Another compression question, going to DVD-R

[Heath McKnight]

Hi,

I've decided the extras on my DVD can probably just go one disc with the movie. I compressed an hour and 45 minute video for DVD once (didn't write down what I did, sorry) and it came out way over the allotted 4.7 gb. So I re-compressed and had about 400 or so mb left!

So, here's my question:

Can I fit an hour and 49 minute movie (with commentary on a seperate track), a two minute trailer and a 20 minute documentary/retrospective (the trailer and doc can be compressed to the point that it's borderline good/fair) on one DVD-R?

How much would I have to compress the movie, commentary, etc. to fit onto there? I'm sure there will be more extreme compressions on the trailer, doc and commentary than on the film. I'm gonna go through tonight and see if I can't hack off around five minutes from the doc.

THANKS!

heath

[Jake Russell]

Yeah you might be able to get away with it. You will be really pushing the dvd-r limit, if not tiptoeing over it :-).... Are both your audio tracks for the feature stereo 2.0 dolby streams?

How good your footage will look will depend on what type of footage you have and the encoder of course.

Compressor gets the file size right down so might be an option of an easy way to get more content on a disc.

What encoder are you using?

Jake

[Heath McKnight]

Jake,

I'm using the FCP 3.0.4 compressor. Did you see my new post? The question is, why is a 300 mb quicktime file of my commentary, when getting ready to be compressed to mpeg2, telling me it's gonna be 3.8 gb? (There's no video, just audio that's under 1:50:00)

Thanks,

heath

[Jake Russell]

Before I try and get my head around the question I can't understand what you're trying to do.

Export the audio on your FCPro timeline out as a .wav and encode that in A.Pack to AC-3.

No video at all or mpeg-2..... Not sure where the mpeg-2 comes into play with audio as it has to be separate for use in dvdsp even if you use it as PCM audio(which you wont be given the amount you nead on a disc).

Jake

[Heath McKnight]

Whoa, that's technobabble I don't fully understand. Okay, what do you recommend I do? Should the audio-only commentary be compressed as an mpeg2 file or what do you recommend? I need it to come out to about 150 mb total.

heath

[Rob Lohman]

AC3 is preferred if you want to keep the size down on your audio
streams. Video is always mpeg2. Audio can only be PCM (uncompressed),
AC3 or dts on a (NTSC) dvd.

I've seen footage of over 2 hours on a DVD-R look pretty good,
so you should be able to do what you want. Try fiddling with it.
If you use a constant (CBR) encoding instead of variable (VBR)
you can calculate what datarate you would need to get the
disc full but not over.

I think you should be around 30 MB/minute. That yields a datarate
of 4,5 mbps (TOTAL) in constant encoding.

Or if you do VBR you might try something like:

Min: 0 mbps
Avg: 4 mbps
Max: 5 mbps

These are all total values. So that INCLUDES the video AND audio
AND subtitles (if you have)

[Heath McKnight]

I was told anything over 3, under 5, preferably around 3.5 mbps.

Thanks,

heath

[Rob Lohman]

Well, this is what I calculated, but I could be wrong ofcourse.
Some trial (and error?) might help in this case... Note your settings
and if you go over simply lower them and do it again.

[Heath McKnight]

Learning curves, what fun. ;-)

THANKS!

heath