2:17:00 too long for a standard DVD??

[Stephen Mann]

Every project is different and you won’t know until you encode it and burn a test DVD. If your video has a lot of static shots, then it will keep to the average bitrate and look pretty good. If there’s a lot of changes from frame-to-frame or lots of movement in the scenes, it’s going to look bad.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Mike Kujbida]

I once burned a 2.5 hr. video (theatre play) to a single layer DVD and the quality was fine.
As Steve said, it all depends on your source video.
Mine was well it and shot with a 3 chip camera with 1/2″ CCDs so I had great quality to begin with.
I selected a small portion of the play (darkest section with a lot of motion) and rendered this to see what the final would look like before I committed to the full render.
Make sure to do it as a 2-pass encode as this will help to maximize quality.

[Nigel O’neill]

Personally, for content that long, I would either split it into 2 discs or consider using a dual layer disc.

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Ted Snow]

I too, like Mike, have shot and put 2.5 hours on a single DVD. My footage was a memorial service shot with a Sony VX2100 inside a church during the day with plenty of light and also the graveside service. There were a few long winded speakers that spoke at the service.

I rendered with a single pass VBR using a bitrate calc. I was concerned at first about the quality since the footage was so long but it turned out great. There was even a spinning ceiling fan that was in view and it looked very natural.

I usually don’t like to put more than 2 hours on a disc but this instance turned out fine.

edited to add:
With this being a memorial service, my camera was on a tripod and there was not much moving other than an occasional zoom in and out.

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[Nigel O’neill]

Yeah, if it is a mostly static scene, VBR works really well and you can get 2+ hours of footage on a DVD. If it was a football game, it would turn out terrible and blocky with motion artifacts that are obvious.

My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Dan Myers]

Hi all,

Thank you so much for your responses. I was fortunate that, like Mike, it is a school play and mostly static and the quality looks pretty good.

Dan.