Movie Studio: Supports 2 Hour DVDs?

[Steven Talley]

Yes, check the documentation available on Sony’s Media web site for all the details.
https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/manuals

[Rob Strobbe]

DVDs don’t hold “hours” or “minutes.” They hold “bits” and “bytes.”

A single-layer DVD holds 4.37 gigabytes. The amount of “time” that fits into that space depends entirely on how the video (and audio) in question is encoded. Specifically, what bitrate is used. The bitrate is how many bits the encoder is allowed (by you) to spend on each second. To get more “time” on a DVD, you simply need to use a lower bitrate — fewer bits per second in order to allow more seconds. (Keep in mind, fewer bits per second also means a lower quality encode.)

So, yes, you could make a two-hour DVD. You could probably even make a three or four DVD — you just need to use a lower bitrate. (But don’t expect great quality if you go over two hours.)

The catch is that you need to be able to set your own bitrate. Vegas’s MPEG2 templates meant for DVD have an average bitrate of, I believe, 6MB/sec, which is too high to get two hours on a DVD. And unlike Vegas Pro, Vegas Movie Studio does not give you the option to customize MPEG2 templates (licensing issues, I imagine).

The way around that is to render to AVI instead (use a DV codec — do NOT rendering using something like Divx, Xvid, or MP4) and then give that file to DVD Architect Studio (assuming that’s what you’re using to author the DVD). And then use DVDAS’s Fit to Disc feature. It will figure out the right bitrate and encode to MPEG2.

Rob