2 hours of Video - 1 DVD

[rjmchugh]

I have about 2 1/2 hours worth of captured DV video in AVI format which I'm attempting to edit and burn to a DVD. The amount of video after editing will be around 2 1/2 hours worth. As expected it produced a huge mpg file (10gig), too big to burn to a standard DVD. I'm looking for suggestion on how to get this onto one DVD, while keeping the best quality. I've seen talk about the bit rate, but I'm not sure where to start? Is this just trial and error with the numbers? Any suggestions???

[Ken Berry]

The best quality option is to "burn" a DVD Folder on the final page of the burning module. You will of course get error messages telling you the file is too large, so you will need to ignore them. VS will produce a Video_TS folder (an exact copy of what will be on a final video DVD) in your working folder. Then you would use a third party program like DVD Shrink or Nero Recode, point it at the Video_TS folder, and it will reduce it to fit onto a single layer DVD. Or it should.

My worry here is that your original mpeg-2 is over the limit of even a dual layer DVD so both Shrink and Recode might baulk at that. In that case, I would get them to create another DVD Folder which still be too large for a single layer DVD, and then apply Shrink or Recode to that new folder, which will certainly reduce it to fit. Both programs use algorithms which preserve high quality in very reduced form. VS itself has a 'reduce to fit' plug-in, but it only seems to work if you want to reduce the project by a very small amount.

Otherwise, yes, you need to reduce the bitrate when converting your DV project to DVD-compatible mpeg-2. For a project that size, you would need to use a bitrate of down around 4000 and Dolby or mpeg layer 2 audio. However, the quality is likely to be only average, which is the trade-off you pay when you want to fit so much on a single layer DVD...

Make sure also that in the conversion, you maintain the same Field Order as the original DV, which is Lower Field First.

The final option would be to create 2 DVDs out of your project. You would need to split the original into two at some appropriate point where a cut would not be obvious. Then save each half as a separate project. Each would be roughly 1 hour 15 minutes long, and with that you could fit each half on a single layer DVD using a good quality bitrate like 6500 or 7000 kbps if you also used Dolby or mpeg layer 2 audio

[DVDDoug]

Just to re-emphasize... File size depends on the (combined audio & video) bitrate and the playing time.

Here is a handy online Bitrate Calculator.

Quoting myself

Higher bitrate = higher quality = bigger file size = lower compression = less playing time.

Lower bitrate = lower quality = smaller file size = higher compression = more playing time.

A good "rule-of-thumb" is 90 minutes per (single-layer) DVD.