Maximum minutes of video on DVD-9 at highest “safe” bitrate

[Eric Pautsch]

It depends on many things. Which encoder are you using? How clean is your source footage. Do you plan on using AC3 audio or uncompressed? How many minutues total (with extras) do you want to put on? in other words, there no exact recipe…if it looks good then your golden.

For 82 minutes, you can easily get this onto DVD-5 with a decent encoder. Basically you should follow the calulator and go from there. I use an encoder which, I feel gives decent (ie: passable) results at 2-3mb/s but most prosumer encoders will give bad results. I say keep 4-5 mb/s your lowest you want to go with one of those encoders.

[Khashyar Darvich]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your thoughts and feedback.

Yes, I’m aware that there are many factors involved.

I am considering a DVD-9 (rather than a DVD-5), because I definitely could include over an hour of extra material.

The documentary film was mastered in HD, and we plan on creating the DVD files of the main feature from a DigiBeta dub of the HD master, which we will have a lab create a 10 bit uncompressed Quicktime File.

The extras (interviews, etc.), originated in miniDV.

We plan on using AIFF audio (which I understand is higher quality than Dolby).

If you are saying that 82 minutes can easily fit into a DVD-5, then I assume that twice that much (including extras) can easily fit onto a DVD-9?

With the highest “safe” bitrate, can we fit 3 hours of total material onto a DVD-9?

I am just trying to get an initial idea of approximately how many minutes of extras that we should select (in addition to the 82 minute feature).

Thanks again for your thoughts and feedback,

Khashyar

[Michael Sacci]

The highest safe max bitrate is 7.5 Mbps with replication and when using ac3 audio. With 3 hours of footage (need to include menus if they are video in this time) you can go upto 5.9 Mbps as long as you use ac3 audio at .192 Mbps.

[Eric Pautsch]

The most i’ve done for a DVD-9 was almost 5 hours but this was only because I used an encoder with segment based re-encoding and pain painstakingly adjusted bitrates to make the client happy.

According to my calculator you can use a bitrate of ABOUT 5.9 max for three hours of footage with a couple motion menus. DONT USE uncompressed audio for this title…your looking at a video bitrate in the low 4 range then. AC3 is great…uncompressed audio is overrated for DVD 🙂

You never indicated which encoder you plan to use. if you have a budget…find someone who used a good encoder like Cinemacraft for example.

[Khashyar Darvich]

Thank you for your informed advice, Michael.

So, it seems that AC3 is preferred rather than AIFF, although I would like to have the very best sound possible, since the soundtrack to the film is top notch, and subtle.

Would keeping the extras and feature under 2:30 hours increase the image quality?

Thanks again,

Khashyar

[Khashyar Darvich]

Thank you, Eric.

Do you think it would make a difference in visual quality if we reduced the total extras and feature to 2 and 1/2 hours? This would mean about 70 minutes of extras. (We have a lot of fantastic extras to include in the film to interest audiences, and I want to include as much as possible).

Michael also mentioned AC3 over AIFF…

What would be the circumstance that you would use AIFF audio? If the audio or soundtreack is important to the film?

I appreciate the suggestion regarding the encoder. We have not decided how it will be encoded. Compressor is the default choice unless we have a better option that we can afford.

Thanks again for your feedback,

Khashyar

[Eric Pautsch]

I doubt it would impact the quality. It all depends on who your target audience. I would say, that for many concert tiles, it would possibly mean more to the audiophiles who purchase such titles. Most folks don’t really care about the quality of audio as long as they can hear it. However, its our job as professionals to make that title the best it can be.

So you have a trade off now. Personally I would take the 1.5 mb/s hit on my audio to save it for my video….especially where space is limited) Listen to a quality AC3 track on a good 5.1 set up and I’ll think you’ll like it:)

I dislike Compressor. If you can, try another encoder and test your results. There are several good encoders.

[Khashyar Darvich]

Thank you, Eric.

[Bob Anderson]

He Guys,

I know it’s been “forever” since you made your posts on this subject! However, I’d like to revive the thread. Even though I’m an accomplished filmmaker, I have not had any hands-on experience with creating DVDs professionally. I now have a project for which I’ll need to do just that.

When you say “DVD-5” and “DVD-9″…I’m lost. Is this the physical DVD disc to which one is burning the show? If so, can the average DVD player operate with any such variation?

Thanks for any links on this subject. There may be other pros out there who also need some guidance on this.

With Much Gratitude to COW and Friendly Contributors!
Bob Anderson https://www.bobanderson.biz