Wedding Video DVD Length

[Vince Skinner]

First Wedding video and I had a question.....

I just wanted to get the general sentiment of how long each segment of a wedding DVD should be? I'm just going to film as much as I can; but on the DVD itself, I just would like to know.

Rehersal? 15 min??

Ceremony? 40 min??

Reception? 40 min??

Highlights? 15 min??

FYI - Lets just say it was highest price package a person could get for 1 DVD.

I appreciate your feedback! :)

V

[Jack Robertson]

Vince,

This question could be answered in so many different ways, and in the end it really only comes down to how much time you are willing to spend on it for the amount of dollars you are going to get for it. Perhaps you should ask your self these questions before hand...

What price are you going to charge?
How long will it take you to do?
Should you offer limited packages (1 hour total video) but optional extensions?
Will the finished video fit on one DVD disc? (you need more compression to fit more, may look worse)

Also different cultutres want different length wedding videos... some want "everything" which is in some cases hours of RAW video that you will have to log and edit, add music + effects or what ever the client may want and etc.

Cheers
Jack

[David Woodland]

Speaking of compression. I plan on releasing my new rollerblading video on DVD next febuary and I was wondering how I'm going to fit the whole movie on DVD when DVD disc's are like 4.7 gbs..? I have no clue. There will be bonus footage and everything. All of the other skate dvd's i get have so much on them and i dont understand. How much do you need to compress it and ive realized on the videos I own, the quality is the exact same as when they filmed it so they must not compress it much. Any help, thanks. Sorry for adding another question to your post, I will be doing weddings soon for my brothers Djing company so your question was useful. It's making me think about how I will be doing the dvd's for the weddings i film. Anyway, later

[Torajima Watanabe]

I'm not an expert by any means, as I've only done a few weddings. But the last DVD I made was 90 minutes.

Roughly ten minutes of highlights, 40 minutes of ceremony, and 40 minutes of the reception. Note that the ceremony itself was only about 15 minutes, the majority of the clips were before and after footage.

I didn't include any rehearsal footage. I do go to the rehearsal, but I let my clients know that this is to meet everyone, scout the location, and take some test shots. I did have about 40 minutes of useable rehearsal footage... but rehearsals in general are so incredibly boring that I don't intend to provide the footage unless someone specifically asks for it.

[Vince Skinner]

Torajima, That's exactly what I was looking for! I know that it depends on this and that, but I just wanted to know, on average, what are the average times for each of those segments. Thanx for the info.

V

[Vince Skinner]

Jack,

Just tell me what you do on your dvd's. Lets say this is the best package with all the trimmings. But you just want it to fit on one dvd. What are the average times of the segments??

V

[Peter Moore]

"Speaking of compression. I plan on releasing my new rollerblading video on DVD next febuary and I was wondering how I'm going to fit the whole movie on DVD when DVD disc's are like 4.7 gbs..? I have no clue. There will be bonus footage and everything. All of the other skate dvd's i get have so much on them and i dont understand. How much do you need to compress it and ive realized on the videos I own, the quality is the exact same as when they filmed it so they must not compress it much. "


There's two issues at work: data compression, and disk size. To fit video onto a 4.3 GB disk (that's what DVD's are, or 4.7 billion bytes), you need to use nothing higher than a 4 Mbps 2-pass VBR with Procoder or another good MPEG encoder. That will give you reasonably good quality, maybe close to an average commercial DVD, but will give you 130 minutes of video tops.

If you have more than 130 minutes, then you must use a dual layer or dual sided disk. Dual sided disks are easy to make - you can buy dual sided DVD-Rs, and your recorder just treats them as two different DVDs when you flip over.

Dual layer disks are tricky. You need industry-standard software like Maestro or Sonic Scenarist, and you must get them mass produced (e.g. replicated). They will be physically identical to any DVD you buy in a store, e.g. not DVD-R.

They will probably cost about $2000 for 1000, including all packaging. If you don't need packaging, you can probably get it as low as $1250 for 1000.

The advantage to a dual layer disk is that it can store 8.3 GB on one side of the disk. Virtually all Hollywood titles are dual layer disks; that's how they store so much video on them. The disadvantage is that no one has figured out how to do dual layer disks with DVD-Rs (even though it is quite possible theoretically). You must therefore get them in bulk. You also usually need to submit the layers on digital linear tape (DLT), so you need a DLT drive and software that will write to it. All in all, Dual Layer disk production is pretty hardcore and requires a whole lot of knowledge and money to get produced. But, that's your option if you need to have a longer video.

Otherwise, you can try double-sided DVD-Rs, or a two-disk set, which is pretty trendy nowadays.

