Compressing DV tapes
 

There are around 40 DV tapes that I recorded for a project I am involved in, and I would like to make some DVD working copies.

The backup copies I had done are in VHS, and are a burden to carry around.

What I wonder is which would be the best way to compress the DV captured material onto DVDs, say putting 4 or 5 hours on each disc. Of course I am aware that quality, particularly image, will be lower, but I do not want any artifacts.

Which would be the best way to do it?

What I need is a video I can play on any DVD deck, not just on a computer. If that were the case I would simply use Divx.

The program I was considering for this task is DVDShrink, but I wonder if there are other better choices.

Suggestions?



Carlos

First of all, you need to render to MPEG2 for DVDs. The bitrate used will determine the amount you can get onto one DVD. You can look at Vol 1 #7 of my newsletters to get more information and find a bitrate chart.

Natrually, the lower the bitrate you use, the worse the resulting MPEG2 file will be. Most people generally hate to put over 2 hours onto a single DVD. If there is not much movement in the video, you may get by putting more onto the DVD but 4 - 5 hours is really pushing it past the extreme. All I can recommend is that you do a few test runs to find your acceptable quality limit.

Thanks, Edward. I will have a look.

There's very little movement on this stuff, as it's mostly interviews. How much would you say I could stretch the bitrate and get reasonable results?

My idea had been to use DVDShrink to do the job, as I think it analyzes the image and does the best compression.

Certainly doing several tests is the way to go about it.


Carlos

Have you thought about using a dvd recorder? Many of them can take a firewire cable and can be set to record 1hr, 2hrs, 4hrs, 6hrs etc...

Unfortunately that is not an option for me, only my PC burner.

Know absolutely no one that has a home dvd recorder.


Carlos