hours of footage for DVD

[Tom Wolsky]

I don’t think you can do five hours, unless you go down to MPEG-1, which is really grotty.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop”

[Steffie Prietzsch]

Thank you Tom!
What is the maximum you can put in your experience?

By the way, I am planning to compress the audio to AC-3, and there will only be one menu page. It’s a staright forward job for authoring.

Steffie

FCP HD, Dual 2GHz G5, X Serve Raid, AJA IO, 10-bit uncompressed Beta SP and Digi Beta PAL
FCP 5.04, Quick Time Pro 7.13, OS X 10.4.8

[Tom Wolsky]

Rule of thumb is four hours for a dual layer disc. You might be able to squeeze more if you crush down the data rate, but it won’t be pretty. Five hours is a real stretch.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop”

[David Roth weiss]

[Tom Wolsky] “MPEG-1, which is really grotty”

Tom,

Please, let me know the genesis of the term “grotty,” its one I’ve not heard.

THNX,
David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Jeff Carpenter]

It MIGHT be possible to get 5 hours on a DVD-9 IF your confrence is mostly static shots of talking heads.

If that’s true, you can squeeze a lot of space out of it without much quality loss.

Cut it in half and compress one half (so 2.5 hours) using a custom Compressor setting:

VBR
Average: 2.0
Max: 6.0

…and see what you get. Both quality-wise and file-size wise. The MPEG file and the AC3 file need to add up to 4 GB or less to be safe. I’m guessing you might be under that and will be able to raise the ‘average’ setting before trying it again.

This is all based on there not being much motion in the shots, but if that assumption is true, yeah, I think you can do it.

[David Roth weiss]

I found it…

grotty: adj. grot

[Jeff Carpenter]

Forgot to mention my experiences…

I compress high school football games for a local cable channel (to give to the teams). These are mutli-camera truck shoots. Video cutting, graphics, slow-mo playbacks…everything you’d see on any football broadcast.

In most cases the videos are about 2 hours, but sometimes they run closer to 3. In those cases I’ve gotten 3 hours of video on a DVD-4 disk, even with all the movement and cutting!

Now, it’s close to VHS quality at that point, but the client is happier with that than with paying for 2 discs or a DVD-9 disc. So they live with the quality loss when games happen to run long.

So my point is, if I can fit 3 hours of a sporting event on a 4 GB disc, I’m betting you can do 5 hours for a disc twice that size. That’s less compression than mine, first of all, and secondly, your subject matter should compress a lot smoother and look better at lower rates than my does.

It’s sure worth the time to compress a test. And be sure to burn the test to a disc and watch it on a TV. It’s nearly impossible to judge them on the computer screen.

[Steffie Prietzsch]

Thank you Jeff, that’s very helpful.
I haven’t yet established the final length of it all, but the client would like the conference pretty much full length. They will accept some quality loss, and they do want only one DVD.
As you rightly guessed it is pretty much all talking heads, no fast movement.
In the meantime Compressor has given up on me, but that’s in a differnt post.
I was planning to compress short sequences at a time, as a full length version is not required.

I will be in fo hours of tests.
Thanks also fo the advice to do a test burn and pre-viewing! hadn’t thought of that.

Steffie

FCP HD, Dual 2GHz G5, X Serve Raid, AJA IO, 10-bit uncompressed Beta SP and Digi Beta PAL
FCP 5.04, Quick Time Pro 7.13, OS X 10.4.8

[Tom Wolsky]

It’s apparently English slang. The derivation is from grotesque and started in the 60s.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop”

[Steffie Prietzsch]

Ah -ha! The rule of thumb is exactly what I was looking for and not able to find. Thanks.
And I do understand ‘grotty’. Of course!

Thanks.
Steffie

FCP HD, Dual 2GHz G5, X Serve Raid, AJA IO, 10-bit uncompressed Beta SP and Digi Beta PAL
FCP 5.04, Quick Time Pro 7.13, OS X 10.4.8