Bitrate and filesize - what am I doing wrong?

[PhatRabbit]

Here's the deal:

I've got 2 divx files of approx. 43 minutes length each (actually both are a couple of seconds shorter) which I want to burn to one 80 min cd.
I converted these to XVCD at the bitrate supplied by http://www.vcdhelper.com/calc.htm:
I typed 86 in the "Video Min"-box, left the audio bitrate to the default 224, 1 x 80 cd and ofcourse XVCD for type.
The calculated bitrate was 1011.
TMPGEnc settings: loaded VCD (PAL) template (unlocked it), I kept resolution+framerate at the detected values (320x240/29.97), changed bitrate 1011 and motion search to high.
Result after 6 hours of conversion:
2 mpg's (438.528 KB and 438.914 kb).
Fired up Nero and selected VideoCD.
Added the mpg's (Nero complained about compliance - dismissed it).
Compilation info showed 774.977 KB as size.
Tried to burn - Nero refused. "Insufficient capacity" insert other cd...

Where did I go wrong?

[KingJohn]

"Tried to burn - Nero refused. "Insufficient capacity" insert other cd..."

=Insufficient capacity (No room) insert a disk with larger capacity.........................XX

[PhatRabbit]

Letmeinforgodsake, there actually was an introduction to the statement you quoted...
I'd suggest reading that first before you press the submit button.

Perhaps I haven't made myself clear.
I'm trying to fit 86 min. of video on a 80 min. CD.
One has to fiddle with the bitrate in order to accomplish that.
My problem is that Nero doesn't feel like burning even if the compilation info (774.977 KB size) suggests it should.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[KingJohn]

No matter what you said before, if Nero says there is not enough room then there is not enough room.

YOU NEED TO MAKE THE MPEG SMALLER TO FIT THE CD

"One has to fiddle with the bitrate in order to accomplish that."

do some more fiddling then

[PhatRabbit]

"YOU NEED TO MAKE THE MPEG SMALLER TO FIT THE CD"

Looks like you need some more sleep or something. Excessive use of CAPS is usually preceded by irritation which is more easily triggered when you suffer from sleep deprivation.

Sure, what you say makes complete sense. Any child could come up with a similar solution however. I was merely looking for an explanation of the fact that a - seemingly - correct bitrate value results in filesizes too large to fit on a 80 min. cdr.

"do some more fiddling then"

Then what's the point in using a bitrate calculator which should produce the correct values to input in e.g. TMPGEnc?
The whole concept of bitrate calculators is to eliminate the time-consuming "bitrate fiddling process" (BFP©), no?
As far as I'm concerned I did use the correct variables for 86 min. of video to fit on a 80 min. cdr.

Could it be the cd itself? Cause I heard cdr capacities could vary between different brands/types. Nero reports 79:57.74 (702MB) for Total Capacity. A typical 80 min. cd is supposed to hold 800MB of audio/video, isn't it?
Perhaps I should have taken a 2 min. safety boundary at the bitrate calculation.

[PimpInDaHouse]

80 min. CDrs hold 700mb I think there isn't enough room on the disk. And letmeinforgodsake take it easy the guy is new don't get hard with him.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: PimpInDaHouse on 2001-09-03 15:16:39 ]</font>

[KingJohn]

Ok I had some sleep... 20 seconds...

Hi

Did you allow for the files and folders that also go on the CD ?, its not much but a few Kbs over and its not going to fit.

You could be right about the CD brands, Quite a lot of the good quality ones are used for over burn, but at the end of the day I would say they all should let the program know exactly what size they are. If you try to produce disks so close to the size then Its touch and go if it will work.

I'm sure you did get the calculations right, But the end result was an over size file, I can only guess that the calculations were so close they were not accurate enough. Rather than degrade the movie, cant you chop a little out ? Or use 90 Minuet disks, but think of them as 80 minuet disks, that way you should get the movie on.

Most people put them on 2 disks, if the movie is worth having and keeping then its not worth making a poor quality video or chopping any out.

[KingJohn]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
And letmeinforgodsake take it easy the guy is new don't get hard with him.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Sorry, text does not really put forward any emotion. I was not really having a go at anyone. I guess the quick answer was out of order so I apologize.

