Tom,

Yes, seeing video stretched out on a big screen as many of your customers will, may suprise you. If you try the demo, be sure to uncheck DV Luma correction (checked is default setting). If checked, it washes out the video in my opinion.

I don't use double layer because the single layer discs are so darn inexpensive at about 30 cents each in 100packs. I edit long form and provide 2 discs in a 2 disc case.

I, too, have avoided using the d/l disks so far. The biggest reason would be that they aren't printable, and I like the pro-looks of the covers printed with my Epson R320. Then there's the chance of player incompatibility...I keep the bitrate around the 8mbs mark and haven't had any complaints about settops choking on it, yet. I agree that with BluRay and HDDvd right around the corner, the 8.5gb DL disks might be having a short life span.

I can fit about a half hour of my video on a regular DVD disc and a full hour of video on a dual layer DVD disc

Tommy, you should be able to fit at least an hour of high quality video+audio on a standard dvd. Are you leaving your audio as an aif file? Uncompressed audio can chew up a lot of disk space.

I'm with Tom on this one, Tommy. What astronomical bitrate are you using to only squeeze a half hour into over 4 gigs? Or do you have uncompressed audio on there?
Just curious.

I can use AIFF audio and still get close to 2 hours on a single sided DVD. If I use AAC audio, it's still about 2 hours but I can up the video bit rate considerably.

If you're only fitting a half hour on a DVD then the bit rate is probably so high it simply won't be playable. Even using a high CBR bit rate you should be able to get an hour at very good quality.

I am encoding at a rate of 19.7 megabits per secound. This is a rate of about 10 gigabytes per hour. This fills up a conventional DVD in about half an hour. The mini dv tape can record video and audio up to 26 megabits per secound to allow for uncompressed audio. If this were the case and I was using uncompressed PCM audio my DVD would fill up in 20 minutes.

You're confused Tom. It sounds as though you have a big miss-understanding about the whole concept of encoding/compression. MiniDV tape comes in around 25 MB/s with uncompressed audio, yes... but encoding/compression, is the process of slimming down this large bitrate & file size down to something that can be read by a DVD player and something that can fit onto the DVD disc (4.7 gig). Since data/video can only be read by a DVD player at a maximum rate of 9.8 MB/s, encoding software takes this into account and would not let you write that 19.7 MB/s file you describe ...it's not possible with the current DVD standard. In fact, there is no way possible that you could completely fill a DVD disc with just a half hour of DVD compliant video.

One hour of MiniDV video (approx 12 Gig) can be compressed down to a 2 Gig file easily if you encode/compress using 4.5 MB/s average bitrate 2-pass VBR. This would still leave plenty of room on the disc (4.7 gig). You can get approx 2 hours of video on a DVD not problem. (my personal opinion is that Compressor does a horrible job at lower bitrates and that is why I use BitVice).

I do believe there are professional encoders that can hit very high bit rates used in broadcast facilities.

Today I was looking at a VC-1 WMV file encoded at just about 18megabits a second at 1440x1080 (HiDef) and it looked real nice on my 23" Apple Cinema Display.

Some DVD players can't even handle 9.8megabits. I wouldn't set peak past 7.5megabits on a 2 pass VBR encode. I usually set peak to 7megabits.

LG Dual Layer DVD+R Burner- A1 performer!
 

I recently purchased an LG Dual Layer DVD Burner (GSA-2166D), after doubting the wisdom of doing so, due to fear of early obsolescence of this technology, RE: onset of Hi-DEF Blu-Ray/HD burners. My skepticism was soon relieved once I burned my first (and subsequent) lengthy video project with this burner. Wow, how much better this material looked when compared against the same content burned with my Sony 4.7 DVD burner! Bitrate used with both burners was 7000 kbps, so the noticeable improvement in video/audio quality obtained by the LG Dual Layer burning must be due to the Dual Layer device itself, rather than to any other factor. Editor used for both projects was Canopus Let's Edit2. MPEG2 output from this software, input to TSUNAMI DVD Author PRO (latest release) and burned therefrom.

Conclusion: the LG (GSA-2166D) Dual Layer burner (Fuji 8.5 DL disc) is well worth the price, even should this component eventually become "obsolete", due to introduction of Blu-Ray/HD burner drives.

I should mention that my 8.5 discs play fine on every DVD Player I own (four in total), including my seven-year-old Sony Player (DVP-C670D) which pre-dates release of DVD+R (Plus R) technology. In other words, the Sony Player is designed to play only DVD-R/RW discs; whereas, for unknown reasons, it successfully plays the 8.5 discs created with my LG +R DL burner.

If for no reason than the conspicuous improvement in video/audio quality of the DL output--- this alone justifies one's buying this "interim technology". Then again, I'm not so sure that DL technology will become obsolete with the advent of Hi-Def Blu-Ray/HD drives, as cost of Hi-Def components (burner, discs, software, player, display, etc.) may be unaffordable to average consumers for many years to come.

VM

Yes I agree that conventional Double Layer discs to have some life to them as it is possible to burn an hours worth of high definition content. If they are going to charge 2000 dollars for a Blu-Ray DVD burner I think I'm going to wait for the price to come down.

I've never had anyone complain when I use two discs for a long wedding video, and two single discs is so much cheaper than one DL disc that I see no point in considering the latter so long as there are any indications of reliability issues. Also, I've had my share of Hollywood DVDs where the video goes to heck at a point consistent with a layer change on the disc: if billion-dollar studios can't make it work well why should I try?

Tommy James: are you putting uncompressed HDV files on standard DVDs, and if so how are you advising your customers to play that? You can fit a lot more HD-quality video on a standard disc with similar quality if you use a compressed format like Windows Media and play that on something like the Avel Linkplayer2.