20 Hours on a single DVD?

[Alienverse]

Hey all, my cousin from Eastern Europe was staying with us for the past month. When he came here he brought a whole bunch of DVDs with him each containing approximately 20 hours of video content on them at a decent quality (the video quality was something like VCD). I was just wondering how the heck that is possible. Is there a particular program that could compress video that much and still make it playable on standard DVD players? Or is this a European thing us North Americans have yet to learn. Any feedback would be great, thanks!

[manono]

Or is this a European thing us North Americans have yet to learn.

Don't be silly.

Any feedback would be great, thanks!

I, for one, won't teach you to make lousy videos.

[Baldrick]

You can use the free tmpgenc mpeg converter and choose mpeg1, 352x240/288, around 350-400kbits bitrate for video and 92-128kbits bitrate for audio and see how it looks like.

[thecoalman]

Did they meet the requirements for DVD? With Divx you can do that at decent quality with divx compatible DVd player. I suspect that's what they were, a DVD from europe is going to be formatted as PAL and won't play in most North American DVD players.

For a compliant DVD you need to drop the bitrate down somehwere around 450kbps which is about half that of standard VCD which itself will produce a decent video relative to the resolution but is not comparable to the detail you will get at higher resolutions. 450kbps will not produce a good looking DVD under any circumstances but you can do it, you only need software that allows you set the bitrate that low.

I know all this cause I tried it :P .

[mats.hogberg]

In other words: No, can't be done, if your perception of "decent quality" is anywhere near mine (and I'm no videophile).
At VCD quality, 6-7 hours on a DVD-5, double that for a DVD-9.

/Mats

[thecoalman]

Note my post was relative to single layer discs.

[Midzuki]

As thecoalman said, carefully-produced XviD may give you
20 hours of watchable video fitting on a 4.3 GB disk. On the other hand,

http://www.bvcd.com.br/

will teach you how to put 20 hours of "black screen" on one single-layer DVD.

======

[jman98]

Basically DVD allows for video bit rates from 0 Kbps up to about 9800 Kbps. The lower the bit rate, the worse the quality but the more video you can fit on a disc. If this is really a DVD and not some kind of Divx data disc, I would guess that surely they must have used a dual layer disc to fit 20 hours on it.

As Baldrick points out, to fit 20 hours of video on a single layer DVD you'd need to use a video bit rate of about 400 Kbps. I've seen video at this bit rate and the quality is horrible and it's not as good as VCD. It's much much worse with tons of macroblocks. If they used a dual layer DVD, they could get by with a video bit rate of roughly 800 Kbps, which isn't great, but might give you sucky VCD quality, with still more macroblocks than I'd like to see.

Alienverse - if you're still reading, would you mind telling me WHERE in Eastern Europe your cousin is from? The reason I'm asking is mostly out of curiosity. I've spent a lot of time in Ukraine and I can tell you that in Russia they legally sell discs encoded with Divx, so I'm just curious where these are coming from.

[Alienverse]

Or is this a European thing us North Americans have yet to learn.

Don't be silly.

Any feedback would be great, thanks!

I, for one, won't teach you to make lousy videos.

Hey man, I can't really tell if you are joking or not but from what it seems you are quite serious. Maybe if you didn't dismiss it as something anti-North American, you'd understand that in Eastern Europe more than half the movies in circulation there are custom authored (bootlegged in nice-terms) so it's normal to have these kind of DVDs pop-up. That being said, I don't think my cousin's DVDs were bootlegged because he never mentioned anything (and they looked quite legitimate to me).

And thecoalman, it was a compliant DVD because I was playing back the DVD in my Sony DVD Player which does not even touch DivX discs. I know with DivX it is possible to fit that much onto a single-layer disc (I myself have done it before) but I am thinking more and more that the disc could have been dual-layer (it would make more sense since it was a compliant DVD with VCD quality). If you guys want, I can post a screenshot of the DVD so you guys can see what I mean when I say the movie is VCD quality (I was honestly just as baffled as you guys when I heard that 20 hours were on a single disc).

Jman 98, my cousin is currently living back and forth between Greece and Turkey (no slavic Eastern Europe, but he does go to Bulgaria for short trips). Over there you sometimes never know if you're buying legit or bootleg but I'm pretty sure this DVD was legit (like 95% sure, he likes to brag if it's bootleg, which he did not do, because us North Americans can't buy them in stores). Yeah, he's cynical like that...

[manono]

That being said, I don't think my cousin's DVDs were bootlegged because he never mentioned anything (and they looked quite legitimate to me).

Come on, you've lead a pretty sheltered life, I guess. Of course they're bootlegged, or made on someone's home computer (same thing). Do you really think some studio would sanction something like this? As already mentioned, doing this is the easiest thing in the world. You lower the resolution and kill the bitrate. But what's the point? If you value the movie(s) at all, you won't try and put 20 hours of DVD video on a DVDR, or even on a dual-layer DVD.

Or is this a European thing us North Americans have yet to learn.

You say that as if it's something worth learning. Why would you want to learn to produce garbage video? And don't tell me it looks fine.

