Render in what settings for long playing time in DVD?
 

I have a 6 hours and 20 minutes video and wish to use as little single layer DVD disc as possible (maybe 2-3) while retaining acceptable DVD quality video playback.
May I know what format and settings should I choose in order to do that? I shot in HDV but won't render to HD quality. I used to chose MPEG2 with best quality but was able to squeezed only 1 hour into a 4.7GB disk using DVD Architect. I'm using Vegas 7.0d
Thanks.

Video quality versus file sizes (6hrs plus on 1 DVD!!!)
 

This is a complex question the answer depending on how and what you want to view the DVD's on and also your own "cut-off" for "acceptable quality".

As a suggestion maybe you should think about converting the files to MPEG4 format like DivX as these video files typically (and that's a very broad typically) have relatively good video resolution but about one quater of the MPEG2 (DVD type) file sizes...so now that gets you potentially to enough for about 4 hours of that video on your single DVD. You can play around with bit rates for video and audio etc. with MPEG4 settings to squeeze even more time to reach your 6hrs 20 mins total or until it goes below what you think is acceptable. But it depends if your viewing system (e.g. TV type DVD player) is capable of playing these

I use Archos media players a lot (I'm constantly travelling all over the world with work so a lot of time to kill on planes) and carry many hours of MPEG4 video files with me. My personal cutt-off for acceptable quality for watching these videos (outputted to a 32inch HDTV flat panel at home) would be about 2500 kbits/sec with audio at 32Hz...it's certainly not HD (and only close to SD) but it's watchable!

Others may suggest WMV format but I rarely use that one so can't comment. Of course, you could stick with MPEG2 (DVD type files) and lower the bit rate - a lot! (and make sure you use efficient audio encoding types and avoid DVD menu options as these can be large files etc.) but I suspect it's not the most efficient CODEC to stick with to do what you're trying to do.

Not really a full answer but hope this helps you think about options!!!

Andy

Can your DVD burner handle dual-layer discs?
If not, try the following settings (for a 2 hr. 10 min. single layer).

CBR: 4,200,000
VBR: 7,300,000 / 4,200,000 / 2,500,000

Here's the link (it's to a zipped file) for the bitrate calculator I use.

Hello,
if i'll put 4200 CBR will it be in a nice quality to watch on DVD?