What is the max. length/time for a DVD in Arch?
 

I am putting down about 6 hours+ worth of footage to DVD (rendering is going to be hours upon hours) and I am wondering before I get too far, is this going to have to span 2 DVD's? Will DVD Arch. be able to compress this much onto a single DVD? I am going to be rendering using the Vegas Main concept mpeg2 dvd files.
Thank you.

Personally, I'd take it to 3 DVDs of 2 hours each. There is no specific "limit" to the length of a DVD as it really depends on the bitrate you use. However, to get 6 hours on a single DVD would take a really, really, low bitrate sacrificing tons of quality.

Now if you go to a dual layer disc, your options improve. You could, conceivably, put 6 hours on one but it would still be like dropping to 3 hours on a standard disc which still isn't usually recommended.

All I can say is try it and see how the quality looks to you! But I wouldn't do it.

Put the bit rate right down first then just render a loop section, just a couple of minutes, that way you'll know in a few minutes rather than having to wait hours to see if it's crap.

Paul.

It depends on how good the final quality is supposed to be as well as what the content is.
If it needs to be good quality and the content is something that's constantly moving and changing, I wouldn't go over 2 hr. with a CBR of 4,576,000 or VBR of 8,000.000 / 4,576,000 / 2,744,000 which means 3 DVDs. Use the 2-pass option.
If mediocre quality is acceptable and the content is something that's stationary such as a talking head, then you might be able to get away with 3 hr. with a CBR of 2,984,000 or VBR of 5,976,000 / 2,984,000 / 2,240,000. Once again, use the 2-pass option.

Since you're the only one who can decide what is acceptable quality or not, render out a short section at various settings to an RW and see for yourself.

Hi David,

I wouldn't go over 2 hours on a single layer DVD using the consumer available rendering engines. In order to maximize quality use two pass VBR. I've been able to get 2 hours using Max - 8,000,000, Ave - 4,750,000, Min - 3,200,000 with AC3 for audio. This was for a 4:3, 60i video. If you use 24p you could get a little higher bit rate since there are fewer frames per second. This setting gave me pretty good quality with no noticeable artifacts.

That's a video with some pretty decent amount of motion so it should work for most projects. The bad thing about VBR is that you can't be sure how much space it will take up unless your render the entire project.

Garrett

I see, thanks. I was hoping to get all of it on one DVD, but I guess not. I am rendering using the default 24p DVD NTSC and not changing the bitrate. Yes, I don';t want it to look terrible, so I guess spanning two DVD's is the way to go. Thanks

David, the default bitrate for the DVD Architect 24p NTSC video stream template is a VBR of 8,000,000 / 6,000,000 / 192,000.
If you stick with this, you'll have to use 3 DVDs as the average bitrate (the middle number) is the main factor in determining how much material you can fit on a disc.
Both Garrett & I gave you VBR numbers with the average in the 4,500,000 range and this is what you'd have to go with to be able to fit it on 2 DVDs.
192,000 is far too low for the Min. value so I strongly recommend that you raise the Min. value to at least 2,000,000 and then save this as a preset.

I wonder if Vegas would actually go down to that low a bit rate on any type of video?

Danny Fye
VidMus Video - Music Productions

So to ensure I have this right, I NEED to change the Variable Bit rate to (and have it selected) :

Max : 9,000,000 (which is the default on mine using 24p NTSC video stream)
Ave : 4,500,000
Min : 2,000,000

And select the 2 pass check box, right?

Do it matter if I put the Audio in the same stream? I usually do, but if it is going to affect how much I can put on a DVD, I would rather render it out separately...

I wouldn't let the Max bit rate go over 8,000,000. Some set top dvd players can't take bitrates over that on the video end and will cause problems when playing.

You can render audio in the same stream but it will then again be recompressed by DVDA which will result in lower quality audio. A better way would be to render the video stream without audio, then render as Dobly Digital AC-3 Pro (*.ac3). In order to stop the enconding from attenuating the sound go into Custom settings, udner the Audio Service, set Dialog normalization to -31 dB; then go to the Preprocessing tab and make th eLine mode profile and RF mode profile None. If you don't the sound will be very softon your DVD. Save the ac3 file using the same name as the mpeg2 file and in the same directory.

When you pull your mpeg2 file into DVDA it will automatically find the ac3 file and connect up the two files.

Hope that helps

Darn, I forgot to add - the 6+ hours are separated into 4 X 1.5 hour videos - does this make a difference?

If your burner can handle double-layer disks, this is an ideal situation for two DLs. 1.5 hours per layer is very good video quality. In other words, each of your video segments goes on a layer of a DVD, you end up with a total of two DVDs.

It sure does.
Use AC-3 audio (default template but make the changes Garrett mentioned) and change the bitrate to the following:
Max: 7,712,000
Avg: 6,168,000
Min: 3,696,000
Using 2-pass won't affect these numbers.
These are conservative numbers but I guarantee that your material will fit.

No it can't. I don't mind having 2 DVD for this, but 3 is too much. Again, 6 hours spread over four video files each about 1.5 hours. I am going with the bit rate that I stated and hope this works for 2 DVD's because if not, it is a whole weekend down the drain.

It really depends on what the content of each video is and how you want to present it. If there are logical break points at the end of each 1.5 hour video I would put it out as a 4 DVD set with 1.5 hours on each DVD. That way when someone has to change out the DVD they it won't seem so odd. Aslo, with putting only 1.5 hours on the DVD you could up the average bit rate setting to theoretically get a better quality or even add a second audio channel. If I have room I usually have an ac3 plus a PCM audio stream just in case somebody's DVD player isn't reading or can't read the ac3 stream.

As Seth said you could go with two DL discs but there will be added cost over 4 single layer DVDs. Aslo, there are some pitfalls to using DL's. They are definately not as compatible with set top DVD players and you need to make sure the layer change point is at the right point or there may be a noticeable delay where the layer change is. I always put the layer change point at a scene change.