BURNING DVD AND SIZE PROBLEMS

GreenHorn wrote on 9/12/2006, 5:21 AM
the avi file i used from my dv was 13 gb big and one hour long.in architec 3.0 the option to "fit to disc " was used.now at 4.5 gb on dvd the qaulity is what im not happy with.is there a best format to render your .avi to before burning to dvd because even others are still bigger than 4.7 gb.how in the world does a movie we buy have two hours of good qaulity on a dvd , whats the trick and when will we see a disc greater than 4.7 gb?

Comments

rustier wrote on 9/12/2006, 7:20 AM
I believe these are some differences:
commercial dvd's are pressed not burned
"commercial" compression tools are more efficient -and expensive
double layer discs are "bigger" in capacity

I believe VMS platinum supports double layer dvds - and if you have a dvd burner that supports this you can try that - keep in mind that not all DL media is the same, and make sure your DVD player supports DL. If you search this forum - keyword - double layer you should find more info and a link talking about the types of media (blank dvd discs) you can purchase

The other option is to make it a two part video
stevec5375 wrote on 9/12/2006, 10:33 AM

You might try Nero Recode at www.nero.com
GreenHorn wrote on 9/12/2006, 6:32 PM
to the gentleman that told me to try recode .i have nero already what exactly do you mean to recode? i am making these videos myself in vegas and then to architect 3.0.do you mean create or "prepare" to the larger file and then recode?
ScottW wrote on 9/13/2006, 7:56 AM
1 hour of video should fit fine on a DVD withouth resorting to DL media or other extremes. Can you be more specific about how you are viewing the resulting DVD and what you are not happy with? For example, viewing the DVD on a computer could result in less than acceptable quality when compared to viewing the same DVD on your TV w/set-top player.

If you are going to use "Fit to Disk" then the best format to render to is NTSC (or PAL is you live in PALland) DV AVI.

The biggest thing with Hollywood movies is the quality of the source material. Next is the quality of the encoders used to create the MPEG-2 video, and more often the fact that they use encoders which can do multiple passes and allow tweaking of problematic sections. Lastly is the fact that most, if not all commercially stamped disks are double layer, so they have twice as much room to store material.

--Scott
GreenHorn wrote on 9/13/2006, 11:41 AM
initially i started out by saying it was an avi format right off of my mini dv.its size was 13gb then it was inserted in 3.0 and 3.0 architect said it was too big for the dvd.on the mini dv it was an hour of footage.my question is do i have to render into another format first then import into 3.0?but watever format i choose it is still too big so i have to "fit to disc". the initial .avi looked good but when i fit to disc it looked very bad.
stevec5375 wrote on 9/13/2006, 3:00 PM
The bottom line is this:

.avi files are raw video without any compression applied to them. Thus, their huge size.

In order to get the huge .avi files to fit on a single-layer 4.7GB DVD, some sort of compression must happen.

Obviously, there is no way your 13GB .avi file will fit on a 4.7GB single-layer DVD. When you say that you "only recorded an hour's worth of video" that does not mean that it will fit on one DVD unless it is compressed.

The "Fit to Disk" option is doing compression. When compression is done, unless it is "lossless" compression, you will see image quality degrade.

Not being a video expert, I don't even know if there is such a thing as "lossless" compression for video. Audio has it.
ScottW wrote on 9/13/2006, 6:59 PM
If you'll forgive the intrusion, that's not entirely correct. AVI files are simply a container and can have virtually anything in them, all the way from uncompressed to MPEG-2 video (or more). DV AVI, which is what is usually worked with (and also fits the 13GB/hour "footprint" that was described) is compressed video. One hour of uncompressed video would have would have been about 65GB in size.

You are correct in saying that a lot more compression must happen before the video can get on a DVD.

--Scott
stevec5375 wrote on 9/14/2006, 4:23 AM
I stand corrected. Thanks for setting the record straight. I just "assumed" that .avi files were uncompressed. :\
GreenHorn wrote on 9/15/2006, 3:06 PM
thank you for your replies.i have more understanding on the issue and will research further into the best format for dvd.also i have a dual layer burner but not sure how to burn bigger files on to it. but it is a good thing i can communicate with a group who as a whole is knowledgeable