optimum size for video dvd

[Noah Kadner]

There’s no optimum but there is a max and you’re right there. You might want to crunch things down a few percentage points.

Noah

[George Wing]

When you say “not playing” — does that mean some dvd players do not recognize the dvd at all? or they will play it, but there are issues like stutter or choppiness during playback?

How long is your DVD (running time), and what were the encoded bitrates (mpeg-1, mpeg-2, resolution, bitrate, VBR or CBR, audio type, etc…)?

Regards,
George

[James L]

running time I’m not sure, it’s not linier in terms of layout, it’s basically a big show reel. Encoded as MPEG2 VBR capped at 6, audio type is .m2a. The encoding was done via Premiere6 and the authoring via Sonic reel dvd and the burning through Nero6

All fairly standard stuff, our discs have been played successfully in NZ and around the world but most of our projects are .7 to 2 gig

During the last test it played through the start menu to the main menu, then through a 3 minute intro and stalled ather than returning to the main menu. I had to pop it out of the player then and restart and it wouldn’t even read that time. To date my home player hasn’t missed a beat.

I’ve sent out about 40 of these and most have worked fine and have returned positive feedback. However the most important one didn’t… in two machines. One refused to read it at all, the other “fluttered” in the drive apparently. Worse still the second disc, (hurried couriered off) had the same fault.

“Doh!” in the immortal words of Homer J. Simpson

Thanks for your inut guys

[George Wing]

Do you happen to know the “order” of the assets on your DVD? Some packages will let you see (and even change) the order that they will be starting from the center of the disc moving towards the outer edges (as a DVD5 is burned).

I am wondering if your dvd navigation plays that 3-minute clip, then tries to jump to a clip that is placed near the outer edges of the disc. In which case, you might want to lower the bitrate to keep things under ~4gb.

Another thing to check is whether your bitrates “spiked” (considering you used VBR). Sometimes encoders will actually “spike” above your stated max bitrate — although you maxed at 6mbps, so this might not be a concern in this case.

What speed did you burn the disc? Instead of using the max speed, try a slower speed to see if that helps. I’ve had alot of succes at 4x, but I know folks who have had success at 16x as well (it’s not an exact science considering all the different variables — media brand, media type