Better get some sleep though

[PhatRabbit]

"80 min. CDrs hold 700mb"

True but in this case I think it doesn't apply: the 700MB is only relevant when burning data-cd's which use error-correction.
Videocd's don't use error-correction which increases the amount of available diskspace.
I've read this somewhere when searching the forum.

"take it easy"

I don't blame letmeinforgodsake for snapping .
Let's face it: newbie coming in asking stupid questions that have obvious answers which have been given a zillion times. So it seems on the surface. Irritation kicks in and SNAP!
In this case I think my problem is a more peculiar one.
Bitrate parameters all set to fit 86 min. on 80 min cd and Nero simply refuses to burn.
It's just frustrating to have done everything right and still fail at the last step.

[PhatRabbit]

"Did you allow for the files and folders that also go on the CD ?, its not much but a few Kbs over and its not going to fit."

There really isn't much choice in burning those folders or not. Right clicking the folders all showed greyed out delete options. I unchecked "Use CD-i application" which did shave off 1.5MB or so. Nero still wouldn't burn though.
BTW I'm not looking for optimized quality - I just want to fit two Voyager eps on one cd.

[KingJohn]

I used Nero "Once" and it said there was not enough room

So Now I use Easy Cd Creator, but only make VCD compliant disks. I give up spending hours trying to fit them on one disk. Well I don't know about you but I use to lay awake at night worrying that there was so much room left on a cd (Wasted space)

Well I tell you it got so bad I had to go see a head shrink, but he said to me "How much do those cd's cost" Well I had to think about it a while but realized what he was saying...

I have even found an automatic disk change, I shout the misses and say "Change the cd" I tell you it works very well. So don't lay awake worrying about bit rates and chopping out the bit where the lance is about to knock the prince off the horse.

We will rock you

[PhatRabbit]

It's too late for me. I've already gone insane ever since I layed (laid?) my hands on the very first pc we got: an XT.
From then on, I tried to optimize every pc we got in terms of performance, speed and ofcourse diskspace usage. It kills me knowing that there's so much wasted space on the cd I just burned Not having an "automatic disk change" is another reason for my ongoing quest for optimization.

I think I'm gonna follow my own advice here and add like a 2 min. safety boundary when calculating bitrates.
Sure this means I'm not gonna utilize the cd to its full capacity - I'll just try to live with that fact.

[AnnihilatorTokyo]

A little off-topic;

PhatRabbit, how can you sleep knowing that your hdd are having 4k (assume it's 4) clusters, and a 1k file takes up a whole cluster? 3k wasted you never can get back. Must be hard on you!!

I used to put smaller movies on the same CD just to fill the disc, but at $1 per CD-R, I don't care anymore. Using CD-RW for shows I'm only going to watch once.

[RoopeT]

774.977 KB < 800 Mb, so Nero should let you burn this on a 80 min CD, if you burn it as VCD (80 min = 700 Mb data = 800 Mb mpg). However, 2 mpg's (438.528 KB + 438.914 kb =~ 878 Mb), which is not going to fit on 80 min CD).

You can re-encode just the audio at lower bitrate, then demultiplex the mpgs and multiplex with the lower bitrate audio to reduse the filesize

[PhatRabbit]

"how can you sleep..."

I'm a freakin' insomniac .

Some weird sh*t:

This time I filled in 88 min. (instead of 86 - the actual length of the divxs) in the calculator. This gave me a lower bitrate to work with: 983. So I ran TMGEnc and only changed the bitrate. I figured that I should get smaller files right? Wrong.
The resulting mpgs were 438.528 KB (which is exactly the same as the mpg at 1011) and 438.919 KB (5 KB LARGER than the mpg at 1011).
I must be stoned or something cause I can't see the logic in this. Perhaps I should get some more sleep too.

[KingJohn]

Hi

Ok I have found a solution to wasted space on cdr's.

When you have burned the disk you can view it and will notice where the burn has ended.

Now you need to be careful here as a few wrong moves could make the cd un usable. What you need to do is get an hacksaw and a small fine file. First you cut away the unused potion of the disk with the hacksaw, "but not too close".

Next use the fine file, and file up to (But not touching) the last track.

The finish product is now a full disk (No room left), you can now boast to everyone that "All your disks" are full up with "NO" room on them.

Disclaimer:
Nothing contained in this post should be regarded as being 100% accurate. Any information given has been given "As is" no responsibility will be taken for anyone trying this out and damaging the disk rendering it useless. You have been warned.