DVD burning/authoring question

[Muse]

I'm producing my first video DVD, and am currently rendering to an mpeg2 file using Ulead VideoStudio 6.02 SE. It's about 75% done, and extrapolating, I figure the .mpg file will be just about 5 GB. Now, a DVD is about 4.7 GB, so how's this thing going to fit on the DVD? Will the program I use to burn the DVD compress it some more or am I out of luck? Will I have to delete some scenes, IOW? It's not that big a deal, I could cut out 8% or so and it wouldn't ruin it, but I'd have to do the render all over again, I guess.

I could use Ulead VideoStudio 6.02 SE to burn the DVD, but I also have Nero 6 Ultra. Does it matter what burning software I use for this?

BTW, I intend to burn to DVD+R, using bitsetting firmware in my NEC ND-2510a DVD burner to make the disks recognizable as DVD-ROMs. Thanks for any ideas on this.

 

[Muse]

Whoops. I guess I misunderstood. First, I created an mpeg1 file just to see if it would turn out like I wanted. That was 1.3 GB. I explored the option of creating a DVD, and it asked me if I wanted to overwrite the .mpg file that was already in the directory. It wasn't what I wanted, so I made changes until I was reasonably confident I will like it. I then created an mpeg2 file in the directory, thinking that when I author the DVD it will just use that file. But no, when I ask the software to create a DVD it asks me if I want to overwrite the .mpg file in the directory again! So now I have to render it all over again. I assume the software will increase the compression slightly so as to not go over the storage limit on a DVD. Wish I'd known that because it will take another 5 hours to render it again.

 

[Muse]

Question:

The uncompressed AVIs total about 25 GB. The 5 GB mpeg2 file's quality isn't all that great compared to the AVI, at least when viewed on my hi-res 19" LCD computer monitor, and I assume the DVD, which would be compressed an additional 8% (unless I delete some stuff) will be even worse. What if I split the video into two sections, and create two different projects from it and burn two separate DVDs? Will the program automatically use the least compression level it can to fill each DVD? If so, the compression would be more like 60% compared to the present 80%, and it would look a whole lot better. That would be less compression than mpeg2, though, which appears to be 80% for AVIs. Would the software do it?

 

[PhoenixOrion]

The image quality of video can only be as good as the image quality of the source/original file no matter what format you encode it to.

I usually "shorten" video in either 2 steps:
1. when converting from avi to mpeg using tmpenc plus: lower sound quality or lower the video quality or actually cut last few scenes.
2. when converting mpeg to dvd structure using dvdshrink.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: PhoenixOrion
The image quality of video can only be as good as the image quality of the source/original file no matter what format you encode it to.

I usually "shorten" video in either 2 steps:
1. when converting from avi to mpeg using tmpenc plus: lower sound quality or lower the video quality or actually cut last few scenes.
2. when converting mpeg to dvd structure using dvdshrink.

Ah, please forgive a newbie. I have DVDShrink, in fact downloaded the new 3.2 version yesterday (not installed it yet, still have 3.1x installed), but haven't heard of tmpenc plus. So DVDShrink can be used to effectively reduce the size of mpeg2 files so they fit on DVDs without unduly degrading the quality (relative to what my current DVD editing/authoring program would do, Ulead VideoStudio 6.02 SE)?

I'm wondering now if I can create two DVDs instead, reducing the compression rate to something like 60% instead of the roughly 80% I'm looking at with just one DVD. The AVI's look so nice, it hurts to think the people I distribute these to will see what I'm seeing when I look at the 80% compressed mpeg2 file.

 

[pulse8]

1. Get a better mpeg2 encoder. (Ligos, tmpeg or Cinema Craft Encoder should be sufficient)

2. Use a bitrate calculator to figure out the average bitrate you'll need to get the video down to a size suitable for the DVD+-R disc.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

i use tmpgenc plus mostly.

you can google "tsunami mpeg encoder"

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: PhoenixOrion
The image quality of video can only be as good as the image quality of the source/original file no matter what format you encode it to.

I usually "shorten" video in either 2 steps:
1. when converting from avi to mpeg using tmpenc plus: lower sound quality or lower the video quality or actually cut last few scenes.
2. when converting mpeg to dvd structure using dvdshrink.

The quality of the source files is excellent. That's the problem. The mpeg2 file that was created by Ulead VideoStudio 6.02 SE came out at 5.1 GB, and was very noticeably inferior to the AVI's that went into creating it. Those AVI's total about 25 GB, and comprise about 130 minutes of video. Now, 130 minutes of high quality video is common on commercial DVDs, probably even 1 layer. I'm totally up for spanning this over 2 or 3 or even more DVD's, if necessary, because I want the result to be very near the quality of the original AVI's, which were captured from minidv (recorded by camcorder). I think I'm up to spanning over multiple DVD's using Ulead VideoStudio, but think I might have to use their encoder to do it, not sure. Maybe I can encode with another encoder and then use the video editing software against the resulting mpeg2 file or files. Is there a freeware multi-pass encoder? Someone said I'm just not going to get the kind of quality you get on a commercial DVD because those are created with multi-pass encoders, which are unavailable to me. Again, this is my first DVD authoring project.