How to manage size of output file to fit on SL-DVD

haithcom · Post by **haithcom** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 3:40 am

I have not found an option to encode to VOB format. Is there one?
Mpeg2 is ok I guess but when playing on a regular player you are unable to fast forward or rewind. Additionally I dont know what bit rate to encode with in order to fit on a SL-DVD.

Does anyone convert the mpeg2 files to VOB format?
Is one format better than the other?

Thanks

Post by **Ron P.** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:04 am

Hi Haithcom, welcome to the forums..

You can't encode to VOB format. The VOB files are essentially MPEG files. They are created in the Video_TS folders when you burn to your harddrive, or when you burn a disc, they are created on the disc.

To answer the last questions, everyone converts to VOB via burning to disc, , and they are the same, well MPEG2-Compliant DVD.

Regards..

Ron P.

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 11:05 pm

Quoting myself

The DVD standard does not set a fixed level of compression -

Higher bitrate = higher quality = lower compression = more disc space = less playing time.

Lower bitrate = lower quality = higher compression = less disc space = more playing time.

A good "rule-of-thumb" is 90 minutes per DVD. You can get that with a 6000k bitrate and Dolby AC3 audio. This bitrate is typical of commercal DVDs (The DVD spec allows bitrates up to about 9800k, audio & video combined)

When you squeeze more than 2 hours on a (single-layer) DVD, you start to see the video-quality degrade. You'll have to judge for yourself... There are lots of variables including the quality of the source video, the quality of your TV, and how critical you are.

Using compressed audio allows more room for more video or higher-quality video. If you live in the USA (or another NTSC country), your player must play LPCM (uncompressed) and Dolby AC3 audio. If you live in a PAL country, your player must play LPCM and MPEG-2 audio. (Players are not required to play MP3 audio.)

A Bitrate Calculator may help.

If you have a dual-layer DVD that you want to re-compress, or a VIDEO_TS file on your hard-drive that won't fit, you can use a nifty program called DVDshrink (FREE !!!).