How Many Minutes Per CD (VBR)

[MistaED]

I always use variable bitrate encoding, as I have learned from reading all of you guys' informative posts on this fine forum . My question is, how long would a movie have to be before the majority of you would divide into 3 80 minuted cd-r's instead of 2 80 minute cd-r's. As I stated earlier, I am using vbr encoding to maximize the amount I can fit on 1 cd.

[sterno]

It depends on what kind of content the movie has (how much action, how "busy" the scenes are) since some can be compressed more than others without unacceptable quality loss. It also depends on what you find to be acceptable. Personally, I find that it's best not to put more than about an hour on a CD, but for things that don't have too much action I've put as much as 80 minutes on one CD without any bad artifacting. And some people don't like to put more than about 45 minutes on a CD.

[LeeBear]

I think the answer depends on the individual, the type of movie, whether it's widescreen or fullscreen. Personally I find most movies that are 2 hours or less will fit nicely on 2 80min CD's with good quality if doing 4-pass VBR. Anything more then 2 hours I'd consider using another CD. This will depend on the type of movie it is, action movies often require more bits to get the same quality as a drama or talking movie. Widescreen movies when letterbox will also be easier to encode because you are basically encoding a 480x360 pixels as oppose to 480x480 (if using SVCD).

-LeeBear

[biggantdogg]

I use an average of 2350 to 2500kpbs 2pass for xvcd, and usually do 45min per cd. Picture quality is about as good as it gets on a vcd. (very clean, almost completely block free) Just depends on your likings.