Well I had it with splitting 2 hour projects over 2 DVDs and more importantly, my clients too. No matter how much technical explanation I could come up with, they will never like the idea of splitting a 2 hour performance over 2 DVDs when they pay to get a professional product. Can't blame them.

So now that DL media is starting to become affordable, I'm swaping my old Plextor burner for a new double layer capable one, but I just want a confirmation that PPro will indeed recognise both the burner (thinking of going with the Plextor PX-716A) and the DVD-9 media (usually use Ridata) and correctly process and encode the footage on the timeline for that particular format. I don't see why it shouldn't but you never know.

Also, any issues for stand alone DVD players with reading this new DL media?

Finally, any recomendations on specific DVD burners are welcomed.

Thanks

i'm not sure if premiere can do it, i dont see why not? I use premiere to make the final movie and use dvdlabpro to author back to dvd. I belive dvdlabpro can author dual layer.
good luck!

Well I need something that will work directly out of Premiere, as I only offer DVD authoring as an option. By default I export directly to DVD from Premiere. I have Adobe Encore though so it needs to work with that too.

Like you said, I don't see why it wouldn't work, but sometimes logic has very little to do with how a program works, especially in PPro's case I find. I wouldn't want to throw $100 in the garbage. So if anybody else has successfully encoded their PPro timeline to a DL DVD I'd really like to know. I guess just knowing if PPro will recognise the 8.5Gb media is all I need really. The rest I will learn from tries and errors.

Premiere Pro 1.5 does not support dual layer DVD burning. However, Adobe Encore DVD 1.5 can record to DVD+R dual layer DVDs.

And by the way, Ridata DL DVDs are not the best quality media. You'd be better off using Verbatim DL DVDs. The Verbatim DL DVDs are manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemicals, who make some of the best DVD media you can get.

Darn I knew it couldn't be that simple. So Premiere will not recognise the drive at all? Or is it the media itself? And Encore supports DVD+R? Will this work with most stand alone DVD players? I feel like such a newbie.

As for the media, I need something that has a plain surface that can be printed on. Do Verbatim make such a media or do all their discs have something written on it?

Thanks for the help BTW.

So Premiere will not recognise the drive at all? Or is it the media itself?
Premiere Pro should recognize the drive okay, and you should still be able to record single layer DVDs from Premiere. Premiere Pro just hasn't been updated to be able to record to dual layer media.

And Encore supports DVD+R?
Yes.

Will this work with most stand alone DVD players?
Early tests using the first DVD dual layer burner had pretty low compatibility rates, but I think dual layer DVD burners have improved in compatibility since then. One review of a particular DVD burner on PCmag.com stated that the dual layer DVDs they recorded on it played in every DVD player they tried them in.

The DVD burner and the media both play a role in compatibility. One thing to look for in a DVD burner is the ability to have the DVD burner record the BitSetting on a DVD-/+RW as a DVD-ROM, which helps to improve the chances of recorded DVDs playing on older DVD players (see http://www.videohelp.com/glossary?all#bitsetting).

Check the DVD burner reviews on www.CDrinfo.com and www.cdfreaks.com.

Using good quality media improves the chances of playability. See www.nomorecoasters.com for ratings of various DVD media.

Verbatim does have printable DVD+R DL media. Here's a link to a spindle on buy.com for about the best price you can get right now from a reputable vendor: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=201700711&SearchEngine=PriceGrabber&SearchTerm=201700711&Type=PE&Category=Comp&Gad=0&dcaid=15890

Thanks Christopher you've been a great help. I'll have a look at the links you provided. Here's hoping PPro gets an update soon enough to take care of this compatibility issue (and a myriad of others while they're at it).

you should be able to get decent quality with a 2-hour dvd... just barely, but it can be done with the right tools.

i would not want to hassle with the expense and compatability issues of double-layer dvd's at this point, i don't know of anyone who is burning and selling these things in quantity(?)

verbatim has a long history of selling non-verbatim dvd-r discs... watch of for that.

i would not want to hassle with the expense and compatability issues of double-layer dvd's at this point, i don't know of anyone who is burning and selling these things in quantity(?)

I wouldn't be surprised that dual layer DVD's are less compatible than single layer DVD's. However, the right burner and good quality media can help to minimize problems to a degree. Minimize, but certainly not eliminate. Even single layer DVDs still have compatibility problems at times.

As time goes by and more people purchase newer DVD players, problems will gradually diminish (as happened with single layer DVD+/-Rs.).


verbatim has a long history of selling non-verbatim dvd-r discs... watch of for that.
Many of the DVD brands you see in the store are not manufactured by those brand names. They purchase their media from third-party manufacturers. Some of those manufacturers make good DVD media, but unfortunately, all too often you get media made by an unreliable manufacturer. As for Verbatim, I don't know all that they have done in the past; however, what I understand at this point is that all the DVD media they sell in the United States is made by Mitsubishi Chemicals, which is a very reliable manufacturer. Watch out overseas, though. When you buy Verbatim DVDs in another country you may get disks made by CMC Magnetics, which are garbage. (CMC Magnetics also sells media to other brands, as well.)

i don't have compatability problems with single-layer dvd-r, period... thousands of dvd's sold all over the world with no issues... i am not going to compromise my reputation to be on the cutting edge of dual-layer dvd... especially when it isn't necessary, as in this case of a two-hour program.

