Need "For Dummies..." type explanation...

PSidbury wrote on 2/8/2009, 9:34 AM

First of all, let me thank you for your patience with my post and also let me apologize if my post is not sufficiently explanatory.
Only because I am a super-rookie when it comes to the concepts of how video, movie files, etc. can be rendered/burned to a conventional store-bought 4.7GB DVD.
Also, please bear with my potential mis-use of industry-specific phraseology.
Hopefully, from context, you can decipher and aid in my remedial DVD-"authoring" development.
I truly need a "For Dummies..."-type explanation for my questions.

Okay... Using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 8.0, I have captured plenty of .M2T files from my Canon HV20.
I have also created several .wmv movie files in template "4.8Mps HD 720-24p".

So, now I have over 20GB in movie files that make up an entire project that we will call "Family Christmas", and want to burn it to a DVD using Sony DVD Architect Studio 4.5d.

My main concern:
Is there anyway to compress the 20GB project so it can be burned on the 4.7GB DVD?
Will Sony DVD Architect Studio 4.5d do it for me?
If not, is there a Best Buy purchased DVD "burning" software that will?

I want to retain at least a 4.8mps 720-24p resolution.

Secondary concern:
How large is the movie file on a typical "Top Gun" commercial DVD that I can buy at Best Buy?
I have no desire to pirate or copy "Top Gun", I just want to understand the difference between that physical DVD and the DVD-R I would use for "burning.
Meaning, is the "Top Gun" DVD itself a conventional DVD and Top Gun is compressed onto it, or is it a specifically-licensed DVD that holds 100GB of movie file and Joe Public has no access to it?

And all of this is within the context of normal DVD playback, not HD-DVD or Blu-Ray.

Again, thanks for your patience and "For Dummies..." type answers and explanations,

Paul

Comments

TOG62 wrote on 2/8/2009, 12:06 PM

Okay... Using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 8.0, I have captured plenty of .M2T files from my Canon HV20.

If you still have your captured files hang onto them. For best results you need to render them as DVD compliant mpeg 2. All video DVDs use this format.

So, now I have over 20GB in movie files that make up an entire project that we will call "Family Christmas", and want to burn it to a DVD using Sony DVD Architect Studio 4.5d. Is there anyway to compress the 20GB project so it can be burned on the 4.7GB DVD?

This sounds like enough content for upwards of 5 DVDs. You should bear in mind that .wmv is already a highly compressed format. Most people aim for about 2 hours of reasonable quality content per disc.

DVDA will do the job admirably.

How large is the movie file on a typical "Top Gun" commercial DVD that I can buy at Best Buy?

I believe that most commercial DVDs comprise two layers, giving a capacity on 8.5GB. Very often one layer is used for 'extras' and one for the main movie. You can buy DVD blanks that have two layers, and therefore the same capacity, but they are quite a bit more expensive than standard DVD-R or DVD+Rs.

Mike

bStro wrote on 2/8/2009, 12:11 PM

Normal DVDs don't do high definition, so you won't be able to retain the "720" aspect of your project. Normal DVDs are a maximum of 720 (width) by 480 (height), whereas the template you used has a height of 720 (and a width, I'm guessing, of 1280?). Give that to an app such as DVD Architect Studio, and it will reduce the video to standard definition proportions (as it should).

Also, if your intention is to create a DVD, rendering to WMV is a waste of time. DVDs use MPEG2 video, so if you give DVD Architect Studio anything else, it will just have to encode that content to MPEG2. I use Vegas Pro, which has several DVD Architect specific templates for the MPEG2 filetype; Vegas Movie Studio may or may not have such templates as well. You'll want one whose name mentions DVD Architect, 24p, and possible widescreen (depending on your project).

These templates will also have a bitrate higher than the 4.8Mbps you've been using. But if your video is longer than an hour, you may need to reduce that.

How large is the movie file on a typical "Top Gun" commercial DVD that I can buy at Best Buy?

Most commercial DVDs have up to around 8.5MB. They use two layers, each of which holds about the same amount as one of your discs. There are two-layer blank DVDs available, but naturally they cost a little more. And dual-layer discs can be trickier to work with.

In addition to all that, it's possible for the producers of commercial DVDs to get more "bang for their buck" (at least as it relates to the amount of space available -- monetarily, they pay a lot more bucks). They start out with very high quality footage, and they use very high quality encoding equipment. As a result, they can use a much lower bitrate and get at least as good of quality as you or I.

