[Ricardo Torres]

Al: thank you; excellent clues. Yes, indeed, I absolutely must talk to the guys over at B&H. Thanks for the link!

[Ricardo Torres]

Hey, Todd, thanks for the excellent advice! You’re quite correct in pointing out that with my kind of budget, I must settle for the limitations of touristy gear, and just ignore the touristy extras. One thing, though: you mention dslr lenses: I just need one. The one that more or less approximates the human eye (I hope I’m right in thinking that’s the “standard” one; if not, please correct me).

Animation: I don’t shoot animation, I draw it digitally and incorporate it in the video. Sometimes. A talking dog that accompanies some of my video stories is one type of animation I sometimes resort to.

Since you’ve asked for sample videos, here’s one I made about Paris; it includes animation, outdoor shots, and indoor shots (the quality is occasionally pretty awful, but “the play’s the thing”:

https://youtu.be/KpdLzbQH0oM

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[Ricardo Torres]

Al, thanks for the reply.

I’ve looked through the different Q&A, and none of them are really helpful in my situation. For instance, when after about 30 minutes of careful reading I become convinced that a certain camcorder (and not a dslr camera) is my best choice, and look up the recommended item on Amazon and go through the reviews, it suddenly turns out that in low light conditions the image is grainy. And I’m back at square one.

I live in a large city (New York). Renting a camera is not an option here. $100 a day and up.

[Ricardo Torres]

Convert to mpeg.

Or use a program that will convert it for you. DVD Styler is free. It is finicky sometimes, but it will do the trick.

[Ricardo Torres]

I’m on PC.

What would be the best program to use to convert to MPEG-2?

[Ricardo Torres]

Hollywood movies are on dual layer discs, so twice the capacity of a 4.7GB DVD-R.

Again, Jeff, thanks for replying.

I had no idea they were on dual layer discs. Wow. The cost of each disk produced would what – double? Triple? … Hmm … Can an ordinary burner burn two layers? … Sheesh …

Besides having more space, they are starting with a pristine source (not home video) and using ultra-expensive encoders used by a professional compressionist who tweaks the optimum encoding settings for each scene, so yes, they get better results than you and I can.

Please elaborate a little … if you don’t mind. What exactly (in layman terms) is the difference between pristine source and home video? (I mean, they have to transfer film to digital, don’t they? And the size of film negatives isn’t conducive … uh … no, I’m at sea here. Please explain.

What is the difference between our crappy encoders and professional ultra-encoders? (I mean, is it the pixels? Interlacing? the bit rate?)

When working with Encore, be careful about where you save the Project – I just worked with a guy who had a similar issue with Encore stopping halfway through his Blu-ray job. Turned out project was saving to the default C: drive location, and there wasn’t enough room there for all the files that needed to be written, so check that out.

Thanks for warning me. For now my solution is to convert each file to .MOV. It reduces the size about ten times. The solution is crappy no matter how you scramble it. I mean, I’m counting on “The play’s the thing!” concept, but, sheesh, this is worse than the Middle Ages. I mean, being an artist, I know from experience that in order to match the quality of the painting materials medieval and Renaissance and Baroque painters used (including the penniless ones), you have to spend from $60 to $100 on each tube. And now this – in this day and age, with all our wonderful technologies and so forth, you still need to invest lots and lots of money to produce anything halfway decent. No fair.

(From my point of view – forgive the amateur – the actual quality of a video, any video, apart from the shooter’s skill, is predicated on the size and quality of the lens. One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that making a large enough lens doesn’t cost much more than manufacturing a consumer-grade one. And yet cameras that feature decent lenses are ten times more expensive).

[Ricardo Torres]

Hi Jeff; thanks for replying.

To begin with, 2.5 hours is on the long side for a standard DVD, unless you’re considering dual-layer, the quality will not be very good.

Maybe, but … I have a whole bunch of Hollywood-made movies over two hours long, and they come on single DVDs, and the quality’s okay. What gives?

Video on a DVD is always compressed as MPEG-2, and at the highest quality setting (least compression), 60 minutes of video fills the disc (4.7GB). By increasing the compression (lowering data rate), up to two hours or more can be fit on the same disc, at the expense of reduced quality.

I’m sort of … sort of … aware of that. The question is – how bad? No, that’s not the question, at least not right now. Right now I’m having a problem getting ANYTHING onto a disk. Because “the file size is too large.”

The video content makes a difference – if the video is a speaker at a podium, there is very little motion or change in the video and it will compress well, but if you are working with footage of a football game, then 2.5 hours will look nasty.

It’s a little bit of both. More of the podium, less of the football game, though.

A good rule of thumb for determining compression rate is 560/minutes, then just round down a bit, so 90 minutes = 6.0, while 120 minutes is 4.5, while your 2.5 hours would be about 3.7

This formula assumes Dolby Digital AC-3 audio being used, which is compressed and takes little space on the DVD compared to PCM (wav) audio.

All my audio is AC-3.

If you have CS3, you should also have Adobe Encore for DVD, they come together. In Premiere, just go to File > Export > Encore, then you can customize the video encoding settings and tell it whether you want menus or not, and encode/burn, that is the simplest method.

Yes. Unfortunately, the moment I get past half the video files, Encore just freezes. Doesn’t do anything. I mean, even DVDStyler keeps soldiering on (after reducing the overall file size to 500MB), and Windows DVD Maker has the decency to tell me that it can’t do anything that’s longer than 150 minutes. Encore just stops and starts sulking.

Alternately, go to File > Export > Media and choose “MPEG-2 for DVD” then choose a preset that matches your footage, like “NTSC high quality”, then go to the Video tab and adjust the encoding settings. For your 2.5 hour project, try VBR 2-Pass with 3.7 average to maintain quality. For shorter projects, I just use CBR.

This I will try. Thank you.

I still can’t believe, though, that Premiere Pro that supposedly caters to professionals dishes out oversized files. I mean, if it were just a program for home-made video amateurs to play with, I’d understand. Their movies rarely exceed twenty minutes. But the damn thing is 800 bucks retail, and is praised up and down by everybody, and I get this? … Sheesh.

Thanks again for the advice.