Long Video Project, need advice.
 

I usually only shoot weddings, but have a Fair Queen Contest I am doing early next week and believe it usually runs a little less than 3 hours. Not sure if that will fit on a single DVD, never tried to put that much footage on one so not sure, hate to wait till then to have a plan.

I am pretty new to video, and have never shot anything but HD, and edit in Premier Pro CS4, render to MPEG2-DVD and burn to DVD with Encore.

By no means is giving the clients a HD DVD a must, just have never recorded any other way so unless I have to do not want to start now, I have enough SxS Pro cards to record in HD on both cameras for the full contest.

Can anyone point me in the right direction on how they would do this, I can probably edit it down if need be, just would like to know some options if its a long event.

Thanks

Keep things simple. Split it in half, 2 DVDs. 1 DVD would look awful.

I have considered that, and that may be the best option, I am guessing the max a dvd can handle is about 2 hours and 15 mins is this right.
I ask this because I have to make a DVD they can loop and play during the fair, this can be edited down to the main parts for this but want to fit in as much as possible and still have good quality.

You can put 4 hours on a DVD if you really want to. The problem is what it's going to look like. And frankly, I wouldn't put more than 2 hours on a DVD.

You could use a dual layer DVD which you could fit the 3 hours on an it would look pretty good. DL discs can be somewhat iffy on some set top boxes. I will only use Verbatim DL discs when I have to and have only had one that didn't play for a client.

As far as the loop play at the fair you could keep it in HD by burning it to a large thumb drive and play it back on something like a WD TV media player.

I shoot everything in HD now and down convert when producing DVD's. For single layer discs I don't go over 2 hours. I like to keep it to 1:45. For Dual layer dics I'll go up to 3:45.

Garrett

Given the length, the fact that this is your first HD shoot, and the problems associated with downconversion to begin with I would recommend that you shoot it with your SD camera and save the HD to SD experiments for practice shooting or a shorter job. And even shot in SD, I would still recommend that you use two DVDs of 1 1/2 hrs each instead of one terrible looking 3 hr DVD.

John

If it is looping I would think no one is really watching it. Can you just put a highlights together?

Sounds like you've had plenty of experience shooting HD and delivering on DVD, so your workflow for HD to DVD must be satisfactory. I would stick with your usual routine on that.
If I had an edited program that was longer than 2 hrs, I would deliver it on a single dual layer DVD. IMO, it's practical, professional looking, and more efficient for the end user than multiple DVDs, and Encore will do it.
On the other hand, I have hardly ever had a 3 hour event, including a presidential address, that I couldn't edit at least half of it out one way or the other, to the benefit of a very grateful audience.
Almost nothing, including your own kids, is really interesting for 3 hours :-)
Well, there is football...
On the other hand, if you cut all the commercials, all the dorking around between plays and so forth, even a football game would move along right smartly & fit on a single DVD

I have to agree with you, I can do a lot of editing and maybe offer a separate DVD of "Extras" like special music that they have and some of the "filler" stuff they have going on while the girls are changing.

I once did a 3 hour DVD (maybe a little under).

The client wanted it on one DVD to save money as it was a very large (many thousand) run and dual layer was actually more expensive than 2 single layer discs. I made a test disc so that they could compare the difference in picture quality for the different options. They couldn't see the difference and we went with one single layer disc. I could see the difference but it wasn't that bad to be honest. Having said that the shots were all pretty static so the MPEG2 compression wasn't being very stretched.

In short, test it on a short clip and see. If there is a single client, let them make the call.

On the Mac side there is a fantastic compressor for MPEG called Bitvice. It can make very high quality MPEG files at low bitrates.

http://www.innobits.com/

Unless there is a demand for every second to be presented, take the advice of the edit it down crowd. Viewers will not appreciate all the "dead" footage.

Hello Denny. We won't drop below an average of 7000 kB/s for DVD - like you we originate on HDV and seen no point in compromising any more quality than necessary simply to sequeeze more time out of a DVD.

For your specific project I'd use a WD streamer. It's full HD and space is limited only by your HDD. We use two units on our wedding fair displays.