Ok, I have tried searching for this, but I am not really getting the answer from any previous threads... I have all of the Episodes of TOP GEAR the british car show and I want to make them play in my DVD. I have read about authoring and am trying a bunch of different programs to make this work... The thing that I am not sure about yet is... The first season has 10 episodes... if I tell the program that the disk is a standard DVD (about 4 GIG) and that I want all those on that disk... vs. only putting on say 4 of the 10 episodes... what is the difference? There must be a quality change? will I mess things up if I try and add to many seasons? How do I figure out how many will go on a disk? See they dont come from a DVD set, so I really cant tell if I can make all of them go on a disk or not. I would apprecite any help on this! thanks
Well, 10 would fit on the disc, but you have to consider the quality. I do not know how long Top Gear is per episode, but I imagine 25 minutes. For 250 minutes on a DVD5, you are using about 2200kbps on the video. What does your source look like? The is very important because at 2200kbps, you are at the borderline of decent looking anime (wait is top Gear live action? You say a British Car show, sort of like Motor week??). If the source is close to DVD quality, you will want it at about 3000kbps video. However, I strongly suggest that you download a trial of an mpeg-2 encoder. Try Mainconcept or TMPGEnc. Then encode only about 30 seconds at various average bitrates. Use this formula to determine what bitrates to set: vBR = [4505 / (7.5*T)]*1000 - 192 T = Nt or T = L vBR is Video BitRate T is Time of project N is Number of episodes to go on disc t is average time of episode L is Total sum of time in set number of Episodes Example: Say Top Gear is 25 minutes per episode and you want to fit 10 per disc. T = Nt = 10*25 = 250 vBR = [4505 / (7.5 * 250)]*1000 - 192 vBR = [4505 / 1875]*1000 - 192 vBR = 2.40267 * 1000 - 192 vBR = 2403 - 192 vBR = 2210 kbps I can tell you that I have gone as low as 1900kbps and had pretty good quality, however, I cut out the Credit roll of the episodes. Some pointers when encoding: If there is a credit roll in the source DO NOT use 2 pass VBR encoding. Use 1 Pass VBR. If you cut out the credits, USE 2-pass VBR encoding Encode audio at 192kbps AC3 stereo if you are fitting all 10 episodes on the disc When TOTAL bitrate goes over 3000kbps, you can consider using Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround if you have a Dobly Digital Encoder like Sony Vegas or TMPGEnc AC3 Encoder.
You will have to try software and see. DVDShrink and CloneDVD2 are considered the best for this type of stuff as well as copying in general. You don't say how long these episodes are either but if you want to retain original quality, plan on getting one-and-a-half to two hours' worth on a DVD-5.
Here is a good program for you, it will even create the menues for you: http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/vso_convertxtodvd_guide.cfm The difference between 4 and 10 episodes on 1 disc is the quality you will see. The most I would put on 1 disc (DVD5) would be 4 1 hour episodes depending on the quality of the origonals.
Well, I see I'm a bit late with my reply. I have gotten 4 1 hour episodes on 1 DVD with very little or no quality loss using MainConcep (these were very good quality HDTV) and nowhere near that with the average video.
Wow you guys are good! Thanks for all the info! Here is where I am at so far... The episodes are 1hr each... Now the very first series has some .avi files that are only about 350mb, towards the end of the first season the files increase to about 750mb per file. Right now I am trying a test with DIKO (if its a crappy program, I plead ignorance!) but the first time I tried it didnt work. BUT... I burned it with nero after and I recieved a brun error just before it started, so I am guessing that has something to do with it... something about a compliance check I believe... I am trying it again with the burn right from DIKO. This seemed like the easiest way to get things rolling... Some of the other tutorials that I have been reading are failry intimdating... They seem a little too complex. I didnt want to have to put 1 episode per disk, but I did want to have the best quality.
If they are 1 hour each, do not put 10 on a disc. I was recommending about 4 hours per DVD just like mistycat said. I recommend putting 6 on disc 1 (given that the first few episodes are worse quality than the end episodes) and 4 on Disc 2. Encode the 750MB episodes at a higher bitrate. This is because they will look better to begin with. If you put 1 episode per disc, you will not get any quality increase over 4 episodes. This is because the videos are already compressed. However, do what I recommended in the first post. Download Mainconept Encoder. Use the demo to see the quality. Do a 1-pass VBR encoding. Here are th epossible bitrates: 10 episodes per disc: 800 kbps (I can guarantee this will look like garbage) 9 episodes: 920 kbps (again garbage) 8 episodes: 1060 kbps (still garbage) 7 episodes (very bad) 1238 kbps 6 episodes (bad) 1475 kbps 5 episodes 1810 kbps (watchable) 4 episodes 2310 kbps (Not that bad) 3 episodes 3150 kbps (Sony's bitrate for DVDs) 2 episodes 4800 kbps (Normal DVD quality) 1 episode 9600 kbps (Blue Ray Quality) 1 episode per disc is out of the question as are 10 per disc. This leaves the combos of: 8/2, 7/3, 6/4, & 5/5 as well as 4/3/3 Put the low quality on the disc with the most episodes and give it less bitrate. Now, carefully compare the the 750mb vs the 350mb. Watch them full screen. Also, take note that this will be the quality after you convert it to DVD. Then post how many of each you have. This will determine how many discs to use. Keep another thing in mind, if you keep on burning coasters, you might as well just go 4/3/3 and use 3 DVDs. A coaster is a wasted disc, so it is better to use more discs and get something playable than trying to get 1 disc to work and ruining the discs.
1 episode per disc seems a bit drastic; you should have no trouble bettering that. I am not familar with DIKO and have only used Nero a few times but see what you think. It won't be the origonal file size that determines your encoded file size but the runtime and bitrate used (bitrate = quality and is determined by runtime)(longer video at a given bitrate results in a larger encoded file). That is a basic explanation of the difference between 4 and 10 episodes on 1 DVD; you would really have to reduce the bitrate to fit 10 on 1 disc. Many here use VSO for video (movies and episodes). It's very user friendly, requires no other programs and results in very good quality. That's why I mentioned it, otherwise you'll need separate programs for encoding, authoring and burning. A bitrate calculator may be necessary, too and, possibly, a resolution calculator.
