You could use a video editor such as Vegas to lower the average bit rate to fit it on one DVD, with reduction in quality, of course. The lower quality still might be acceptable. You could fit say 2 1/4 hrs on a DL DVD using about 8000 kbps or on a standard DVD using about 4500 kbps.

If you choose multiple DVDs, you should split the video into parts using Vegas or other video editor. Don't look for a way to span several discs using DVD Arch alone.

I've fit 2+ hours of video onto a 4.7GB disk many times. You need to encode to MPEG2 at a lower bitrate. How low? Trivial formula: Avg video rate = (600 / minutes) - audio rate.

So for a 120 minute project, your video bitrate will be 4.8Mb/sec (assuming 0.2Mbit/sec Dolby audio). Depending on the nature of the video and the quality of your encoder, this may or may not be good enough. I'd use min=1, avg=4.8, max=9. I've done disks with this kind of bitrate multiple times using CinemaCraft as the encoder. If your results using MainConcept aren't good enough, just burn to a DVD+DL (double layer) Verbatim disk. Then you have all sorts of room.

http://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm

I don't recommend burned DL discs for anything but your own use.

"I don't recommend burned DL discs for anything but your own use."

It wasn't uncommon in the 90's to buy a commercial dual layer authored DVD. Especially on longer movie titles. People seemed to be less annoyed with the 1 to 2 second focusing delay verses having to physically store, play, and swap while watching, a movie authored on two disks.

As I see it, movies that pause to switch layers in the middle of some action are just poorly authored. Generally it shouldn't be a problem to find a point near the middle of a movie that contains a scene change or fade that could be the set point for the layer break.

"I don't recommend burned DL discs for anything but your own use."

Reason: Way too many returns. Done that.

Commercial DVD movies are 99% DVD-9 DL media. None of them are burned . . .
;?)

The ideal situation is to put the layer break at a fade-out. Still, most players can switch pretty quickly.

Not wishing to nitpick here, but I've delivered hundreds of DVD+R DL disks maxed out to full capacity. Disks were Verbatim 8x (burned at 8x also) inkjet-printable. Never an issue, never any returns. Burned on NEC 3550a burners.

Mark's Bitrate calculator It's hosted in John Cline's site. This s/w has the simplest of user interfaces and takes the pain out of this type quest fast! I've used it for years and it never fails me. I use it in conjunction with Bitrate Viewer that CSI-like can show just how good or bad an authored disc I've made is behaving.

Get them:

Mark's Bitrate Calculator

and

Bitrate Viewer.

Enjoy and take the pain out of DVD prep.

Anyhow, this is all going to be gone soon as Cloud to Peer to Peer storage comes of age. DVDs? They'll be around for sometime, but as we all become more virtual with off-world access becoming (or has that become!) the fiddling with DVD platters must shortly to be regarded as quaint. 2 to 4 years?

Grazie

Sorry, but no quaintness is expected!! I still prefer the good audio quality of a vinyl album platter spun on a good turntable with a great stylus played thru a dbx audio-range expander to a great preamp/power amp to 3 -way speaker system in well-built walnut wood enclosures. A tech much preferred over the Red-Book experience.

No aplogies required.

However, you DO underline an oft denied pathway we are strolling along with clients and ourselves: It's all about ease and the access to that media that's become even MORE crucial.

You'd not easily be able to place your vinyl inside your car? You'd be using, well what? Sit me down in front of your analogue set-up and I'd also appreciate it. I recently pulled out a Danny Kaye 78rpm and still, through the scratches and dust I could hear a quality . . . But you're saying that there is a pinnacle of quality - I get that! What this discussion is about the "getting-to-size" for a DVD. What I hoped to do was to impress on readers here that there is a movement towards something "other". And in turn, that is being driven by convenience, immediacy, urgency and, finally, panic at loosing out!

One of my clients still regards the MP4 I easily DropBox or float-off to conference venues for him, as a DVD! - I've given up explaining . . . . He's now accepted the "convenience" of it all - bless.....

Cheers

Grazie

My theory about the "superiority" of sound from vinyl is that the so called "warmth" is in fact an unnecessary noise/hum associated with physical friction, and to which we of a certain generation became addicted during our formative years.

When this was suddenly missing thanks to laser technology we often thought it didn't sound as good, as we weren't used to the purer form of sound.

Yes, I'm just an opinionated old git who likes to stir, so I'm doing just that.

so that's what made 'rattle and hum' a hit? ;-)

The psychological term is "imprinting," and it means what we experienced first / most often is what we come to expect, and automatically judge as being "best."
I know people who still play their audio cassette tapes . . .

