Fitting more in the dvd

[btkuehn]

Are there ways of fitting more than the standard 2 hrs on a dvd? Different authoring methods, different kinds of blank dvds? I'm using standard blank dvds by the way.

[Baldrick]

If you want to fit more you just lower the video and audio bitrate(lower quality) and you are doing that in the converter/encoder or all-in-one authoring tool. What software are you using today?

[guns1inger]

Filesize = Running Time X Bitrate

2 hours is an arbitrary measure based on a balance of reasonable quality versus capacity, but it is not an absolute measure. There is no such thing as a 2 hour DVD disc. If you use the highest allowable bitrate you will fit only about 65 - 70 minutes on a DVD. If you use a very low bitrate and VCD resolution you can fit up to 8+ hours on the same disc.

The trade off is quantity versus quality. The more you put on, the lower the quality will be. You can get almost double the space by using dual layer discs, but the cost is more than double that of single discs, so the economy model is skewed.

Use a bitrate calculator and an encoder/authoring tool that allows you to use the full DVD spec (i.e. not Adobe Encore), and you can work out what bitrate you need to fit more content onto the disc. You will also have to work out at what point to drop your resolution to compensate for the reduced bitrate. Look at What is DVD (top left corner) to see all the allowable resolutions.

Personally, I believe DVD media is cheap enough that I only need to put 2 - 2.25 hours per disc in DVD mode. If I want to put several movies or half a series on a disc I will use Xvid/Divx instead, because the quality drop using DVD spec. mpeg-2 is far too great for my liking.