Newbie Question concerning file size

sstory wrote on 9/29/2008, 4:17 PM
I captured a lot of video from a VCR to various files. I did editing in VMS 9.0 Plat and rendered them. I cannot understand why 5 minutes and 44 seconds takes over 250mb of disk space.

My final goal is to make DVD's of these home movies. I would like the quality to be good of course, but I am wondering if I am doing something wrong. I chose to encode with MPEG2/AC3. Later I tried encoding the same to MPEG1 and added to DVD Architect 4.5, but when processed it recompressed it to I assume MPEG2.

Am I doing something wrong? What are the proper choices for this?

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 9/29/2008, 4:40 PM
You did nothing wrong. 250 MB for almost 6 minutes is normal for DVD quality mpeg2/ac3. That's how you need to encode to go later to DVDA.
sstory wrote on 9/29/2008, 4:59 PM
So does this mean 112 minutes is the max for a single layer DVD?
sstory wrote on 9/29/2008, 5:06 PM
I looked in the DVDA Optimize DVD window, and calculated the complete length of video I want on DVD1. It is about 109minutes. The problem is that it estimates 5.6GB of disk space and won't fit. Fit to Disk says it is too big. What should I do to get this all on one DVD?

Thanks
gogiants wrote on 9/29/2008, 5:23 PM
Just in case, I'll first mention that your only choice for DVD is MPEG-2, per the standard.

Your choice to make it fit on one DVD is to reduce the quality (i.e. lower the bit rate)... there are settings in DVD Arch Studio to do this. Of course, you could always make a volume 1 and volume 2 DVD...

If you're comparing amount of footage to things like what shows up on hollywood DVDs, keep in mind that many of the professional DVDs are on dual-layer discs, which enables them to contain twice as much footage at a given quality level.
Eugenia wrote on 9/29/2008, 5:30 PM
Use lower quality in DVDA if you can, and if you don't want to re-encode, use another application (export from Vegas in a lossless codec). I personally use DVDFlick.net that actually estimates things right, and lets you play with the bitrate. I don't use DVDA at all.
sstory wrote on 9/29/2008, 7:36 PM
Thanks for all the advice. If 6minutes is roughly 250MB, then I don't know why 109 minutes is taking 5.6GB. This is confusing to me.

I would go the dual layer route, but they are so expensive.

Does anyone know of a place to get them at a bargain?
MSmart wrote on 9/29/2008, 10:43 PM
Don't go the dual-layer route. Use DVDAS' Fit To Disc option which lowers the bitrate just enough to allow the video to fit on a single-layer disc.

ADDED: You can go as low as 6000 bps and not notice much loss in quality.