IS THIS HOW LONG IT TAKES TO BURN DVD?

[Banji Abereoje]

Interesting folks!

Rising to the challenge of today? technology, leaving yester-year behind, and as I've also been enjoined in this forum leaving VCD, I decided to try out outputting my video to DVD. I've also tried to read some threads here on it.

But is this how long it takes to burn DVD? Or let me believe there's something I've not done right.

I just made a 2-min video. Or rather, I transferred a 2-mins clip out from my DV camcorder to PC using VS10+ and capturing as DVD with firewire, adding neither video effects nor any filter, maintaining all (the capture & burning) default settings thus:

NTSC drop frame (29.97)
Mpeg files
24 bits 720X480, 29.97
LFF
DVD NTSC 4:3

Burning this to DVD with just 4-thumbnail motion chapter menu, it took 20 mins 15 sec. Making another attempt, removing motion from the chapter menu, it took 13mins 40 sec. Although, the picture quality is better compare to VCD I'm used to.

My big fear is if I should now do my real one hour video, will this not take me even more a full day to just burn out a DVD?

For now, I use a DVD/RW so that I can re-use it after checking out the output. And here's my PC spec: P4 2.8ghz / 1gb ram / 120gb / Windows XP

Pls, I'll appreciate urgent assistance on what I?e not learnt to do or put in place.


BanjiA

[sjj1805]

There are various stages involved in the creation of a DVD or even a VCD
Each stage takes a certain amount of time to carry out its functions.

Stage 1. Rendering a video to MPEG2.
The amount of time taken here is determined by how long the video runs for.
Typically this can be 1.5 to 3 times the length of the video dependant upon various factors such as how powerful your computer is and your hardware set up. Working with an internal hard drive will be faster than an external drive. How much editing has been done - very little editing is likely to render faster than a piece of film containing several overlay tracks, Titles, Sound effects. Video Filters and so on. If the video is already in MPEG2 then you may find rendering time can be made faster by utilising smart render.

The forum recommendation is to create this MPEG2 file directly after editing and before moving on to the authoring stage.

Stage 2. Authoring.
This is where the DVD menus are created.
This can take a short time or a considerable amount of time dependant upon how many menu "pages" need to be created, the style of the menus.
Text only menus require very little work and will create quite quickly.
Thumbnail menus take longer because each thumbnail has to be created,
Motion thumbnails longer still. I have previously created a post concerning this: Why do Smartscene menus take so long to create?

Stage 3. Burning.
The actual burning of the completed DVD onto a DVD disc. Here you will see phrases like DVD 4X or DVD 8X etc. the higher the *x the faster it burns. HOWEVER the forum recommendation is to burn at 4X (or whatever is closest available) because SOME stand alone DVD players are unable to read discs burned at higher speeds.

[Ken Berry]

I transferred a 2-mins clip out from my DV camcorder to PC using VS10+ and capturing as DVD with firewire

We recommend capturing to DV format, rather than in DVD format, particularly if you intend to edit the video. I realise in this case you were just testing, and didn't do any editing. But if you capture longer amounts of video and edit them, it is far better to capture in DV format. DV is an editable format whereas DVD/mpeg-2 can be difficult to edit. You convert to DVD format when you finish editing.

And just to add a little to Steve's already excellent explanation, in the burning phase, Video Studio has to first convert your menu to video format, and this will obvioiusly take time. As Steve said, less if you are using a simple, text only menu and more (sometimes a lot more) if it is a complex menu. Then it has to multiplex all the video and audio, and then actually do the burn.

Burn times for the actual burning to disc (not including menu conversion and multiplexing) are fairly predictable for all burners, computers and discs, and relates almost exclusively to the burn speed selected. For instance, I usually burn my video DVDs at 4x speed. And all of my 7 or 8 DVD burners take roughtly the same time to burn a single layer DVD with an hour of video, and that is 13 - 14 minutes. That will be correspondingly be shorter if you use higher burn speeds. However, remember that we recommend keeping burning speeds relatively low.

In my experience, the total burning speed, including menu conversion and multiplexing, is around 25 - 27 minutes for a full, single layer DVD at 4x.

By the way, you might want to revise your System button since the details there are different from the ones you give in your last post above.

[Banji Abereoje]

I transferred a 2-mins clip out from my DV camcorder to PC using VS10+ and capturing as DVD with firewire

We recommend capturing to DV format, rather than in DVD format, particularly if you intend to edit the video....

