How to burn a project on single DVD measuring 4 DV Tapes

KYS · Post by **KYS** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 1:44 am

Hi,

I am using VS10 and want to capture/edit and finally burn videos on 4 mini DV tapes to single DVD. How to compress the videos to be accommodated on a single DVD?

Thanks.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 2:20 am

Do you want *all* of the video on these 4 tapes to be burned to a single DVD? If so, that is 4 hours of video. While this is possible, the end video is likely to be very poor quality, and in my opinion, not really worth the effort.

The DV would, after any editing that you do, need to be converted to DVD-compatible mpeg-2. You can burn one hour of high quality video using high quality LPCM audio to a single layer DVD using a bitrate of 8000 kbps. The end result should be excellent. You could fit another 10 minutes or so of video on the disc if you used a compressed audio format like Dolby or mpeg layer 2 audio. Similarly, you can fit around 90 minutes or a little more on the same disc if you reduce the bitrate (and thus the quality) to around 6000 kbps, though the quality still should be quite good. Two hours would require a bitrate of around 4000 kbps and the end quality would be average. Below that bitrate, the quality falls off rapidly.

You could (roughly) almost double the quantity of video if you used a dual layer disc. In other words, you could fit 4 hours on one using 4000 kbps, for an average quality -- but still quite watchable -- product.

Why is it essential to have the content of 4 tapes on one DVD?

KYS · Post by **KYS** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:52 am

Dear Ken,

Thanks for your reply. I think your advise is great, regarding deterioration of video quality if too much compressed. OK, I will get it done on seperate DVDs.

Acutally, I want to share a family wedding video with many family members and I thought it would be convenient for everyone to have all the videos on single DVD.

Post by **Ron P.** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 12:02 pm

Editing home videos can be real tough. Editing is where you take hours and hours of camcorder footage, and cut it down to say just 1 hour. A great aspect about editing is that you can use the same "raw" footage, to create several different versions of your DVDs.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 1:20 pm

And with great respect, I can't imagine anyone -- even the bride and groom -- ever wanting to sit through 4 hours of a wedding which, even with the party afterwards, probably didn't last much longer than that!!! But if you want, as Ron suggested, you can give the bride and groom all four hours on 2 or 4 separate DVDs. And the guests can get a 'highlights' DVD with just 1 hour on it...

KYS · Post by **KYS** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 1:12 pm

Thank you both of you, your suggestions are very much practical.