Render & make DVD's from 16 hrs of training

DWhitevidman wrote on 1/25/2010, 5:21 PM
I've shot and have 8 hrs of simple video, nothing fancy as far as special effects, and will shoot another 8 this coming Saturday. As of now I have the 8 hrs in one session of Vegas 8. Two questions;

Since I'll be creating multiple DVDs to hold all the video, is there a preferred method as far as rendering sections of the 8hrs from one session of Vegas, as compared to having a session of Vegas for each DVD?

More importantly will I have to simply use trial and error to determine if I can fit more than 2 hrs on a DVD and still maintain decent quality. No music, no flashy color or vivid video I need to preserve. And as a sample the first session lasted a little over 2hrs and I would like to include a reivew at the end which would give me a total of 2hrs and 23mins on one DVD. Is this reasonable to change the bit rate to a point that this will fit on a 4.7 Gig DVD?

Comments

Coursedesign wrote on 1/25/2010, 7:36 PM
How are the DVDs to be viewed?

If they can watch them on a computer or from a computer connected to a large screen, don't make "2 hour" regular [MPEG-2] DVDs.

Use computer video instead, H.264 if their computers are reasonably modern.

With that you can easily offer 8 hours of high definition video per disk, depending on the bit rate you need.


[I've also done 8-hour regular MPEG-2 DVDs for client approvals, but that was Time Code Burns with quarter resolution, probably not what you want...]
DWhitevidman wrote on 1/25/2010, 8:18 PM
I had no idea you could get that long of a video for viewing on a computer.

However, I am making viewable on DVDs for TV viewing, and they are SD not HD. Therefore my initial question pertains to TV DVDs.

Now that I know, I may in fact offer them both ways. But still need input on how much I may be able to put on DVDs and do I get it to fit by changing the video bit rate in DVDArchitect?
musicvid10 wrote on 1/25/2010, 8:37 PM
For widest compatibility with all players / systems, use SL DVD media, burn 2 hrs per disc at about 4Mbs from separate* Vegas projects, one for each disc. DVD+R is slightly preferable these days. There are very few players remaining that won't handle it. I've done a few of these.

* Why? Because it's too easy to get mixed up and render the wrong segment from different loop sections within the same project. KISS
cbrillow wrote on 1/26/2010, 5:20 AM
"More importantly will I have to simply use trial and error to determine if I can fit more than 2 hrs on a DVD and still maintain decent quality. No music, no flashy color or vivid video I need to preserve. And as a sample the first session lasted a little over 2hrs and I would like to include a reivew at the end which would give me a total of 2hrs and 23mins on one DVD. Is this reasonable to change the bit rate to a point that this will fit on a 4.7 Gig DVD?"

Just my opinion -- yes. Some will squeal that you shouldn't try to put more than X minutes on a single disc or it will look terrible, but I say 'You be the judge'. I routinely fit 3 to 4 hours on a disc and they look just fine on the equipment I use to play them back. (analog, CRT television) To my eye, they look better than an equivalent VHS tape.

Do a search for "bitrate calculator" and you'll find some online tools that will help you select an appropriate bitrate for encoding to fit the length of video you wish to use.
rs170a wrote on 1/26/2010, 5:53 AM
Excellent bitrate calculator.
http://www.johncline.com/bitcalc110.zip

edit: for a 2 hr. 23 min. DVD, I'd use the VBR settings and do it as a 2-pass encode.

Mike
DWhitevidman wrote on 1/26/2010, 1:41 PM
Ok, thanks for all the feedback, I think I've got it.

VBR = Variable Bit Rate
Two-pass = Better quality? I googled this and kinda get but not sure, does it take twice as long, or does the rendering really fly on the 2nd pass?
cbrillow wrote on 1/26/2010, 8:30 PM
Just shootin' from the hip on these responses. I'm sure somebody will correct me if I'm wrong...

2-pass = better quality? Theoretically, although you may not be able to tell. I would also guess that 2-pass variable encoding is more efficient because the first pass is an analysis of the amount of motion and the speed at which it occurs on a frame-by-frame basis. During the second pass, the gathered information is used to perform the actual encoding. When rendering in a single pass, the bitrate is apportioned 'on-the-fly' according to a less thorough analysis.

Does it take twice as long? I've never measured it, but it does take significantly longer, in my experience.