DV-AVI to Mpeg-2 compression

[DiscCoasterPro]

Hi, just a quick question, I understand that an hour miniDV tape is about 13 gigs of info. ( I hope thats accurate) if you encode / render that file to a compatable DVD format for burning, how much compression could you expect with high quality. Would that end up fitting on one 4.7 DVD?

thanks,
dcp

[Taelon]

Hi DCP, My understanding is mini-DV is 25Mbps, but that includes LPCM audio which isn't compressed... So it's hard to say, since you'll be able to compress the audio significantly as .ac3 stereo or even .ac3 dd 5.1ch. But I'm guessing it would be no worse than trying to fit a 2 hour DVD-9 movie onto a standard DVD-5 blank.

[DiscCoasterPro]

Hi, thanks Taelon. I've been getting these hair brained ideas to try to recoup some loses from hardware purchases by perhaps putting some DV tapes on DVD for folks with less ability than I ..... if any of them exist, LOL. Anyway, I was wondering about an easy way to break down the cost. I didnt' want to go into a second DVD for one full 60min tape. On the other hand I wouldn't want to degrade the quality for them either. I suppose I can do a test, but I thought maybe there was some standard ratio or something. I guess I'm still gonna have to wing it with those VHS tapes on super long play anyway. If I read correctly on those, I can drop the bit rate a lot without worrying about further quality loss since it's much lower anyway.

You are right about the audio compression saving a lot. Is it much of a concern regarding DVD players playing back ac3 audio though or is it safe to just compress it always?

I didn't realize how much camera shops charged to make those transfers. I tried calling a few and without any menus they charge between 25 and 30 bucks per DVD. It you start getting into menus and slideshows, they start talking three figure prices. Wow, I figured, what the heck, I'm fooling with this anyway, might as well make some Geritol money.

thanks,
dcp

[Taelon]

Half D1 is all you need for any VHS sources. That's half resolution, 352x480 and it's plenty for VHS or S-VHS transfers. Encoding with a bitrate of 1.70Mbps is all you need to match the source of an SP tape, and there's no need for more than 3.5Mbps to match the best S-VHS. You could probably even go down to Quarter D1, VCD standard of 352x240 but since it's not a DVD standard it's not compatible with older players. No need to worry about .ac3 audio since it's the DVD standard.

[DiscCoasterPro]

thanks....

You don't happen to live down the street from me, do ya?

Oh, does that hold true with 8mm and VHS-C captures also?