Fitting more onto single DVDs

[ells6363]

Hi there, Just looking to know how I could burn more onto a single DVD disk. What I need to do is burn the whole season of say Lost and Sopranos onto as few disks as possible but still have good quality.

If i just drag them on with nero it will be about 4 episodes to a 4.7gb disk, while keeping reasonably good quality. I need to do about 5 Tv show seasons so in total im looking at using about 30 disks for that which it going to take ages plus i need to do some movies as well and dont have enough disks.

Is there anyway i can simply compress more onto one disk and still keep good quality??

Thanks Ells

[jimbucc]

You need to encode the video to MPEG2 at a very low bit rate. Below 3500 bps and you start to see blockiness in the video. But at that rate you can get at least 2 hours one one disc.

[guns1inger]

Resize them down and compress with Divx or Xvid to around 360MB each episode. You will fit a season of lost onto two discs, playable on your PC or a Divx capable player.

Otherwise I wouldn't put more than 3 episodes to a single disc. At four episodes the quality would be way too low for me. Even three would be border-line. (and that is with using a good encoder, not Nero)

[AlanHK]

You need to encode the video to MPEG2 at a very low bit rate. Below 3500 bps and you start to see blockiness in the video. But at that rate you can get at least 2 hours one one disc.

3500 is way above "low". I've encoded standard 720x480 TV down to 1300 bps with HCEnc, which wasn't very sharp but was still better than broadcast TV around here (a rural area) and not blocky at all. (In fact, I've never seen blockiness in HCEnc files at all, just a gradual loss of sharpness as the bit rate goes down.) I could fit 10 episodes of your standard 42-min drama show at that rate. I don't advocate that for anything you want to watch in the future on your wall-size TV though. Stuff I may want to watch more than once or twice I use 1800 bps or higher.

On my TV, a 29" Sony CRT, there really isn't any point in encoding above 2400 bps, the difference is only appreciable if I zoom in or freeze frame.

Anyway, the way to determine what works for you is to encode the same file (a few minutes is enough) at several different bit rates and just see what it looks like.

[lordsmurf]

3500k is low for 720x480

3500k is perfect for 352x480

1300k for 720x480 is insane, and you will get blocks, I don't believe otherwise (would love to see a sample on that, it has to be awful)

[AlanHK]

1300k for 720x480 is insane, and you will get blocks, I don't believe otherwise (would love to see a sample on that, it has to be awful)

Believe what you like.

[ells6363]

i need this to play on a dvd player not a PC and im not to sue how to use HCEnc. doesnt seem to accept any of my AVI files.

Also i tested 5 to a 4.7gb cd on Nero to see what the quality is like and its not that bad playedback on a tv, but near the end of each episode the sound and video werent together. To stop this would i need to do a slow bitrate?

[TBoneit]

The other option is bite the bullet and use DL discs with 6 or maybe 7 episodes.

AlanHK, they may look good now but how will they look when you go to a bigger screen HDTV? Have you taken them to store and looked at them on a 50" or 60" display.


I swore I never needed better then I decided to go HD (32") and I'm sorry since now I can see the defects clearly.

[ells6363]

im just going to do it the normal way with nero as alll the other methods dont have much of a difference.

Only one problem how slow will i have to burn it to keep the video and audio together. I tried burning 5 onto one disk at about 12x or 8x and i had that problem. How slow should i do it to keep it together????

[AlanHK]

AlanHK, they may look good now but how will they look when you go to a bigger screen HDTV? Have you taken them to store and looked at them on a 50" or 60" display.

I swore I never needed better then I decided to go HD (32") and I'm sorry since now I can see the defects clearly.

I'm not going to get a 50" display. My income is not going up and I have a family that costs more every year to support.

Regardless, what I record is mainly dramas and comedies, not sport or porn. The experience isn't noticeably better past a certain point of image quality, which was achieved years ago. For spectacles, I go to a cinema.

There's hardly anything worth watching more than once. The few that are, I might replace with a higher quality source should it really be an annoyance. The DVDs I make today will probably have decayed, been lost or scratched up by then anyway.

[AlanHK]

i need this to play on a dvd player not a PC and im not to sue how to use HCEnc. doesnt seem to accept any of my AVI files.

HCEnc needs an AVS file: a script to filter (eg, resize, sharpen, etc) the Avi file through Avisynth. FitCD can generate this.

Spend an hour or so reading howtos for this. Or use an all-in-one converter if it's too much trouble.

[theewizard]

beauty OR visual quality is in the eye of the beholder, what is acceptable to one is NOT acceptable to another person

try some samples at different bit rates and choose the one you find easiest to live with

3 episodes (without commericals ) is 120+ minutes and should be excellent, 4 would be good, I would not want to do 5 or more, you might want to watch them on a bigger newer TV in the future, you can't get back quality/data that has been removed/sacrificed in the name of file size

[jman98]

I have to second AlanHK's positive comments on HCEnc. I had previously used CCE, which is a great product, but I downloaded HCEnc because I had a 1080i HD TV capture I wanted to keep in 1080i, but I needed to lower the bit rate a little to fit it on a DVD as a data file for archiving. HCEnc did a great job on re-encoding my TV capture. I highly recommend this excellent free encoder.

