DVD Studio Pro Content Length

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Level 1

14 points

DVD Studio Pro Content Length

I recently taped an arts symposium that comes to more than 6 hours in length.

I was hoping I could compress the clips (featuring several individual speakers as chapters) to fit a single DVD-5 (4.7 GB) disc.

When I used the MPEG Streamclip app to convert the original Mini DV files to Mpg 4 and try to import one into DVD Studio Pro, DVDSP crashes.

I see that I can import the large file size QT movies into Studio Pro, but then that would exceed the content limit, and I'd have to go with multiple discs for the finished product.

The Mpg 4 quality is excellent, and file size is small. Would MPEG-2 be another choice? DVDSP Help seems to say that the QuickTime MPEG Encoder can be used. I remember having great difficulty working with Compressor in the past, so would prefer to avoid it if possible.

Basic question is, can I fit the 6+ hours onto one disc using MPEG-2? I believe I can also create these files in MPEG Streamclip.

Additionally: I'm trying to configure or even access the MPEG Encoder, but can't open the Preferences menu to do so. Very odd. Hope I don't have to reinstall the whole program or something...

MDD G4, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Nov 9, 2013 8:21 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Posthumous

Level 2

240 points

Nov 9, 2013 10:26 PM in response to keithgvp

You must use MPEG-2 for DVD. That being said, 6 hours is way too long to fit on a single layer DVD. Even a dual layer for that matter.

You can find out the bitrate needed for a single layer 4.7GB DVD by diving the length in minutes of your program by 560. 6 hours x 60 minutes = 360 minutes. 560/360 = 1.5Mbs. Way too low for any quality. You want at least 5Mbs. maybe as low as 4Mbs. for not a lot of motion/action for any decent quality.

That being said, Compressor does a great job for DVD compression with the proper settings, and utilizes multi-core compression with Qmaster to get things compressed quicker.

So, you may want to consider dual layer DVD's and breaking it into a couple discs for best quality.

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Answer 2

Nov 9, 2013 10:27 PM in response to keithgvp

FYI:

The formula for bitrates assumes a single audio track at 192Kbs.

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Answer 3

Studio X

Level 7

27,229 points

Nov 10, 2013 7:31 AM in response to keithgvp

Posthumous as you covered. You must use mpeg2 with a DVD and 2 hrs is the practical max for a single sided disc.

Having said that, no one is going to watch all 6 hours in one sitting so breaking the documentation into multiple discs is not an issue. The real question is how you organize the material.

In projects like these, I organize the material by theme, which may or may not have anything to do with the sequence of presentations. Working this way makes for an easy indexing process. People look for a topic and do not need to know when the talk happened during the conference.

I would make 3 single layer disks. Double layer discs created by a home burners may have issues when played on some machines. You'll have much fewer issues with single sided material.

Have fun,

x

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Answer 4

keithgvp Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 10, 2013 12:51 PM in response to Studio X

Thanks S-X and Posthumous,

That confirms my supposition that 3 single layer discs would be the way to go. I also considered double layered, but have encountered past problems playing them back on one or another device. I'm aware that commercial discs for Hollywood movies can have a far higher content - but of course have more sophisticated burner/replication requirements than my MDD superdrive.

I also realize that apparently DVDSP and other mastering programs recognize content length, not file size...not sure why, exactly, but am sure there's a technical answer. If a more or less one hour 12 GB QT file can be compressed to an MPEG 4 900+ MB size, it would seem you could squeeze 4.5 hours onto a 4.7GB disc.

Either way, I've found that my iDVD v. 8 will accept the Mpeg-4 clips, and the only drawback is that, although I indeed intend to divide the speakers into chapters, or actually, clips - I then can't do a "Play All" for each disc - but the viewer will see a return to the menu after each (quite lengthy ca. 45 min.) talk. As you suggest, X, that's probably a relief - time for coffee :-)

Cheers,

K.

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