I still recall when our young daughter asked in all innocence, "What's a 'record'"?

I grew up with vinyl records and tapes, first 1/4" and then cassette. The first time i heard a commercial CD, when i was about 20, my instant reaction was, "WHOA!!! This is *SO* much better than analog." There was no pining for the sound i was used to; quite the opposite in fact. I think my trigger was the lack of noise. The music just came out of nowhere; no needle drop or dust, no tape hiss or flutter, just music. From then on i always cringed when listening to analog material.

The whole "but i can hear the numbers" objection was just hilariously, and sadly, ludicrous.

And, no offense to some of the other purists here, but MP3 is still WAY better than tapes or records.

Steve, i was running tech for a local theater group a few years ago and the show required about 120 sound effects with split second timing. Not having any digital playback means at the time, i put them all on a reel of tape with white leader spliced in between each one for easy cuing. After the show two youngsters ran up to me to gawk at all the equipment. One of them pointed at the Revox and asked, "what is that thing?" I said it was a tape recorder. She shook her head and pointed at my Onkyo cassette deck and said, "No, that's a tape recorder. What is that BIG thing?"

I had to unwind some tape from the reel and pull out a little loop of the cassette tape from the shell to convince her that they were both tape, just different sizes.

"I grew up with vinyl records and tapes"

My earliest recollection of recordings was a wind-up acoustic portable (well, luggable) gramophone for 78 RPM shellac records. It definitely was not HiFi.

If it was too loud, Mum used to stuff socks down the horn. I guess that is where the expression "put a sock in it" came from, but it probably referred to someone's mouth.

One record we had was "The Gospel According to Cricket", which was a commentary on a cricket match spoken in English as used in the King James authorized version of the Bible. "... even unto the fifth test match, when Bradman and all his brethren shall smite the Pommyites". Where are you Bradman when we need you? The Pommies are smiting us at the moment!

Hi Peter
You've hit my question: How do I split the video into 2 or 3 parts? I have VP11. To split the video, I must split the time line because the source clips are wide spread (they came from super 8 film that was put onto video 8 tape & then 7 mini DV cassettes. e.g. timeline clip from tape1clip3subclip 8 may be followed by a clip from tape4clip2subclip 23). The quality already is marginalized so don't want to do anything to make it worse.
I've thought of creating 3 new projects, each with a segment of the time line. However I can't find a way to copy the time line and put it into a new project. Seems like it should be simple enough!

Hi Peter
You've hit my question: How do I split the video into 2 or 3 parts? I have VP11. To split the video, I must split the clips on the time line because the source clips are wide spread (they came from super 8 film that was put onto video 8 tape & then 7 mini DV cassettes. e.g. timeline clip from tape1 clip3 subclip 8 may be followed by a clip from tape4 clip2 subclip 23). The quality already is marginalized so don't want to do anything to make it worse.
I've thought of creating 3 new projects, each with a segment of the time line. However I can't find a way to copy the time line and put it into a new project. Seems like it should be simple enough!

Master timeline with all of project events in Master Project .veg.
Then select and render region by region of the timeline as you see fit thus creating a rendered segment for video and audio streams for each selected render. You may overlap regions if you would like that kind of overlap to appear in your programming - just like they do on commercial TV broadcasts between advertisments appearing in the mid program.

There are at least three easy ways to copy the whole timeline into a new project. I'll list three, ranking them from my favorite first to my least favorite last:

1) - Save As the project into a new .veg file with a new name.

2) - Highlight the whole project with Ctrl-A, copy with Ctrl-C, and paste into a new project with Ctrl-V. Note that you have to have both projects open in two different Vegas windows at the same time to do this. If you close the original project you lose the copy buffer.

3) - Drag the .veg file onto the timeline in a new project window. This will "nest" it as a subproject in the new one. However, as useful as this may be in many situations, making changes to the nested project is actually changing the original project, so this may not be useful for you.

However, what might perhaps be even simpler for what you need is partial rendering. If you put markers at the points where you need to split the project (no actual splitting necessary), and also at the beginning and end, you can double-click between any two markers and highlight that whole section. Then when you render you can check the box that says "render loop region only", and only that section will be included in the output file. This probably accomplishes what you want far easier than making multiple projects.

Just what I suggested - you don't need markers - just a selection.

The markers aren't necessary, true, but they do help you make repeatable selections that exactly line up with each other.