Largest movie length for 4.7GB DVD?

HeeHee wrote on 6/9/2003, 9:47 PM
I'm just getting to put a large project on DVD for the first time. The project in Vegas is exactly 2 hours long. Is it possible to render a NTSC DVD compliant mpeg2 file to fit on a 4.7GB DVD? I used the default NTSC DVD format and it came out to be over 5GB. I heard somewhere else that 1.5hr is the limit, but wanted to confirm this.

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 6/9/2003, 9:57 PM
The size limt has nothing to due with project length, rather what bitrate you render at. So you can probably easily get 2 hours on a DVD but only IF you are willing to cut back on bitrate which of course will reduce quality. How much depends on how much you pull back.

If you have DVD-A it can automatically recompress. Otherwise you need to make a guess if you use the Variable bitrate or use a constant bitrate and be sure. There are several forulmas and much discussion always on this topic over at DVD/VCD help.
HeeHee wrote on 6/9/2003, 10:05 PM
This is a wedding video, so I don't want to sacrifice quality. I think, for now, I'm going to break up the movie into two 1 hour chunks and have a multi-DVD set.

However, I will look into the formulas at DVDhelp to get a better understanding. Up until now, I have done most everything for VHS and render to DV AVI before printing to tape.

Thanks for the tips BillyBoy.
kentwolf wrote on 6/9/2003, 11:27 PM
2 hours @ 94% compression (DVD-A) has worked very well for me.
HeeHee wrote on 6/9/2003, 11:50 PM
I don't have DVD-A. I use VV3 for capture/edit/render and Dazzle DVD Complete Deluxe for DVD authoring. I didn't have the extra cash to upgrade to Vegas4+DVD.

I found a good calculator, but it doesn't all transfer to Vegas/MC Mpeg2 custom render properties.
TorS wrote on 6/10/2003, 1:49 AM
I don't know if this holds true for the videos HeeHee makes, but as a general rule, cutting down a project (making it shorter) will in most cases improve its quality and may even bring it within the limits of an optimal media/compression combination.
Henrik Ibsen is supposed to have said (about writing plays) "Cut everything, until you're left holding a gun to your head".
Tor
craftech wrote on 6/10/2003, 9:38 AM
What puzzles me is that many of you don't just simply divide the productions into TWO DVD's. You can use the highest bitrates that way. There are double DVD cases readily available and even double sided DVD's if two is an issue.
The industry uses dual layer DVD's for commercial movies. Two DVD-R's or DVD+R's would be the equivalent.
John
mikkie wrote on 6/10/2003, 9:53 AM
FWIW, IMO and all disclaimers...

The average DVD player limits the output resolution (it's in the spec), so as much as one might like their perfect video, it's not going to be seen that way. Another point is that a lot of folks consider the sharper image available from DV to be overly harsh, including DPs.

That said, reducing the size of a final mpg2 render can be done by reducing the average bitrate setting, though I always up the minimum to balance this out. I've seen mpg2 files with vbr rates of 2.4 M, 1.6 M, & 1 M that 99% of very discerning viewers couldn't tell weren't done at DVD rates when viewed on a 600 line TV, if that gives you an idea of what your leeway is.

Another, sometimes easier option (especially when an encode runs *just* over), is to find a less critical section of the video, and time compress it just slightly. If you're lucky and have a still shot or fade to black or white, you might even split the timeline there, do a slight time compression, render that portion, cut/merge it using TMPEnc, optionally re-rendering the audio track.
run wrote on 6/10/2003, 10:04 AM
Simple formula: 600 divided by lenght in minutes = total bitrate in Mbit/s
From that subtract your audio bitrate and you have your videobitrate.
Works pretty good.

Run

MDVid wrote on 6/10/2003, 11:38 AM
Another workable option is to encode as you usually would, and use DVD2ONE, or DVDshrink to compress the resulting Video_Ts folder files to fit onto a DVD R. It works very well, and it is hard to discern any quality loss. Try it, before you scoff!

JTH
baysidebas wrote on 6/10/2003, 12:18 PM
A 2 hour wedding video? Cut, cut, cut!

Best piece of advice regarding filmmaking, and editing, came from Kirk Douglas (to his son Michael): "Learn to kill your babies."
johnmeyer wrote on 6/10/2003, 12:36 PM
The DVD2One suggestion is a great idea. It will assure that the video exactly fills the DVD. The quality of slight (10-30%) compression, even on commercially prepared movies with lots of action, results in very good quality.
craftech wrote on 6/10/2003, 2:11 PM
JTH,

DVD2One sounds interesting. I think I'll give it a try. Thanks.
But don't some encoders do a better job than others at lower bitrates. MC supposedly works better at higher bitrates than it does at lower ones. Which encoder are you using to create the original folder before compression?

John
MDVid wrote on 6/10/2003, 4:12 PM
Well...In truth, I have them all. (CCE, Sorenson3.5, Discreet Xl 6.0, and Canapus ProCoder 1.5) I usually just use the Vegas NTSC DVD mPEG2 encoder, and find myself using DVDarchictect more, and more often. (After most of my experience with ReelDVD). If I have a complicated project pushing the quality of MPEG encoding, I will Use Canapus Procoder. I have found that at 'lower' bit rates, Canapus produces the best quality I can come up with. However, for most projects, just edit in Vegas, encode in Vegas, author in DVDA, and if necessary, compress with DVD2One, you won't believe how nice the final product will look.

JTH
Zulqar-Cheema wrote on 6/10/2003, 4:20 PM
All very well but this is usually their baby and they want it.
Now my videos, 2 1/2 hours holiday video to six minutes I dont mince my edits.
Rain Mooder wrote on 6/11/2003, 12:15 AM
Using TMPG via Satish's frameserver should allow you to fit up to about
2.5 hours of good video on a disk. Use noise reduction with a setting of 12-1-12
and do a CQ encode at a quality factor of 85. Set the max bitrate to 7500 kbps
and the minimum to 2000. Use the maximum quality motion estimation.

If you have a 2.4 Ghz PIV expect to spend 25 hours compressing your video
this way. It takes a long time but it sure is nice in the end.

If your video camera has much more noise than a VX2000 you might want
to increase the noise reduction until the background noise/pixel flutter is
about half what it used to be. The noise reduction serves the dual purpose of
making the video much easier to compress and removing the time-varying
compression distortions of the DV material you started out with.

If the videos don't come out small enough try a quality of 80 or 75. In this
area every 5 quality units that you go down is about the same as decreasing
the average bitrate by 500 kbps. (At least this works for my video, your
mileage may vary.)

You don't want to get much lower than a quality setting of 70.

The magic to fitting 3 hours of video on a 4.7GB video are liberal application of
noise reduction, doing constant quality encodes and using a great encoder such as
TMPG or CCE.