Is it possible to fit 10+ hours of video on 1 DVD disk?

[gators1995]

Hi. For a school project, I'm trying to fit a bunch of videos (60 to be exact) onto one DVD disk using Corel Movie Factory 7. The original videos are in avi format and there are about 10 hours worth total, taking up about 28GB. I also have converted them into mp4 and mp2 format. I have at my disposal both 4.7GB and 8.5GB disks. Nothing seems to work though and the videos won't fit. Yes, I could go to 2 or more disks, but the disk(s) might have to be copied and sent to a bunch of other students. In other words, fitting them on 1 disk is great, more than 1 disk, not so good.

Can this be done? By the way, when I convert the videos to mp4 format, they take up less than 1GB and play great in my Sony PS3 and Blu-Ray player, but the professor I'm creating these videos for doesn't have a Blu-Ray. Thus, I am stuck with the DVD format.

If it can't be done, I'll either go with the multi-disk approach or tell him to buy a blu-ray player.

Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated. Thanks!

[Ken Berry]

I think all up you are merely creating a rod to beat your own back with! If you are talking about an actual video DVD like the ones you buy with commercial movies on it or rent from DVD rental stores, then the format has to be mpeg-2 by international standard. Then there is the question of bitrate, and thus quality. With mpeg-2, a bitrate of 4000 kbps will allow about 2 hours of video to be burned to a single layer DVD and 4 hours on a dual layer DVD. The quality will be around the same as a VHS tape. You can squeeze in more video by lowering the bitrate but the quality then drops off dramatically. With a single layer disc, it would simply not be worth your trouble to try to squeeze 10 hours onto it as the bitrate would be down around 1000 or 1500 kbps and the quality essentially unwatchable. You could do it on a dual layer disc by dropping the bitrate to around 3000 kbps or lower, but the quality still wouldn't be good.

And if you're thinking about those DVDs you've seen in shops that have 5 or 6 Hollywood hits from the past squeezed onto them, they are produced by pressing after the video has been processed through programs and equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars in order to squeeze every last possibility of space and quality out of them.

The only other option would be to create a DivX disc using either the DivX or XVid codecs. Your avi originals are probably already in that format, and just about all DVD and Blu-Ray players can also play DivX movies when they are detected on a disc in that format. But even there, while it could notionally be a bit better than the mpeg-2 route, you would be having to drop the DivX quality standard down to where the end result will barely be watchable. And you will be aware that DivX/XVid videos are very prone to pixellation and other distortion artifacts when their bitrate is dropped too much.

So overall I think the option of 2 or more discs is looking the most viable...

[teknisyan]

Aside from the suggestion of Ken Berry, you can also go to just distributing the video file, like what you said... videos are in mp4 format, they take up less than 1GB. You just need to tell your professor to play them using a computer, since there are still room to spare on a DVD, you can just include the installer of a video player, just incase the computer of your professor doesn't have one. You can either download freeware like VLC or GOM player.

[DVDDoug]

And, don't forget that the audio takes-up some space too! Don't use LPCM audio!

With compressed Dolby AC3 you can lower the audio-bitrate. But, with uncompressed LPCM you run into a brick wall. If I've done my calculations correctly, 10 hours of LPCM audio takes about 6.6MB. It simply won't fit on a single-layer disc, and it doesn't leave much room for video on a dual-layer disc.