[mats.hogberg]

To end this quality or not quality (which in the end is subjective) squabble, please post a screenshot from the 20 hour disk, preferably a few with different kinds of scenes (talking heads, high action, sports...).

/Mats

[redwudz]

It would also be nice to include a Gspot screenshot for details of bitrate, formats, etc.

[marioval]

Here is a screenshot of my 20 hour DVD

http://www.tomrchambers.com/malevich-copy-21-copy.jpg

[Alienverse]

That being said, I don't think my cousin's DVDs were bootlegged because he never mentioned anything (and they looked quite legitimate to me).

Come on, you've lead a pretty sheltered life, I guess. Of course they're bootlegged, or made on someone's home computer (same thing). Do you really think some studio would sanction something like this? As already mentioned, doing this is the easiest thing in the world. You lower the resolution and kill the bitrate. But what's the point? If you value the movie(s) at all, you won't try and put 20 hours of DVD video on a DVDR, or even on a dual-layer DVD.

Or is this a European thing us North Americans have yet to learn.

You say that as if it's something worth learning. Why would you want to learn to produce garbage video? And don't tell me it looks fine.

Alright, easy there Captain America. I have not lead a sheltered life, I've spent some time living in Eastern Europe, and I know that they sell DivX movies legally over there like jman98 mentioned. Not everyone in the world has the luxury of buying full-cost North American DVDs (in case you didn't know, that part of the world isn't exactly as developed as North America or Western Europe). That being said, I am quite sure they are legit because my cousin would be bragging that he bought them bootleg if he did. And the video is not garbage quality (I e-mailed my cousin to send me a screenshot of a similar DVD he has using the same compression process). And by the ways, did you never learn that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, visual arts (in this case quality) is subjective, you do not make the international standards of what is good video quality and what is bad video quality. Whatever, I'm not here to site here and fight an isolationist, I just wanted to get some answers.

So yeah guys, I'll post a video screenshot as soon as my cousin gets back to me (his time zone is 7 hours ahead so he is going to e-mail me it late in his night or early morning). Thanks for those of you that have been trying to help me out here, I appreciate it.

[lordsmurf]

Most people don't even realize they bought bootlegs, especially in many of the lesser-developed countries.

Not everything is subjective. There is a such thing as a "wrong opinion" when it's based on malarkey, devil's advocacy, or ridiculousness (such as crunchy/blocky video being considered "good" by a modern standard). There's a difference in "viewable" and "good".

There is no magic method to do what you want. And if it does happen, it's not going to be "good quality". You're probably looking at a pressed DVD9 bootleg, with non-compliant MPEG video being used, at barely-acceptable (far from good) quality, both in audio and video. If you watch on a 13" TV, I can understand the "good" comment, but even that would require you sitting across the room.

For the record, that's the only way I can watch a VCD, when it's on my 13" and I sit across the room. (Kitchen table, kitchen tv). To make it look even better, I can remove my contacts.

Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to be an ass, but I'm going to tell you the truth as best as I can, in the most understandable way possible. What you're asking simply can't be done.

[Alienverse]

Most people don't even realize they bought bootlegs, especially in many of the lesser-developed countries.

Not everything is subjective. There is a such thing as a "wrong opinion" when it's based on malarkey, devil's advocacy, or ridiculousness (such as crunchy/blocky video being considered "good" by a modern standard). There's a difference in "viewable" and "good".

There is no magic method to do what you want. And if it does happen, it's not going to be "good quality". You're probably looking at a pressed DVD9 bootleg, with non-compliant MPEG video being used, at barely-acceptable (far from good) quality, both in audio and video. If you watch on a 13" TV, I can understand the "good" comment, but even that would require you sitting across the room.

For the record, that's the only way I can watch a VCD, when it's on my 13" and I sit across the room. (Kitchen table, kitchen tv). To make it look even better, I can remove my contacts.

Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to be an ass, but I'm going to tell you the truth as best as I can, in the most understandable way possible. What you're asking simply can't be done.

I understand, but if you knew my cousin, you'd understand he's convinced it's not a bootleg. Either way, bootleg or not, it still doesn't explain how we watched 20 hours of footage on a single disc. And I never claimed the video quality to be good in the sense you're thinking of, I just said it was VCD quality (which I feel is decent on a normal television set). And this DVD is compliant, I threw it in a Sony DVD player that I know does not play DivX (hell it sometimes doesn't even play standard DVD-R's) and it played the entire thing with no problems. And I understand that you think it cannot be done, when he told me that there were 20 hours of footage on a single disc, I corrected him by saying it was a single boxset. Then we started watching all the footage and sure enough, there was 20 hours of footage on a DVD compliant disc (which I am beginning to think is a DVD-9 disc).

Either way, once I have that screenshot up and running maybe you guys can have a look at this bad boy. Like I said, I never believed it when he told me but I watched 20 hours with my own eyes.

[lordsmurf]

You can have an MPEG file that is not compliant. Some players will play it, some will not. There's no way for you to make a compliant DVD that holds 20 hours. It's not that I "think" it can't be done, but the fact that the technology simply does not allow for it.