Burn times for the actual burning to disc (not including menu conversion and multiplexing) are fairly predictable for all burners, computers and discs, and relates almost exclusively to the burn speed selected. For instance, I usually burn my video DVDs at 4x speed. And all of my 7 or 8 DVD burners take roughtly the same time to burn a single layer DVD with an hour of video, and that is 13 - 14 minutes.... remember that we recommend keeping burning speeds relatively low.

In my experience, the total burning speed, including menu conversion and multiplexing, is around 25 - 27 minutes for a full, single layer DVD at 4x.
.

Hi (Steve & Ken),

Thanks a lot for your response. I really took my time, experimenting some things before I come up with this again.

Meanwhile, I can deduce from your contributions that it’s better to first capture as DV, then proceed to make Mpeg2 (DVD format). Pls, let me get some things right.

After capturing to DV and getting done with all my editing,

1. Is it that I’ll now “Create a Video File” selecting (NTSC {MPEG2 720x480 29.97 fps} from the drop down list of different formats? And after finish rendering, I then proceed to DVD authoring?

2. If the above is yes, then, pls what difference does it make if my initial Project settings is

NTSC drop frame (29.97)
Mpeg files
24 bits 720X480, 29.97
LFF
DVD NTSC 4:3

And I capture a video to my Library in DV format, getting it down to the Timeline, being prompted if “ … you want to change your project settings to match the video’s properties so VS can perform SmartRender?” and I select NO. Now Creating a Video File, I select “Same as Project settings”?

3. If no. 1 above is true, then how come the video first renders at conversion from DV to Mpeg2 (this is while Creating Video File) and it renders another long time the same (already rendered) file at DVD authoring?

For example, I used another 2-mins video captured as DV AVI from my DV camcorder. I made an Mpeg2 file of it, still adding neither video effects nor any filter.
This got converted (rendered) in 6.45mins.
Authoring to DVD to output to DVD?RW still took another 13.20mins. Totalling about 20mins+ in all: which is not different from my initial experience.

3. Then, if at Capture, my Capture Options are set to Mpeg2, does it make a difference?

4. I noticed that with DVD/RW disc, my burner only writes at speed of 2x even when maximum burn speed is selected. Is a standard that all DVD/RW discs can only optimally burn at 2x and only DVD/R can burn at 4x? Is this writing speed a function of the burner or the standard for either DVD?RW or DVD/R discs? I have never written any DVD disc, anyway.

Attn: Ken.
I am highly fascinated by your clue that your average total burning speed, including menu conversion and multiplexing, is around 25 - 27 minutes for a full, single layer DVD at 4x. This is interesting! Pls how do you get this done (and what is your system spec)? Because even Steve maintained that “ … typically this can be 1.5 to 3 times the length of the video dependant upon various factors…’. Is this really a function of your PC/system spec.?

Pls, guys, your further explanation/clarification on all these will make me (us) better.

[Ken Berry]

1. Just to be safe, instead of selecting Share > Create Video File > NTSC MPEG-2, select 'NTSC DVD' instead. There are formats of mpeg-2 which do not conform to the international DVD standard but if you select 'DVD', then you are sure to have properties which are fully DVD compliant. If you chose 'MPEG-2' instead, this could account for a re-render in the authoring step, but see further comment below.

2. Again, to keep things simple, it is better to have your project properties match the incoming DV properties rather than set at that stage to your eventual mpeg-2 properties. But that is just a personal preference and also possibly wise for a user who is not widely experienced yet in burning DVDs i.e. you! The Project Properties you list seem fine as they go, but the problem is that you have not specified what bitrate you are using or the audio format. If you set the Project Properties instead to DV, then you won't have to worry about this at all during the editing process. You will only have to worry about it once -- when you convert the DV to DVD-compatible mpeg-2 after all editing has been done.

3. Setting Project Properties to mpeg-2 is NOT the same as capturing to mpeg-2. No conversion occurs unless you have set the capture format to DVD instead of DV. But I would not recommend that as it is extremely demanding of computer resources, and for people who don't have a particularly powerful computer, it is a jerky process which often simply stops altogether. Capturing in DV format is far easier as the computer really has to do no work except transfer the video from the camera to the computer using its original properties.

Using our suggested workflow, you only convert to mpeg-2 (using the DVD setting) after editing in DV format is finished. When you select DVD as the format, check what its properties are. In particular, make sure it uses Lower Field First. You will also have to decide how much video you want to fit on a DVD, and that in turn affects the final quality of the DVD. And the key factor here is bitrate. For a high quality DVD, you would need to use a bit rate of around 8000 kbps, but that will only allow you to burn around an hour of video to a single layer DVD, or about 10 minutes more if you use one of the compressed audio formats like Dolby or mpeg layer 2 (which produce smaller files and so leave more room on the DVD for video). Using a lower bitrates allows more video to be burned on a DVD (6000 kbps -- 90 minutes; 4000 kbps -- 2 hours). However, quality falls off the lower the bitrate you use.

