need help with dvdflick

[shashgo]

im trying to burn a couple of video clips to dvd. The size of all the clips together is 4.56 GB, but dvdflick says I need to remove some titles or adjust the bitrate to get the whole thing to fit on a dvd disk. I dont mind removing some titles , but how can I find out how many I can leave in dvdflick so that they will fit on a dvd?

[orsetto]

I've been using DVDflick forever, but have never run into this problem. It doesn't have the most intuitive interface in the world, though, so I can see how some of its functions might seem obscure: aside from the normal functions I use all the time I haven't explored too deeply.

Off the top of my head, I'd guess maybe you're confusing the total GB size of the files with how much will actually fit on a converted DVD. It isn't the GB size of your source files but the total running time in minutes that DVDflick goes by. If you were simply backing up those files in their original form to a DVD-ROM using Windows, then you can fit about 4.5 GB on a DVD. Making a video DVD that plays on DVD players is somewhat different: simplistic one-touch software like DVDflick basically fits x minutes of video onto a DVD (regardless of the actual file sizes, aspect ratio, quality, etc. It just goes by the minutes).

In other words your 4.56GB worth of clips might run an hour, or 10 hours. Realistically, the most you can squeeze onto a DVD in minutes is about three hours, preferably less. You check the running time of each individual clip in the clip window, or look on the lower right corner of the DVDflick interface for the total running time of all clips. Remove however many clips will get you under three hours total, or check the colored bar graph on the left frame of the window. The bar should be yellow and under 98%, if it turns red DVDflick thinks it will make a terrible DVD and you have too much loaded.

I just now tried to make DVDflick tell me I need to remove or adjust, and it wouldn't do it even with 7 hours of source clips, it just dropped the bitrate lower and turned the bar red. But then I have it set to Auto Bitrate: in your case, click on the Project Settings tab, then click on the Video button, and see if you have Auto Bit Rate selected. If it isn't on Auto, DVDflick will refuse to do anything past the amount of video that would fit a DVD using the manual fixed bitrate selected in the Target Bitrate. On the Auto Bit Rate setting, it will drop the bit rate to whatever horrible level will fit all the clips in an oversized project.

In my own projects I tend to leave it on Auto to avoid too much fiddling, and just keep an eye on the total running time in the clip window. If the sources are high quality, I try to keep under two hours total. If they're the typical cruddy WMV, AVI or FLV files found online, I might go to four hours total because it wouldn't make a difference. A DVD running longer than four hours created this way could look awful on a TV. Another rough way to judge things is by the bitrate displayed under the total running time: if set on Auto Bitrate this readout will go up or down as you add and remove clips. I try not to let it go lower than 6000 on good material, or 3500 on large collections of poor-quality clips.

[shashgo]

orsetto,

thanks for the detailed post. I think thats where I was going wrong, thinking that 4.5 GB should be able to fit in dvd format onto a 4.7GB DVD. I guess its not the file lengths themselves that count like you said, but the total length of time, which is related to the encoded length when the video is encoded in dvd format. Okay I see what youre saying, Ill try it out tomorrow . thanks

[orsetto]

Yes, thats what I meant.

I forgot to mention a related problem that I run into a lot, and its REALLY annoying because there's no way to fix it that doesn't require a huge amount of work. A lot of files posted online as AVI or DiVX are not encoded correctly, especially those from Europe. Files coded using PAL instead of NTSC need to be done just right, or they aren't read correctly by software that creates NTSC dvds for North American use. Typically if they're "bad" your media player or DVDflick will show a totally wrong running time thats way, way off- a 23 minute clip will display a running time of 94 minutes, a two hour movie will display a six hour running time, etc. These are pretty much unusable in DVDflick because you can't make it understand that running time is wrong: if set to manual bitrate it will give the warning you saw, or under Auto Bitrate it will drop the bitrate so low you get a horrible DVD. I hate when this happens, but haven't found a simple way to fix such files- they're really only playable on the PC.

[shashgo]

well if i burn the iso onto the computer, and play it to verify that it plays fine, then Ill burn it to dvd disk, so its still okay.