I don't doubt your 20 hours on a disc comment, but I don't think you or your cousin really know what you have in your possession. You need to start with the understanding that it IS NOT a compliant DVD. That's the first fact here. The next step is to try and figure out what it could be. You've pretty much narrowed it down to an MPEG-1 or MPEG-2, not an MPEG-4 variant. That's great. So now it's time to figure out what it really is. It's pretty clea that you've got some sort of XVCD squished onto a pressed DVD9 bootleg (yes, it's a bootleg, the end), and it's probably based on something like MVCD or KVCD or whatever (the pompous self-named, self-fallating XVCD "formats").

[Alienverse]

Alright, so if this uses an MPEG file that plays on at least three different types of players (I played it on my Sony and Kosch players, and my cousin used it on his Philips player) does that give us a clue as to what MPEG is being used?

Oh yeah, just for the heads up, it's an entire season of a Greek television show on a single DVD disc (no clue if it's bootleg there, all I know is the show is not available in R1).

[mats.hogberg]

Again, a screenshot or 2, + a GSpot anaysis of a VOB would shead some light on this...

/Mats

[thecoalman]

There's no way for you to make a compliant DVD that holds 20 hours. It's not that I "think" it can't be done, but the fact that the technology simply does not allow for it.

Sure it is, don't you remember the "coalDVD"

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic237159.html


Note that the link in that thread for the video is dead and I don't have it anymore so I can't upload it, the screenshots are still there. Other things to note is the screenshots were from a slow pan so artifacting is going to be minimal.

Again I think it depends on what your perspective on good is, those screenshots look pretty good but the video when played looked quite bad. I suspect you have a DVD9 using a bitrate of around 900-1000 using a very good source and a high quality encoder, that or its not compliant and you're just lucking out on the playability on different DVD players.

It's too bad you don't have acess to the disc as it would be interesting to investigate further but without you really can't make a determiantion about anything.

[Alienverse]

Coalman, I checked out the link you posted and the compression you used seems very similar (if not the same) to the compression used on my cousin's DVDs. Once I get the images in my e-mail inbox, I'll post them for you to have a look at them. I think you may have solved the mystery...

[Midzuki]

The URL

http://www.tomrchambers.com/malevich-copy-21-copy.jpg

led me to a 300x300 black square

++++++++++++++

[mats.hogberg]

I think it's supposed to be humor...

/Mats

[thecoalman]

Again you have to be aware that was from a very slow pan so atifacting you get though a lot of motion is not going to be present. The video itself was viewable but I'm using that term loosley. At most it might be suitable if for exmaple you wanted to archive security footage. I'm encoding a video now from a band I videotape to see what the results are for fast action, I'll have a link in a bit.

[Midzuki]

To compress into MPEG by using insane quantise matrices such as
mvcd, pvcd and bvcd without lots of heavy pre-filtering is a fast and
sure way to produce dark and muddy video. To span a 2-hour movie
across 2 CDs by compressing with MainConcept's matrix is "crappiness"
enough for my current tastes, period.

==============

[nTekka]

Lets test something.

Assumptions:
- Lets assume quality/viewability is not an issue.
- Assume max capacity on DVD (DVD-9 DL)
- 352x240 Resolution
- 20 Hours of video at 400kbps
- Also assume this doesnt have to abide by DVD compliance, BUT it is an MPEG1 or MPEG2 so we aren't using some other codec compressor
- Lowest possible audio bitrate but still audible to the ear without causing screeches that will make you bleed just for safety - lets make it 48kbps instead of the minimum 32kbps.

Now for the logical math (please double check for accuracy) using TMPG filesize estimator,

Filesize (Kb) = (Video+Audio)Bitrate (kbits/sec) x (2048/2018) x movie lenght sec/8
simple math to find out the size instead of bitrate:
20 hours = 72000 seconds

Size = (400+48)kbps * 1.0149 * 9000
Size = 4092076.80000 kb
Size ~ 3.903 GB

800kbps ~ 7.387 GB
1200kbps ~ 10.871 GB (normal VCD bitrate)
What do you know it does fit on one DVD-5 disk at 400kbps, double bitrate for DVD-9. So its possible which we have been telling. Its viewable, but DEFINATELY not a standard that professional would use... therefor conclusion:

Yes, its possible 20 hours on one DVD disk, if you dont care about quality. However, it is still a bootleg no matter how much sugar you put on top! Unless you are saying your professionals live by a standard lower than that of global DVD standards. I'll post some sample images in a few min.

[redwudz]

This is what I got:



Use 352 x 240 VCD format and it might be OK for a low resolution video. A DVD-5 would be half that bitrate and would definitely suffer.

[lordsmurf]

And while the numbers say it's possible, you'd have to use non-compliant tricks to make it "look good" (which is still a far cry from good, but not as bad as something more compliant).

[nTekka]

Here are the pictures
This one is what i'm assuming it'd look like at 400kbps viewed on 704x480 standard TV

[nTekka]

400-2 another capture