Lowest Quality for DVD?

meta · Post by **meta** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:42 am

I have 5 mpg files that are roughly 2.5Gb each and I would like to put them all on one DVD. By doing this the quality would obviously drop.

So what I'm wondering is what would be the lowest quality file type/size etc to put to DVD without loosing too much quality? and what's the best way to convert them?

thecoalman · Post by **thecoalman** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 11:01 am

First you need to determine what bitrate to use for video and audio, there's a calculator here.

http://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm

Once you know the bitrate you need to adjust the resolution appropriately. There's graph on this page that will give you an idea of the quality you can expect from different bitrates/resolutions.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/capture/avivsmpeg.htm

For example the quality of a 720x480 mpeg drops off drastically below 3500 to 4000kbps. So if you need to go below 4000 you will also want to use a lower resolution.

Realistically the lowest you can go is the VCD standard, anything below that and it becomes pretty much crap.

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 6:35 pm

You could encode using Half D1 / CIF resolution, which is roughly equivalent in quality to regular VHS tape.