Once you have your DVD-compliant mpeg-2, save your project, then open a new one. Don't worry about a name for it -- the objective is just to clear the timeline. If the project is left in the timeline, and you then open the burning module, the project file will be automatically inserted in the burning timeline, and that is something we advise against. (Some people do it all the time successfully -- but if you do it that way, you don't need to do the conversion after the editing, as the conversion will be done as part of the burning process. However, again for those who have less powerful computers, this is often demanding too much of the computer and sometimes they refuse to do it!)

Anyway, following our workflow, you go to Share > Create Disc, insert your new mpeg-2 manually into the burning timeline, make your menu and burn. A very important thing, though, is to make sure 'do not convert compliant mpeg files' is ticked in the middle of the three icons in the bottom left of the burning screen. You should not have to adjust any of the properties in the burn module. That way the program will see your mpeg-2 is already fully DVD compliant, and will not carry out a further conversion during the burning process (which would result in a lowering in quality). If, however, that box is not converted, then you need to look at the properties in the window above the box and adjust them to match EXACTLY the properties of your mpeg-2.

If the properties in the window are different and the 'do not convert' box is not ticked, then VS will burn using those new properties, and thus a further reconversion of the video take place, both adding time to the overall process and also lowering the quality.

3(bis). You have numbered two questions with number 3. The second one I have in any case already covered above. Capturing direct to mpeg-2 is often too demanding, and capturing to DV is preferred. Moreover, mpeg-2 is not really a format which should be edited very much, whereas DV is very easy to edit with no problems.

4. RW discs don't have very high speeds. I have some which only have a maximum burn speed (on the disc case) of 2x. Some I have go up to 4x. There may be higher speeds these days, though I have none that do. In fact, just last night I burned a project to a 4x +RW disc, but I only used a burn speed of 2x.

If the disc you used is only rated to burn at 2x, and you set 'maximum speed', then the burner looks at the disc and tells itself the 'maximum speed' is 2x. Simple as that. +R/-R (once only) discs, on the other hand currently run up to 20x or even 22x burn speeds. Of course you have to have a burner which will burn at such speeds. But as I said, we recommend you burn at a lower speed. The faster burners these days won't go as low as 4x when using high speed rated discs. If you are using a 16x disc, for example, the burner might go as low as 6x, so choose that or at most 8x. The idea is not to get a fixed idea that you can *only* burn at 4x. Some people always burn at the top rated speed for the disc. However, quite a few of us here think that burning at a slower speed allows the burning laser more time to better embed the signal into the disc it is burning; and with a firmer embedded signal, then a wider variety of DVD players should be able to read it later...

As for your final note to me: following the above workflow, no further conversion of your original video will occur if you first convert it to mpeg-2 after editing and you use fully DVD compatible properties for that, and the do not convert box is ticked in the burning module. Then, as you are now aware, in the burning module the only things that will occur once you press the Burn button, will be that the menu is first converted to video format, all the video and audio will be multiplexed (which is part of any video DVD process) and then the actual burning to disc will occur.

Now the time for menu conversion will vary according to both the complexity of the menu you built AND your computer resources. A less powerful computer will take longer for menu conversion. The multiplexing will also depend on your computer resources, and again will take longer on a less powerful computer.

But the point I made about the actual burning is that the time it takes seems to be totally independent of computer resources, and depends totally on the burning speed you chose and to a very minor extent on the burner itself. And I stress once again, no conversion of the main video itself should occur again in the burning process if you follow our workflow. The figure I gave for my own burning of a full DVD at 4x included a fixed rate of around 14 minutes for the actual burn, regardless of the burner used. And 11 - 13 minutes for the menu conversion and multiplexing, the discrepancy between 11 and 13 depending on the complexity of the menu I have built, plus of course my computer resources, of which I have plenty. My system details are where they have always been, in my System button below.

What Steve said was slightly different to the way you read it. He was talking about conversion times for the mpeg-2. My old P4 3.0 GHz and 2 GB RAM used to take between 1.1 and 1.25 times real time for the conversion from DV to mpeg-2. My new one takes much less than real time. Given that there is a huge variety of computers out there, Steve was suggesting that the conversion time for an 'average' could typically be anywhere between 1.5 to 3 times real time. And for less powerful computers, it could sometimes even be a lot more than that...

Anyway, I hope all that helps!