overall record time to a dvd

rileyt wrote on 12/11/2004, 9:00 AM
I have a small business that I use Vegas + DVD Arch. (lastest versions). I have recently had customers ask me why I can not put 8 to 10 hours of data on a dvd like the new dvd recorders that are coming on the market. I tell them the end product quality would not be acceptable and that the recorders must somehow compress the data (or movies). I am not a 'new tech' buff and truley do not understand how they are doing it either. Just wondered if anyone else was getting the same questions. I realize this is not a true vegas of dvd arch questions but I think alot of users are small business owners like myself.
Thank in advance for your responses and happy & safe holidays

Comments

ScottW wrote on 12/11/2004, 9:16 AM
A couple of options - lower the bit rate for mpeg-2, or go to another format like VCD - VCD has almost the same quality as VHS tape, but you can put about about 70-80 minutes in 700MB, so doing the math it would be easy to fit 8-10 hours on a DVD.

Here's a link that describes the VCD format: http://www.videohelp.com/vcd

--Scott
rileyt wrote on 12/11/2004, 9:28 AM
Thanks, Scott for reply. I will check out that website and see what I can learn. I think customer's seem to think I am scamming them into buying 2 DVD's to fit everything on.

Thanks again for your time
ScottW wrote on 12/11/2004, 9:43 AM
I've not had a lot of problems with this from my film transfer customers, but then I don't nick them for major amounts of money when we go to more than one DVD. Our pricing structure includes the first DVD(s) in the transfer price and then it only becomes an issue if they want extra copies (and we charge an absurdly low price - at least compared to some places on the internet - for extra copies; basically we're down in the convenience range - sure they can make their own copies, but it's just as cheap/easy to let us do it).

For your situation, you might consider taking some sample material and preparing 2 versions of it - an MPEG-2 version and an MPEG-1 (VCD) version, and then let people actually see the quality difference.