Getting More Than 2 Hours Of Video On Dvd-r

[spudz25]

Well, hopefully I can get some much needed help.

 

Here's my project:

 

I'm taking full length sporting events and editing them up in mpeg streamclip. So, I'm ending up with footage of about 45 minutes per event instead of 2 hours.

I'm saving them in mpeg-2 format after editing.

 

My goals is to take 4 or 5 of these events and put them on one 4.7 dvd-r. I realize that this is well over 8gb-9gb of footage. I want to take advantage of the toast compression feature that I've used when burning 8 gig on to a 4.7 DVD, but it seems it will only do this when using a video-ts folder. I'm willing to take a little loss of quality on these as they are a great quality source to begin with.

 

The problem I'm running into is Toast will not allow me to put more than two hours of video on this dvd. I was hoping it would give me the fit-to-dvd option, but it won't.

 

The only way I found to do this is converting the files to h264 then burning them to the dvd-video option. Toast then re-encodes them (A very lengthy process) and then writes them. This just took too long to be feasible.

 

Is there another way? I'm self educating myself on all of these different file types.

 

My end result that I'm looking for is that I can have a dvd-r that's playable on my stand alone DVD player with a simple menu.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Todd

 

 

 

[tsantee]

Fit to DVD also works when using a disc image. Add your MPEG 2 files as if you are going to burn a DVD. Instead of clicking the burn button choose Save as Disc Image from the File menu. When that is done select the disc image using the Image File setting in the Copy window. Insert your DVD and click the burn button. Toast will do the fit-to-DVD compression (if needed) before starting to burn the DVD.

[Hopestar]

tsantee, is this truly a compression of the image file or is it a re-encoding of the image file to a lower quality image, which then takes up less space on a DVD????

 

For some reason, I get the feeling that the original file, because it is of 'best or better quality' recording of a TV program, takes up more space on a DVD than available and that is the reason why the original file/s has/have to be saved as an imagefile and then burned....

 

is this also the reason why fit-to-DVD is only available for image files and not for the original file?

 

In previous versions of Toast, I think I remember that fit-to-DVD option was also available in the original drag and drop window. Could Toast programers have removed this option from the Toast's Video DVD-Video window's options and placed it only in the Toast's Copy Image File window's options?

 

 

 

[tsantee]

It's complicated and I'm not very good at explaining, but I'll try. Fit-to-DVD involves "requantizing" the video stream within the MPEG 2 video contained in the VOBs. It does not involve re-encoding. Requantizing removes some of the pixel data that can be redundant. I've been advised in the past that a better picture may result from encoding at a higher bit rate and doing requantizing to fit a single-layer disc than it is to encode at a lower bit rate that fits in the first place. However, I've never tested that because my eyes probably couldn't tell the difference.

 

We erroneously refer to fit-to-DVD as compression because that's a word people can understand. But the proper term is requantize or requantization.

 

Toast and Popcorn's Fit-to-DVD always always required the content to exist in a VIDEO_TS folder. Therefore it works with the "DVD video from VIDEO_TS" setting in the Video window, from a non-encrypted DVD in the Copy window and from a video DVD disc image in the Copy window.

 

The times when I find it is best to save as a disc image and burn the DVD from the image file is when I know the optical drive is going to have to wait awhile before the burning stage begins. This is particularly an issue when video must first be encoded or requantized before it can be burned. The drive may not wake up or just isn't paying very good attention (drowsy?) when it gets started. This also can be an issue just waiting for multiplexing to be completed, but not as likely in that case. My use of the term drowsy of course is technically absurd. But I've seen and heard many times how burning the disc from the disc image works whereas waking the drive to burn after some delay doesn't work. Another advantage of the disc image is that one doesn't have to start over from the beginning when a disc does fail to burn.

 

There probably is something different with how Toast reads and feeds data to an optical drive when burning a disc image than when burning from multiple files. File fragmentation may be a part of this as well, although I don't know.

 

So the short answer to your question about why disc images work better in some cases is "I do not know the answer. I only know it's true." (Quote courtesy of "The Fantastiks").