[David Woodland]

Wow, making this DVD is going to be way harder than I thought. I've been working on practice menus in DVD architech but I'm sort of lost about the compression still. You said to use nothing higher than a 4 Mbps 2-pass VBR with Procoder or another good MPEG encoder. Yet, I have no clue where I select these settings in DVD architech. Do i use something such as Windows Media Encoder 9, because that's what I use to compress edits to show people over the internet. I'm still new to the program so I'm trying to learn it because I want to release the dvd in Febuary at a contest. They do premieres and such and I would like to premiere my video there and sell copies. Also, I may just go ahead and distribute this one myself. So you say I can get 130 minutes of footage if I compress it with those settings above? If you could tell me a little bit more about, lets see...DVD settings that would be great. Thanks for your last post too! Later

[Jack Robertson]

Vince,

My usual wedding package includes:

10mins Bride & Groom and Gettingready
20 mins ceromony (average)
30 mins reception
5 minute highlights

Of course I never really make exactly same lenghts but that's a guide only.

Cheers,
Jack

[Peter Moore]

David,
I think in DVD Architect you should be able to select 4 Mbps variable bit-rate. In the compression settings there should be at least two options concerning bitrate: average and maximum. Select 4000 kbps (4 Mbps) average and 6000 kbps maximum. That should yield you about 130 minutes. Then you'll have space left over for one stereo dolby digital soundtrack (which you also make with DVD architect). But that's it. DVD-Rs really don't have as much space as people think. :)

The way it works is this: the disk can store 4.7 billion bytes, or 36,000 megabits. 130 minutes = 7800 seconds, which will take up 31,200 megabits. Use the rest for audio, menus, etc.

[David Woodland]

Alright, I understand it now. thank you so much for the help. Later on.

[Vince Skinner]

Thanx Jack, I appreciate the info. Yeah, I just wanted to get an "idea" or guide.

:)

V

[Scott Osborne]

Wow I didn't know anyone released such short videos. I am doing Two disc sets that contain 2 to 2.5 hours of video. I find with a Catholic cerimony which can last up to an hour and a half, its just not practical to release a short video.

This is my general layout

- 10 Minute Montage
- 5-10 Minute Bride preperation
- 5-10 Minute Groom prep
- 5 Minute Processional
- 1-1.5 hour Cerimony
- 10-15 Minute Formal Session
- 1 Hour Reception

Ofcourse this all varies on the package and the B&Gs tastes.

I just could'nt imagine stuffing all of that into a 90 minute production.

I usually encode at 4-7 mbps 2 pass VBR set at mastering quality in Procoder....Works for me. Nobady has complained about the quality of the compressed version

[Jake Russell]

It's also really important to understand that not all encoders deal with low bitrates well. Procoder does, as it's one of the best software encoders there is, as is Compressor. Others will probably not give the quality you or your client will need when dropping down to or past 4. Bitvice (www.innobits.se) is another option for mac and TMPGENC (www.tmpgenc.net) is a cheap pc option which I haven't tried but suppose to do a good job.

Oh as far as dual layer, dvd-9's go. It's not really hard at all if your authoring app supports it. DVDSP 1.5.2 for example. All you have to do differently is select DVD 8.54 instead of DVD 4.7 in the PI. Oh that was really tough! Now write to DLT(two, one for each layer) which you'd have to do to replicate any dvd.

DVDSP places the layer switch for you, (you can control where it happens in 2) and tells you when to put the 2nd DLT in. For those who don't know you can get DLT4000's really cheap these days if you look about. Search on ebay ;-)

There are other apps other than Scenarist that support dvd-9 but yes if you have to learn a non-abstraction layer app then you're dvd knowledge will need to be upped and a handy copy of dvd demystified 2nd edition close at hand.

Adobe encore(when released), Sonic Fusion will support this type of dvd too. Memebership to tfdvd.com will give you the dvd-9 maker docs which is a little time consuming, complex even but makes it possible to make dvd-9's even if your app doesnt support it. Also Scenarist can open other Sonic projects so you could do your project in ReelDvd or something and have someone else finish the project and write to two DLTs.

Jake

Hmmmm dvd-9-r I think not......

[Glen Elliott]

Wow, we edit way tighter. Usually the entire video runs less than an hour- usually 50-60 minutes. We don't play out the entire ceremony due to pacing issues. Unless the b&g ask for it we turn it into one long musical montage and break out for natural audio only for the vows.
It's actually more time consuming to do a shorter vid beings carefull planning is needed to edit to the music- so certian key moments hit exactly on the note I want. If it were straight through all I'd have to do is lay down the tracks (however many cameras were there for coverage), sync them, then use the Excalibur multicam edit tool to switch from camera to camera. Could do it in less than 2 hours. Usually the ceremony will take me over 2 days. lol