I've got issues with DVD Architect. I've got a three hour movie and no matter what I try and I can't get it to fit on a DVD. I bought some dual layer DVD's and they're evidently not compatible with my DVD burner.

I've got a cheapo DVD program, Sony MyDVD, and it has no problem creating a three hour DVD. But what sucks about MyDVD is that there's no way around some of the cheesy buttons and the buttons must be arranged using a template.

Have any of you made a three hour DVD and if so, how did you do it?

Oh, and I guess another question would be: do dual layer DVD's (8.5 gigs) work in most DVD players? I guess I better find that out before I start looking for another DVD burner.

After searching the forum, I found out that it's the bitrate, not the quality that you have to change to decrease the size of the file.

Tony,

I'll put an end to your monologue by asking a question.

I am also facing the same problem - 2:30 hrs of video to fit on to a DVD-R. I've been using Encore 1.5 for authoring. I have just switched the editing from Avid to Premiere Pro since it can output directly to a DVD recognizable format - M4p - saving me hours of transcoding; but I still have the problem of burning 2.5 hours on to a DVD-R. Any suggestions?

Well, you'll be glad to know that I've figured it out. Basically, you want to lower the bitrate until it fits. For mine (and I'm putting like four hours on a DVD) I used a variable bitrate, two pass encoding, and changed the maximum to 3,000,000, the average to 2,000,000, and left the minimum at 192,000.

With two pass encoding, I was pleased with the image and the file size.

I used a variable bitrate, two pass encoding, and changed the maximum to 3,000,000, the average to 2,000,000, and left the minimum at 192,000.
With two pass encoding, I was pleased with the image and the file size.

Can you quantify any hit in video quality as a result of the reduced bitrate? I've always thought the lower the bitrate, the lower the video quality.

Well sure, there's a little quality loss, but I doubt it will be noticable on a regular television. In the future, when higher capacity dvd's are available, I can always re-render it at a higher bitrate. But for now, I'm satisfied with the results.

It's just like saving a jpeg for the web, you need to balance quality with file size and different people will have differnet preferences.