I have over 60 minutes of video and don't want to compress....

Sticky Fingaz wrote on 11/19/2003, 10:52 PM

Hi. I have about 70 minutes of music videos I am trying to put on DVD. I put CD audio sound from my original CD's to the videos so they sound great. PCM sounds the best for this, however it makes it impossible to fit over 60 minutes without compression to the videos kicking in. I DO NOT want that to happen.

I would love to just choose 5.1, however as an owner of a surround sound system, there is nothing I hate more than music video DVD's that do not allow me to use "All Channel Stereo". My receiver will play all speakers evenly, if the sound is PCM. However if I encode to Dolby to save some space, my receiver automatically kicks in Dolby Digital mode and I cannot get out of it. Dolby Digital does NOT sound good for my music CD's spliced into the videos.

Is there any audio method I can use to compress it a bit with still being able to choose my lovely "All Channel Stereo" ? Keep in mind I want this to be compatable with ANY DVD player I ever throw it in (that plays DVD-R's of course) so some weird audio compression that isn't 100% supported would not be of help to me. Any help anyone can give would be GREATLY appreciated!

Comments

clearvu wrote on 11/20/2003, 4:11 AM

Have you tried fiddling with the bitrate settings for video? If it's lowered a bit, you can gain more room for audio and not notice the degration of video quality.

Keep in mind, however, that DVDA will end up recompressing the video which will take a long time.

Sticky Fingaz wrote on 11/20/2003, 5:55 AM

My source video is DV, so it is recompressing video anyway. I don't mind waiting.
However I would rather compress audio a bit than video. DVD Worskshop allows me to use mpeg audio and save it like a 192kbps quality sound which I'd be more than happy with. Why is this option not available in DVD architect?

jetdv wrote on 11/20/2003, 6:31 AM

Why is MPEG2 audio not an option? Because it is NOT a part of the NTSC DVD Spec.

Sticky Fingaz wrote on 11/20/2003, 2:51 PM

I understand that. What I want to know if there is ANY, ANY AT ALL compatability problems with any DVD players if I choose to go with MPEG audio? I'd personally rather have the audio compressed to 192kbps MP3 quality (which my ears can't tell the difference from a regular CD) than compressing the video which I'd notice right away.

Thanks and please someone let me know.

nolonemo wrote on 11/20/2003, 6:47 PM

Virtually every relatively new DVD player will handle MPEG audio fine.

Softcorps wrote on 11/20/2003, 7:48 PM

Yes, most newer NTSC DVD players will play MPEG audio, but all NTSC DVD players are only required to play PCM and AC3, MPEG audio is optional.

Have you tried using Vegas to compress your audio to stereo AC3? I do all my music stuff at 256k AC3 stereo and it sounds great. DVD Architect won't allow you to mess with the AC3 parameters, but Vegas will. When you go to "Render As" in Vegas and select "AC3" as your output format, choose "Stereo DVD" as your template and go to "Custom", change the bitrate in the first tab, then go to the "Advanced" tab and where it says "Film: Standard" change both of them to "none." This will prevent the AC3 encoder from messing with your audio levels. You might want to save this as a new template.

James

PeterWright wrote on 11/21/2003, 1:56 AM

Without worrying about the audio too much (AC3 can sound fantastic),70 mins fitted into 4.3 Gb should look fine - remember, you can't avoid compressing - that's what MPEG2 is all about. The fact that you have to move the bitrate slider a little will be extremely hard to detect.

I have done a project with 35 minutes of full 720 x 576 DVD quality MPEG 2 on a CD (A "MiniDVD") - less than 650 Mb. Most video had a fairly plain background, which helped, but try it and see what it looks like.