?Audio Tracks w/o video on DVD?

[Kevin Kimmell]

I'm putting together a DVD compilation of local bands and was also considering adding some extras on the DVD. Specifically more audio than video for each band.

So for example let's say that there are four bands on the DVD with live concert footage of two or three songs for each of them. I'd also like to put maybe an entire live show's audio on the submenu for each band.

Since this wouldn't necessarily have any video with it (Maybe a slideshow or just a piece of artwork) shouldn't it all fit on a standard DVD?

What's the best way to go about it? I am guessing here but if I were to include a slideshow with the audio and then set the video to be supercompressed, will it all fit.

Timewise I'm guessing we'd be talking about an hour of Video and Audio total for the main video feature and then another 90 minutes of AUDIO for each of the 4 bands.

Help?

-Kevin

[Kevin Kimmell]

To clarify, that would be a total of 60 mintes of Video/Audio and then another 240 minutes of Audio Only (or audio with art or a slideshow).

-Kevin

[Rob Lohman]

It is definitely possible. It all depends on the type of slideshow
you are going to do (how often the picture changes) and the
compression level you are using (probably best to use variable
bitrate [VBR] encoding). Whether it will look good depends
highly on the content, quality of the encoder and the maximum
bitrate you can get away with (before the disc is full).

I'm afraid you are just going to have to test this theory and work
out a balance between the compression of the 1 hour piece and
the slideshow.

It's hard to give out number for such a scenario. I've never done
it myself, but with VBR encoding you should be able to get an
efficient encode of a slideshow. Make sure that the low number
is set to 0 or 1 mbits so it can take the minimum bandwidth when
needed (ie, the picture stands still). Average perhaps 3 mbit with
the max at 5 or something. That would be a good starting point
perhaps.

Good luck!

edit: I wrote this for 90 minutes with 60 minutes = 150 minutes.
I then read the 240 minutes (+60 = 300 minutes!). That might
be just too much to fit on a single layer DVD disc, perhaps a dual
layer disc would be better in that case.

If you go with just one picture per band (to indicate what you
are listening too) or just black it might work....

Keep in mind that you definitely want to compress the audio with
AC3 in this case! Do NOT use uncompressed PCM/WAV!