> Bitrate calculators are your friend.

Or... just render to AVI and drop it into DVD Architect and it will do all the hard work for you and fit it to the disc.

~jr

I have done a lot of testing with Marks Bitrate Calculator and am generally unhappy with the results.

I get my best results by frameserving to Procoder 3 with Procoder set to render at a CBR of between 8000 kb/s and 8500 kb/s. Either an m2v or an m2p with no audio. I render the ac3 in Vegas.

I then use DVDA to master the DVD with the m2v or m2p and the ac3 audio file.

Then I use DVD Shrink to bring it down to size. It looks consistently better than any other method.

John

For a little more money, you can simply buy and burn double-density discs.

On a mass scale this might be an issue, but for a few - it's an easy solution.

I also used a third party converter that would shrink the DVD size - it's free software called DVD shrink.
It works - but expect to lose some quality in the process.

http://www.mrbass.org/dvdshrink/

"I get my best results by frameserving to Procoder 3 with Procoder set to render at a CBR of between 8000 kb/s and 8500 kb/s. Either an m2v or an m2p with no audio. I render the ac3 in Vegas."

John - are you saying you get that much better quality from Procoder vs. the Main Concept encoder in Vegas assuming the same CBR values? I have heard similar statements but haven't had an opportunity to test this myself.

John - are you saying you get that much better quality from Procoder vs. the Main Concept encoder in Vegas assuming the same CBR values? I have heard similar statements but haven't had an opportunity to test this myself.
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It gives me slightly cleaner video David. The VBR is noticeably better as well in my opinion. I have had it for a few years so I use it. I don't know if I would run out and buy it right now, but I got a really good deal on it back then. John Cline also uses it. I bought it through his recommendation in fact.

It also does other conversions very well such as wmv encodes. And the ON2 add on is nice.

I use Sorenson Squeeze for Quicktime and H264. That gives me a HUGE improvement over the way Vegas handles (or doesn't handle) Quicktime.

The difference I wanted to stress again is that after a lot of experimentation I get my best results rendering a file that is too large to fit on a DVD-5 using DVD Shrink to make it fit, and THAT gives me the best look. Vic is saying that he gets quality loss that way, but I guess you should try it to determine for yourself. DVD Shrink is free.

John

Or... just render to AVI and drop it into DVD Architect and it will do all the hard work for you and fit it to the disc.

+1

I also use DVDShrink with good results.

"I have done a lot of testing with Marks Bitrate Calculator and am generally unhappy with the results."

What kind of testing have you done and why have you been unhappy with the results?

T2Vegas, the filesize is determined exclusively by program length in minutes multiplied by the video and audio encoding bitrate. You can fill up a DVD with 70 minutes of video or you can fill it with four hours of video, it's all about the bitrate you use to encode the project.

"I have done a lot of testing with Marks Bitrate Calculator and am generally unhappy with the results."
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What kind of testing have you done and why have you been unhappy with the results?
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I don't like the VBR suggestions the calculator comes up with as well as the alternatives I use. I get better results if I either:

1. Frameserve to Procoder 3 and use some of the VBR templates I have saved determined by trial and error for given lengths (videos over 1 Hr 10 minutes)

2. Frameserve to Procoder 3 and use a CBR of 8000 to 8500 and then use DVD Shrink if I need to reduce the size of a video over 1 Hr 10 minutes.

It's not that the Calculator gives terrible VBR results. It's just that I find the above methods yield better results.

John

I have Mark's bitrate calc, but my go-to is the videohelp calc that is available as a download.

It's slightly conservative estimates are just right for my work (I try to keep the disc edges free of data), and using the estimate as the VBR average, with a 2Mbs minimum, gives excellent results.

I have DVD Shrink, but I never understood the logic of using it to do a second MPEG-2 encode, when I can get it right the first time.

musicvid, I've been using Mark's bitrate calc quite happily for years now.
What I did to make it more conservative was to increase the safety margin from 1% to 5%.

Mike