DVD Burning

[Atomic Dog]

OK, so, my brother and I chipped in and got my folks a DVD burner last x-mas because they have mountains of home videos they're looking to convert from VHS, and then burn to DVD. Now, the burner's nothing fancy - and it comes with your typical "load the video, encode, burn" all-in-one software, but they're having trouble making good copies. The copies look fine when they go from the VHS to the computer - it's only after burning.

I'm not there to see what they're doing, so I'm having a hard time working out the problem. My suspicion is that they're trying to fit too much video onto their DVD's, and since those all-in-one programs base their compression of the video on the size of the DVD (ie. if you set it for a 4.5gb CD and then burn 1.5 hours, no big deal it comes out fine, but if you try and burn 8 hours it gets all super pixellated and whatnot - because to fit more size, you have to sacrifice quality) they're ending up with a lot of videos crammed onto one DVD that end up having shitty quality so they can fit.

So, the question is - say they've got their videos saved into 100-150mb compressed video files at 4:3. How many should they try to fit on one DVD, to find that balance between quality and quantity? They kind of range in time too. Some videos are only like 20min long, others go for 2 hours.

[HalcyonSpirit]

Well, I can't remember if burning videos onto DVDs works like music on CDs (where you can only have a limited amount of time on the CD, regardless of the size of the music files as long as the total doesn't go over the CD capacity), but whether or not it is, it should be just a matter of doing the math. If it's only dealing with file size, you just need to add up the sizes of the files and make sure the total doesn't go over the capacity of the DVD (which should be on the DVD itself or written down somewhere). If it's a matter of time, same thing (but I think it's just a matter of file sizes, someone else can confirm/reject this). In either case, just be sure to give it a little buffer; don't go right to the limit.

[Atomic Dog]

Well, the thing is, theoretically you could fit like 20 hours on a single DVD. Because the compression program would just compensate by lowering the quality of the compression. The question is, what's a good amount of video to try and fit on a single DVD before the quality starts to dump?

[The Coop]

Depends on how they want to save the video.

If they're trying to put them on the DVDs so that they can be popped in and watched like any DVD movie, then don't go above two hours of video on each DVD. Once you go above that, the video quality starts taking a nose dive. With two hours at high quality, the videos should look good. Of course, it depends on what their program considers "High" quality. As an example, on my copy of Ulead VideoStudio 8SE, I can make a video file with these settings....

Video Type- MPEG

Resolution- 640x480

Video Bitrate- 14,000

Sample Rate 44.1kHz

Audio Bitrate- 224kb/s

... and have a 30 minute video file at 687MB. That leaves plenty of room for the other hour-and-a-half at a similar high quality, and the video is nice, big and quite clean for a tranfer. Just keep in mind that the worse the quality is of the original VHS video, the larger the video file will likely be (more movement in the video affects this area too). Video files are a lot like animated gifs in that area, as a fuzzy, dirty image that moves will take up more file space than a clean one. However, since we're dealing with home videos, sacrificing the time duration on a DVD shouldn't be an issue. You'll want these things to be as good as you can get them, and if that means you only get 1:30:00 on a DVD from time to time, so be it.

If on the other hand, they want to just create a video file and save those files on DVDs like a data file, then you can get more than two hours on there without sacrificing video quality. As my example above shows, a half hour of video at those settings is less than 700MB. With DVDs holding 4GB of data, they can get 2.5 to 3 hours on there, and then just play the files on their PC (or burn them to 2 hour-long watchable DVDs later).

Just keep in mind, that you should try not to go much over the 4GB line with a single-sided DVD. Sometimes what fills those last few hundred MBs on a DVD can become inaccessible, especially if they're on there as data files. So it's a safe bet to make sure those DVDs stay below 4GB for some cushion (even if it's 3.98GB).

Anyway, hope that helps.

[Effef]

Make sure you get high quality media also,DVDs degrade over time (1-2 years for cheap shit).

Generally, as long as you avoid Maxell you can rest easy.

[The Coop]

Indeed.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

There's a guide for DVD/CD media. If your parents are using any manufacturer in the third or fourth group, get them to upgrade to something in the first group if possible.

[Pyrion]

So, the question is - say they've got their videos saved into 100-150mb compressed video files at 4:3. How many should they try to fit on one DVD, to find that balance between quality and quantity? They kind of range in time too. Some videos are only like 20min long, others go for 2 hours.

Around 150 minutes (2.5 hours) to maintain quality. Otherwise, like you said, the encoders will sacrifice quality to make it all fit.

[Atomic Dog]

Around 150 minutes (2.5 hours) to maintain quality. Otherwise, like you said, the encoders will sacrifice quality to make it all fit.

That seems to be working pretty well. Thanks.

[Shadow Wolf]

Filesize also depends on encoding format. When I rip DVD video to AVI, I can usually get about 2 hours into 1.2 gigs or so with very few compression artifacts. Then I can turn around and put 4 feature length movies on one 4.7 gig disc. I don't see why it shouldn't work the same with going from analog to digital like your parents are doing.