc. I use sony dvd architect 3. It works very well for me. I do all my editing in vegas and then render to dv. Dvd architect will automaticly encode as mpeg2 and set file size and bitrate. It seams to take just about any file you through at it. Comes out quite nice too. Takes a while to encode though.

I put 8 hours on a disc with dvd architect once, just to see what would happen. It works.... but looks like quite bad. That disc plays on about half of the dvd players I tried it on, mostly played on the cheep ones.

-sean

[ronnylov]

In my experience I get bad quality if going above 90 minutes on a single layer DVD-R from interlaced DV-format filmed without a tripod. If I reduse the resolution to half (352x576 PAL or 352x480 NTSC) I may fit 3 hours form DV format in VHS quality on a single layer DVD.

But try it with different average bitrates and see what your worst accepted quality is and then use the bitrate calculator.

[lordsmurf]

352x480 @ 2.5Mb/s VBR = 4 hours
352x480 @ 3.4Mb/s VBR = 3 hours
720x480 @ 5.5Mb/s VBR = 2 hours
720x480 @ 8.0Mb/s VBR = 1 hour

You cannot really go more than 4 hours.
In most cases, stay at 3 hours.

[gadgetguy]

Keep in mind that all of the above suggestions are "averages" and "guidelines", but you need to pay attention to the content of the video as well. High action video requires higher bitrates and may prove unsatisfactory at some of the lower resolutions. Usually when doing work for others you must maintain higher standards than you might otherwise hold for something for yourself.