Lenght of footage I can put on a DVD?
 

Hi guys,

I wonder how much footage can take a DVD 4.7gb -compression? - but still in high quality..
What's the difference with double layer DVD's

thank you

I would say 3-4Mbps @24fps is a good rule of thumb for MPEG-2. That would leave you with up to 3 hours of material. Double that for dual layer, and adjust accordingly for 60i (i.e., reduce by 20%).

I have to film a seminar 3 hours -I use GY-HD100U -so I understand that I should export the footage MPEG-2
I use Avid Liquid 7
thanks

There are 2 kinds of DVD-Video. DVD5 and DVD9.

DVD5: is a single layered DVD which can contains up to 5 GB of data (4.7GB really). You can burn those DVDs on any DVD burner.

DVD9: is a double layered DVD which can contains up to 9 GB of data. Most likely you will not be able to burn/press the DVD9 yourself. You will have to export your DVD project to DTP tape and bring it to a shop to do it. Most of the time, you need to request a minimum numbers of DVDs (500 or 1000).

Concerning the amount of data available, the support dictates it. DVD5 -> 4.7GB, DVD9 -> 9GB. You could actually have a double sided double layered DVD (DVD18) which gives you 18 GB.

That said, the DVD support does not obligatory dictate the total duration of your content. The compression ratio is the key. You can fit 10 hours of content on a DVD5 if you compress it a lot. Of course, the more you compress, the more the quality will degrade. It also depends on your content, you can obtain a better compression ratio of a 10 hours of talking head, than for high actions content (fast motion, explosions etc..).

To sum up, you are the only one who can define how much of YOUR footage can be put onto a DVD5, based of the content and the quality required. Start with some standards compression settings and adjust from there until you are happy with your compression ratio and the quality.