Rob

Terry Esslinger wrote on 2/8/2009, 12:15 PM

First: The Top Gun movie DVD is a completely different media than the 'burned DVDs that we can do. They are pressed (grooves and valleys) into the media rather than a lazer burned dye media like we use. That is one reason they are so much more compatible that written DVDs. You can get your DVDs pressed if you want but it is quite expensive.

Second: Are you trying to make an HD or BR DVD are a standard def DVD? You can get almost any length movie on a dvd by changing the bit rate that you burn at but anything over about 90 minutes starts to degenerate in quality quite rapidly. MPEG2 is the language of DVDs so you need to get your project into an MPEG2 format. Best way would be to render it dirctly from your original project in Vegas. A standard DVD will hold about 4.5Gb of material with overhead and a DL dvd will hold about twice that.. You then take the MPEG2 (and AC3 audio) file into DVDA and author and burn the dvd.

PSidbury wrote on 2/8/2009, 7:50 PM

Okay, forget about DVD Architect for the moment.

I guess this is what I don't understand:

The Top Gun "widescreen" movie (which is about 2 hours) uses 8.5GB on a (dual layer) DVD. Am I correct in assuming that?

But yet I have a project rendered in MPEG-2 format that is less than an hour long and is 34GB large, and I am beginning to understand that (no matter what DVD authoring software I use) it cannot be compressed or formatted (and still retain the video quality that the Top Gun movie apparently has) onto one DVD.

Why?

How does that Top Gun movie that is 2 hours long fit on one DVD?

I understand (I think) the difference between commercial movies being pressed onto DVDs and me "burning/lasering" an MPEG-2 file onto a DVD, but does pressing really make that much of a difference on how much video can go on a DVD?

Thanks again for your patience in answering my questionsestions.

PeterWright wrote on 2/8/2009, 8:34 PM

> ..I have a project rendered in MPEG-2 format that is less than an hour long and is 34GB large,

Something wrong here - depending on bitrate, an hour of MPEG2 should come out around 4 Gb.
You need to specify exactly which MPEG2 template you've used.

As I said, bitrate is what controls the size of the rendered file, and two hours can be fitted onto a single layer 4.7 Gb DVD, by reducing the bitrate to around 4,650,000

musicvid10 wrote on 2/8/2009, 8:47 PM

At the maximum bitrate for MPEG-2, which is 9.8Mbs, the largest file size you could get for an hour is about 6.6 GB. If one hour of movie is 34GB, it is not encoded in MPEG-2.

As noted in a previous thread, the maximum usable average bitrate for DVD is around 8Mbs.

If you check the .vob files on Top Gun with MediaInfo, I would be surprised if the bitrate is any higher than 5 or 6 Mbs, maximum.

To answer your question about a 2 hr. commercial movie like "Top Gun" looking fantastic on a 8.4GB DL disc, the answers are simple:
Expensive lenses
Expensive cameras
Expensive lighting
Expensive MPEG-2 Encoders

There is no equipment or encoders in the prosumer realm that will approach this, I'm sorry to say.

Chienworks wrote on 2/8/2009, 9:26 PM

9.8Mbps is not the maximum bitrate for MPEG2. It is the maximum bitrate for compatible DVD player playback, but MPEG2 itself has no such limit. The local public access station here prefers spots to be submitted as 25Mbps MPEG2 files. Encoding an hour at 77Mbps would result in about a 34GB file, though that would be an insanely high bitrate to use.

I don't think Vegas will allow anything above 15Mbps unless choosing ATSC output. So, my suspicion is that Paul is producing something other than MPEG2, or something longer than one hour. Perhaps there's a loop region set or a marker somewhere down at the 3 hour point, and the rendered file contains black/silence after the end of the one hour's worth of material.

musicvid10 wrote on 2/8/2009, 11:45 PM

You are correct, and my statement was made in the context of .mpg files rendered in Vegas for producing a DVD.

I doubt the OP is going to be doing broadcast work at higher bitrates any time soon.

So, although my statement is contextually correct, thanks for pointing this out.

EDIT: I do see that the Blu-Ray templates in Vegas allow up to 80 Mbs, which was a surprise to me. Of course, anything above 9.8 Mbs in Vegas does not render with the .mpg extension. Maybe the OP was experimenting with one of them, or possibly he meant 3.4 MB for his file size.