[AlanHK]

im just going to do it the normal way with nero as alll the other methods dont have much of a difference.

Only one problem how slow will i have to burn it to keep the video and audio together. I tried burning 5 onto one disk at about 12x or 8x and i had that problem. How slow should i do it to keep it together????

Neither bitrate nor burning rate have anything to do with how good the sync is.

You will find thousands of posts here about this problem.
How you adjust this depends on your exact method and sources.
If you use a "normal" all-in-one application like Nero, it basically works or it doesn't.
If you use several separate tools, this allows corrections to be made.

[edDV]

Why this obsession with fitting a full season of Lost on one twenty cent DVD blank?

Is a dollar for 5 DVD-R too expensive? How is this obsession putting food on your child's plate?

[AlanHK]

Why use more discs and processing time when it doesn't look any better on my TV?

These are for my use on my TV. Though for the record, a few friends I've loaned discs to thought they were dupes of commercial discs, so I'm reasonably sure they come up to scratch.

[TBoneit]

I kind of have to go with edDV, if it isn't worth doing right is it worth doing at all?

Since you say it isn't money, then use verbatim +R DL media as long as your burner supports them. You can a lot more on in the 8.5 gig per disc. I use all the time to reduce disc count.

[AlanHK]

I kind of have to go with edDV, if it isn't worth doing right is it worth doing at all?

That's assuming that I'm not "doing it right".
I'm not doing it your way, which is not the same thing.

Anyway, to the OP, just make a bunch of 5 minute clips at various rates and decide for yourself what tradeoffs you want to make.

[ells6363]

yeah thats what ive done, just ordered some 8Gb disks off ebay. I just wanted less as im going away for a couple months and want less to have on me. But four to a disk is ok for me now and when the 8Gb come 6 should be good. THanks for all the help. When im back and have more time il look at all the different encoders to find out what i like.

At the moment im just converting 4 episodes at a time to DVD with DVDflick and burning them though nero, But you dont get a Menu with that method which is one draw back il have to like with.

Thanks everyone

[lordsmurf]

, a few friends I've loaned discs to thought they were dupes of commercial discs.

Are we talking HK discs here? Because what they do in Hong Kong largely sucks, lots of blocks. Most of it is not legal either, but low-grade copies.

I don't think we're using the same quality standards here, not at all.

[AlanHK]

, a few friends I've loaned discs to thought they were dupes of commercial discs.

Are we talking HK discs here? Because what they do in Hong Kong largely sucks, lots of blocks. Most of it is not legal either, but low-grade copies.

I don't think we're using the same quality standards here, not at all.

Yes, my standards are based on what I see with my own eyes. Yours are based on outdated prejudice.

You obviously know nothing about Hong Kong.

I've got plenty of import DVDs, I do have a basis of comparison.

Try to be less offensive in your characterisation of people who don't instantly agree with you and you might learn something rather than just picking fights.

[guns1inger]

I seem to remember having this same conversation (discussion/disagreement) some time ago, and asking at that some for a sample of one of these clips so I could be allowed to judge for myself. Unfortunately said sample was not forthcoming, so I am still somewhat skeptical.

[AlanHK]

I seem to remember having this same conversation (discussion/disagreement) some time ago, and asking at that some for a sample of one of these clips so I could be allowed to judge for myself. Unfortunately said sample was not forthcoming, so I am still somewhat skeptical.

Smurf was being such a jerk that I don't feel like spending 20 minutes making and uploading a clip for him to sneer at, since it's evident he never changes his opinion.

Anyway, if you really do care, easy to make it yourself. Use HCEnc, qlb matrix, and set whatever bitrate you like. I've never seen any blockiness, down to 1300 bps. I can tell the difference, and generally use a higher rate these days, but it's still better than broadcast TV quality.

[theewizard]

alanHK

i have used tempgnc, and ulead, cce, and convertx etc.. I have a TV card and i have DVDxpress with hardware mpeg encoding

and there is NO way anything under 2500 looks as good MUCH LESS better than broadcast TV,

i have HCEnc but haven't done much with, i will have to try it out some more

BUT i really wonder about the quality of broadcast in your city or the quality of your reception..

but i am only wondering, NOT debating, as i cannot see what you are seeing on your OTA TV signals

[lordsmurf]

The original poster wants "good quality" and I'm surely going to make sure he gets an answer.

Hong Kong DVDs routinely look blocky and have interlace/fps/ghosting issues, even in the year 2007. They tend to be very sloppy work, often transcoded from Japanese or USA DVD9 presses onto cheap Chinese DVD5 presses. More audio tracks (English, Chinese) and subtitles (Chinese) are added from secondary sources, which is why they sell. The value of these discs is not quality or even price, but the ability to comprehend the content! Therefore, these discs are not a valid comparison for how to achieve "good quality" video.