the dividing line for quality dvd media has traditionally been whether it's manufactured in japan or taiwan... the only brands that stick exclusively to japan that i know of are taiyo yuden and maxell, although there are rumours that the latter has started selling some taiwanese media under the maxell label... but it's supposed to have the country of origin marked on the box.

verbatim has used a number of different taiwanese dvd suppliers in the past, maybe they aren't doing that with the new dual-layer stuff?

you should be able to get decent quality with a 2-hour dvd... just barely, but it can be done with the right tools.
You may be able to get decent quality squeezing two hours on a single layer DVD, but I wouldn't want to try it myself. (That also depends on one's definition of decent quality.)

the dividing line for quality dvd media has traditionally been whether it's manufactured in japan or taiwan...
I agree. However, Mitsubishi Chemicals has moved DVD media production to Taiwan, yet their DVD media still retains the same high quality they had when produced in Japan.

verbatim has used a number of different taiwanese dvd suppliers in the past, maybe they aren't doing that with the new dual-layer stuff?
That is what I understand, at least for the dual-layer media they sell in the U.S. As I said, though, watch out overseas.

I have done a lot of reading up in the area of DVD media quality lately. The videohelp.com forums are a great place to research the subject; also, the www.nomorecoasters.com site (also accessible at www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm) I mentioned earlier is a very helpful resource. I have learned more than I ever would have cared to know about the subject, but that is necessary to a degree if one wants to make sure that 1) They create DVDs that are compatible with most DVD players, and 2) that those DVDs will still be playable years from now.

Unfortunately, one just can't walk into a store and pick up any old spindle of DVD blanks if those goals are to be met.

I don't know. I've already tried to squeeze 2 hours onto 1 4.7Gb DVD and the result was not so good, at least to my eyes. Things with fast paced movements and lots of details would create compression artifacts. I tried lots of different compression settings, with VBR usually giving the best results, but I don't feel anything under 6Mb on average is acceptable, which brings the running time to about 1h20, maybe more if you're making a 24p DVD, which I'll do from time to time depending on the project.

I'm really surprised to hear that DL DVDs have compatibility issues though. I thought they were on the same level as SL DVDs at this point. Right now I'm using a Plextor PX-708A with some Ridata media and out of the hundreds of burned DVDs I have never had one customer come back with a compatibility issue with their player.

I'm thinking offering the DL disc by default for projects over 1h30 but also offering the possibility to split on 2 regular discs if the client encounters problems should be enough precautions to ensure satisfaction from everybody. There's not much else one can do really outside of getting the very best burner and very best media he can find. I always thought of the Plextor as the Cadillac of burners. It has never failed me once so far. But I guess I'll still go and read lots of reviews to find the best drive/media combo currently on the market.

if you are getting artifacting with vbr, it's probably because your peak settings aren't high enuf... try 8800, using ac3 audio as well, to leave yourself the max amount of room... yes, the running time is set by the average bitrate, but stop thinking about it in the cbr sense... the entire purpose of vbr is to allocate bandwidth where it's needed, and take it away from where it's not needed.

you also must use two-pass encoding, and it probably helps to put the mainconcept quality slider setting all the way over to the max.

i encode drag racing, where the camera zooms and pans the entire quarter mile from next to the track... if i can make that work without visible artifacting, so can you... i am using procoder, but you can also use tmpg if you can't get the mainconcept encoder to work like you want.

the way to handle this is to take the worst possible section of your footage and export it as a short avi... then start experimenting with your vbr settings, putting the average bitrate where it'll fit a two hour program onto a dvd-r... remember that peak vbr has no affect on the final size of the encoded footage.

I'll try experimenting a bit more with it. Maybe I don't yet master the compression settings quite enough. Because so far every 2h+ video I encoded had a compression problem with it. I'll do some more testin'. Just for starters, what VBR settings do you use as average and minimum to encode your 2h DVDs? As for sound, so far I've always used PCM.

As for sound, so far I've always used PCM.
Don't use PCM audio, it takes up much valuable space (about 1.5 Mbp/s). As Dan said, use AC3 (Dolby Digital) for your audio track. Dolby Digital compression settings can vary, but in Encore DVD the default is 192 kbp/s (0.192 Mbp/s). That's a big difference that adds up, especially when you are trying to cram two hours on a single layer DVD.

Holy cow I didn't realize I was losing so much bandwith to sound with the PCM setting. Yeah Dolby Digital seems like a better idea (I also have the Mpeg option). Might be why I never got that great of a result with long projects.

Yeah Dolby Digital seems like a better idea (I also have the Mpeg option).
MP2 audio does compress more than PCM, but it is not part of the official DVD spec like PCM and Dolby Digital are. Still, most, if not all DVD players do support MP2 audio. But if you have the ability to use Dolby Digital that is the format I would recommend.

ac3 audio is more compatible than anything else you can use on a dvd.

if your program is over two hours long, the nature of the footage will be critical to whether or not the finished quality is acceptable... along with the encoder you use, of course.

the object here is to first improve your skills as a compressionist, instead of throwing money at a hardware solution that may or may not work correctly.

you can use the bitrate calculator at www.videohelp.com to determine what the average vbr setting should be... the peak vbr setting should not affect the final size of the file, i typically use 8700-8800 for that.

I found this calculator to be helpful. There is no install, provided your browser has java installed.

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

For downloadable programs, try this page:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?s=1#1

-DB