Authoring a DVD with several movies

[alvabass]

Hi and thank you in advance. This is my first post.

I want to request some help because I'm facing a situation on DVD authoring that I don't know how to handle and couldn't find in the guides. I have enough (I think) experience converting avi or mpg files to DVD format including subtitles and burning a DVD with the resulting file. But what I want to know now is: I downloaded a movie from the Net, and the person who uploaded it also converted many extras that come with the original DVD like a documentary, deleted scenes and stuff like that. Of course, each of them is a separate movie. I'd like to know how to burn them all in a single DVD, since the method I've used calculates the available space in a disc based on a single movie (from Videohelp.com's guides, of course). Someone may suggest joining all the movies in a single one and burn it that way, but I'd like to have them separated into the DVD and make them available using a menu. Here are the programs I'm used to work with and that I think I understand pretty well: VirtualDub, VirtualDub Mod, NanDub, Subtitle Workshop (I put subtitles to a movie using the SubStation Alpha format and VirtualDub's Subtitler filter), TMPGEnc Plus 2.5, TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress, TMPGenc DVD Author 1.6, TMPGEnc MPEG Editor and DVDx 2.2. Thank you so much!

[guns1inger]

TDA can do this. If the resolution and aspect ratio are the same, they can go in the same title. If they are different, then they need to be in separate titles. Bitrate is calculated across the total running time for all assets, so if you have a 90 minute movie and a 30 minute extra, you need to calculate the bitrate for 120 minutes.

[alvabass]

Thank you for your quick reply! I know that I can add several titles to a project in TDA, but my doubt is about file sizes after converting: If I have an avi file and I want to convert it to DVD format I open it in VirtualDub, load the subtitle script, start frameserver mode creating a vdr file, open TMPGEnc plus and load that vdr file selecting the appropriate settings. But the thing is: If it's a 2-hour movie, TMPGEnc will try to fit it into a 4.7 GB DVD using the best possible quality, so no room for more movies into a single DVD. Am I wrong? Or after loading all the movies into TDA, are they re-converted for fitting into one disc?

[jimmalenko]

But the thing is: If it's a 2-hour movie, TMPGEnc will try to fit it into a 4.7 GB DVD using the best possible quality, so no room for more movies into a single DVD. Am I wrong?

Yes. Use a bitrate calculator, with the total running time of all features. Then when encoding each seperately with TMPGEnc Plus, specify the calculated bitrate (or slightly less to give you some menu and overhead space). If the option is greyed out, either get out of the project wizard or at the final screen, click on the Expert button, then right-click on the word "Bitrate" and go to Unlock. You should now be able to alter the bitrate.

Or after loading all the movies into TDA, are they re-converted for fitting into one disc?

TDA just authors as-is. However, you could always use DVD Shrink or DVD-RB to pull down to one disc size if you're in a bind. Best to encode to the correct size first go though for a myriad of reasons.

[alvabass]

Wow, I just finished authoring my DVD and thanks to the bitrate calculator I could fit all the movies into a single DVD. Thank you very much! But now I have a question regarding this:

specify the calculated bitrate (or slightly less to give you some menu and overhead space).

At first, I used the bitrate calculator based on the total length of the movies, and they were encoded for DVD authoring according to that, but when I created the menus, I decided to use a motion menu and that increased the overall size of the project (as you warned me) and didn't fit the DVD. Anyway, having all the needed files ready, I could determine the exact size of the menus, so I had to re-encode the movies with a lower bitrate since the menus' size went from the default 25 MB assigned to a standard DVD (according to the bitrate calculator's ISO section in advanced mode) to 266 MB using a 32 sec. motion menu. Is there a way I can determine my menus' exact size before actually encoding the movies to DVD format? (I mean, having just the original avi files?) Thank you again!

[guns1inger]

Menus are often encoded at a lower bitrate than the movies, as the menu quality is not as important. Therefore, you can allocate a size, and use an appropriate bitrate to make sure it fits. When working with multiple videos and motion menus, sometimes it pays to actually sit down with a paper and pencil (or use a spreadsheet) to create a bit budget for your disc. Work out what has to go on the disc, allocate the space for it, and the calculate bitrates accordingly. I use videocalc, but most bitrate calculators will allow you to set custom sizes so you can calculate for pretty much anything.