For the sake of comparison, a DVB stream is compressed with a custom matrix, on specialized million-dollar hardware at a DSS upload center, and the bitrates are never less than ~2000k per stream, with 480x480 or 544x480 average res. These are not even close to being DVD compliant, and they can be impossible to author (even when using SVCD2DVD or DVD-Lab tricks). The GOPs and interlace/fps are all over the place. And at the end of the day, most folks can readily see artifacts in their DVB, especially on better SD CRTs (20-27"), an EDTV (20") or any HD sets. You do not need a mega-sized 60" screen to see these flaws. Some choose to ignore, some choose to complain, but everybody sees it. Generally, it's in the threshold of "good enough", but it took a lot of effort to get there.

Now if millions of dollars cannot achieve "good quality" even by altering all aspects of the MPEG-2, something that is not even remotely compatible with the DVD-Video spec, why on Earth would somebody think they can do better? Putting 720x480 @ 1300k would look worse than a VHS tape in SLP mode, especially using homegrown software and homemade/consumer encoding methods. And I want the original poster to walk away with this information.

I'm not trying to be mean, but I think most folks needs to re-evaluate their ideas of quality. If companies catch on that baseline-quality is acceptable, they might quit digitally restoring and re-mastering movies and shows from archived film. They'll just poop it onto disc as-is, from existing later-generation material, regardless of the quality. We are already seeing this effect, with broadcast cuts, censored footage, and over-compressed video being put onto discs, with studios refusing to fix it.

[NiteLite]

At the moment im just converting 4 episodes at a time to DVD with DVDflick and burning them though nero, But you dont get a Menu with that method which is one draw back il have to like with.

Thanks everyone

I find 4 episodes (60 minutes minus commercials = about 42 - 43 minutes) to be acceptable. Good quality. Adding a 5th pushes compression into the 40+ percent range whereas 4 eps. is around 65% +/- about 4%. Using DVDShrink w/ deep analysis and AEC set to "sharp".
Original master quality is the largest factor but I live fine with 4 eps. per disc (single layer TY G02 media).
Good luck,
NL

[AlanHK]

Hong Kong DVDs routinely look blocky and have interlace/fps/ghosting issues, even in the year 2007.

I'm NOT defending every damn DVD made in Hong Kong.
There are hundreds of companies producing DVDS here.
Of course some, or even many, are crap.
Conversely many are excellent.
But that's all beside the point.

Therefore, these discs are not a valid comparison for how to achieve "good quality" video.

True. Who said they were? I've got lots of Made-in-USA or UK disks. I wasn't comparing to 20 episodes of a Korean soap on one disk. More like BBC, HBO or Sony. OK?

If companies catch on that baseline-quality is acceptable, they might quit digitally restoring.

Christ, no one was talking about commercial production. The OP wanted to fit more video on his own disk. That was the question I was addressing.

Adding a 5th pushes compression into the 40+ percent range whereas 4 eps. is around 65% +/- about 4%. Using DVDShrink w/ deep analysis and AEC set to "sharp".

Recompressing MPEG2 with DVDshrink is much worse than starting from a clean AVI and encoding direct to MPEG2. The rate itself does not determine quality.

i have HCEnc but haven't done much with

You havent tried it, but you're sure I'm wrong.

I ONLY said that it did not make blockiness at low rates. I DID say it was not as sharp as higher rates. Whether the extra sharpness is worth the time and trouble is up to you.

[lordsmurf]

Well, I've used HC Enc, and even 352x480 with only 2000k is starting to push the envelope for quality. That's a homebrew encoder being given home-quality sources (DV, DVD, uncompressed AVI, etc). The only way to not see blocks is to view on a 4" portable DVD player while squinting.

[AlanHK]

Well, I've used HC Enc, and even 352x480 with only 2000k is starting to push the envelope for quality. That's a homebrew encoder being given home-quality sources (DV, DVD, uncompressed AVI, etc). The only way to not see blocks is to view on a 4" portable DVD player while squinting.

The difference is detectable. But only if you freeze and zoom.

Anyway, debating with someone who is so relentlessly insulting is not why I come here.

So I'm done with this topic before I start responding in kind.

[NiteLite]

Adding a 5th pushes compression into the 40+ percent range whereas 4 eps. is around 65% +/- about 4%. Using DVDShrink w/ deep analysis and AEC set to "sharp".

Recompressing MPEG2 with DVDshrink is much worse than starting from a clean AVI and encoding direct to MPEG2. The rate itself does not determine quality

While the OP did not mention "AVI" I assume he was not intending to convert to AVI.
My responce was strickly for DVD Video, Mpeg2, AC3.
What "rate"? If you are refering to compression rate it most certainly has an effect on quality. For sure it's not the "only" factor.

I dont know about quality but Hong Kong is putting out some very good movies over the past year or so. I would say they are leading among the Asian countries.
Regards,
NL