Hey everybody,

I just recently bagged an elephant, but I feel like a guy who got a lucky shot with a .22 rifle and is now scratching his head looking at the huge carcass and my tiny transport truck.

Up to now, all my projects have been directed to the web, so they always had to be short. Now I have a project lined up that will include up to three hours worth of main content, a secondary feature of up to 30 minutes, and then some supporting downloads. They want all of this available on DVD.

I know, of course, this exceeds iDVDs capabilities, so I'll be grabbing DVD Studio Pro (I'm on a Mac)... but I'm wondering if you have any tips or considerations for files this size? Like, will DVD SP even allow you to burn a DVD with that much content? Anything else?

Getting that much content, 3.5 hours (or 210 minutes), on a DVD is not the
problem. Getting it to look good is. Commercial movies do not even try to
tempt this on a dual-layer disc (which you would need at least).

It's probably best to go with at least two discs, probably more if you go with
single layer discs.

Is it important how it looks? (sometimes the content is more important than
top notch presentation).

Hi Rob,

Yep... I was wondering about that. It has to look good, so two disks is probably the way to go then... although that will increase their cost somewhat. I have to also consider that they want to include some files for download on one of the disks.

Thanks... I had no idea what the usual "limit" is for one disk.

For a single layer I would say 1 hour - 1.5 hours and 2 hour or 3 hours for a
dual layer disc. In the end it all boils down to the quality of your encoder.
Canopus ProCoder (PC) is one of the best. I have no idea how good the Mac
platform is in that regard.

afaik, the real problem is going to be how to get downloadable content into a dvd-legal format... you may have to add a cd to the mix instead... what format do they want the downloadable content in?

real dvd authoring programs don't care about the length of the video content, only the overall size.

procoder will do a good job of encoding upwards of 1:45:00 of mpeg2 content for a single-layer dvd, just use two-pass vbr mastering mode... i would not attempt that length with a mac mpeg2 encoder, unless maybe the footage is really simple talking heads stuff, with little motion in it.

From what I understand "downloadables" referred to having some extra "data"
files on the DVD. Which with any good DVD authoring/burning program should
not be a problem.

The new Sony DVD Architect 3 supports it, and no doubt the Mac's DVD Studio
Pro as well (John's on a Mac if I'm not mistaken).

o.k., now i get it... the downloadable data files are not part of the dvd-video spec... it looks like you have to put the data in there as dvd-rom content, so it becomes part of a hybrid disc(?) instead of the typical dvd-video disc.

http://www.disctronics.co.uk/downloads/tech_docs/dvdrom.pdf

i believe that weblinks on a dvd are handled in a similar manner, and they were problematic with past dvd authoring programs... it would interesting to hear from someone who has had made this happen, i've never tried looking for commerical dvd's that have successfully implemented this stuff.

Dan,

Thanks for the PDF info!

Some movie DVDs now include download materials such as wallpaper, photos, etc. That's the same type of thing I'm talking about except the files I'd put for download would probably be mostly PDFs and PPTs.

I just authored a 4.5 hour dvd onto a dual layer disc.
I sourced out the encoding to a local high-end dvd provider that used a hardware encoder set to a constant bit rate of 3.7 and it looks great.
It was all handheld dv footage.
I had them give me the mpeg-2 files raw on a hard drive and I then finished the authoring in dvd studio pro. It wasn't cheap, but with realtime encoding they could turn it around in a day and I could wrap up the project the following day.

you aren't planning on trying to sell dual-layer discs to the general public, are you? have you done thorough compatability testing on that format yet? still a very dicey proposition, and it's expensive as well.

you can still split that mpeg2 file with the womble software, and probably(?) get it onto a couple of dvd-r's.

I do sell dual-layer discs, but I stay away form burning them (including DVD-5's) unless it's for a reference/test DVD. The cost to replicate a dvd professionaly at a plant is so affordable that even if a client wants 300 dvd's, I can replicate 1,000, recylce 700 and still make a profit.
1,000 DVD-5's stamped with a full color face are about $1.00 each and DVD-9's are about $1.15 each. For me, burning them is too time consuming and unstable.

For DVD-9's I have to master to DLT, but that only requires the $200 DLT drive, a $100 scsi to firewire adapter for my laptop, and then the two $30 dlt tapes.

Interesting Brian, your the first I've heard on this board that actually gets
stuff pressed and uses DLT to do it. Could you tell us which drive/scsi
adaptor your using? That could be great information for other people here
on the board.

Thanks!