Maybe it isn't necessary to do. I don't know. I'm fairly ignortant about the technical aspects of video conversion. Anyway, when I convert AVI"s into MPEG 2 in order to burn them to DVD with Ulead Movie Factory, I always make sure to set the ouput frame rate of the converted file to be as close to what the program says the AVI is so as not to loose much quality when converting. However, in doing so I wonder if I'm making the converted file way bigger than it has to, cause when I add the converted MPEG's to Ulead I seem to run out of disc space(even with DL discs)much quicker than I think I should. For example, an avi I have of an episdoe of "House"(was 349 megs in size as an avi and ended up 308 megs in size as an MPEG2) according to SUPER has a video bitrate of 969kbps. So I would select 960 as the bir rate I want for the conversion. Yeah, it's a little below but the next option is 1008 so I figure that's close enough. Anyway I use AC3 audio, use 16x9 as the screen ratio, the audio is 128kbps, frame rate is at 30 and I'm converting the AVI to a FFmpeg if that matters any. So ultimately what I'm asking I guess, is am I doing the right thing by trying to keep the bit rates this high or could I maybe get away with knocking it down to around 500 or 700 kbps, cause with some of the bootleg DVD's I've bought(with all kinds of stuff crammed on to them and not looking that bad)and with how much oontent is put on commercial standard Def DVD's I think I'm getting a little short-changed when burning my own discs. As a frame of refrecne here. I can fit only 3 episodes of House(converted the way that I do to MPEG2)on to a DL disc or about 6 South Park episodes. REgualr DVD R's are pretty much uesless unless I'm making a disc of interet videos. Any help or suggestions is greatly appreciated. Thanks
I have managed to tinker with the settings to help solve my problem. Those familliar with Ulead Movie Factory and it's settings are still welcome to chime in with any helpful hints to help better maxamize disc space without greatly compromising the resulting quality. One thing for sure, if I'd use the old 4:3 ratio instead of the 16:9 that would dree up some room but I have an HDTV and want the stuff to fit the whole screen so that's just not something I am willing to change.
