lots of decent quality video onto DL DVD?

[rt5]

This may sound like a "What's best?" thread, but I don't know where else to ask this question. I'm looking for ideas on a good way to fit six to eight and a half hours of video on a dual layer DVD -- readable by many currently available players. My own player can play DiVX but I'd rather go MPEG2 if possible. I know that some of the better encoders are not so hot at lower bitrates. I'm guessing that TMPGEnc Xpress is not bad since those guys also make a respected VCD (MPEG1) creator.

Now -- I know the video quality will be downright BAD by Doom9 standards. But the source will be an SLP/EP VHS videotape -- not exactly movie studio storage grade.

If it's not possible to get something to DVD in MPEG2 in this duration that's at least watchable, then I could either split the MPEG2 into two DVDs or use MPEG4 (not H.264 though -- I guess XviD or maybe DiVX).

Also, I was thinking about capturing the original video in pretty high quality MPEG2 (or maybe MPEG4) and then transcoding to the new DVD. I think that's the best option available given that my capture device has to be used with a specific program and that program's encoding is not the greatest (but isn't bad at higher rates).

If this post is inappropriate, I apologize. I'm asking here because I know there are people here who know a lot more than I do about this.

Any help or advice on what you'd do is appreciated.

p.s. It's possible that some of these VHS tapes would look fine at lower framerates; so that may be an option too.

p.s. 2 - Although my DVD player does support basic MPEG4, MPEG2 would be even better so that the tapes were playable on all players.

[dbloom]

Encode at a width of 352 instead of 720 (both are legal DVD resolutions, and 352 is closer to the effective resolution of EP VHS anyway). This will almost halve the size of the encoded pciture and this means that the bitrate needed for it to "look good" will be halved as well. You should be able to reasonably get 6-8 hours onto a dual-layer DVD this way, using any decent encoder.

By the way: What kind of capture device are you using? Let us know, one of us may know a workaround to the MPEG-2 only capture limitation you described.

[Awatef]

I agree with dbloom, 352x480 for NTSC or 352x576 for PAL will be just right for VHS footage. That way you can put your 8 hours on a DL-DVD in decent quality.
But make sure you use 2-pass VBR encoding to get the most out of it!

[Mug Funky]

hehe... check out the corporation, disc 2 (extras), region 4. that's got 7 hours in half-d1. i believe the disc is PTP as well, which gives a little more capacity than a regular DVD9 (though you don't get that option with DVD+R DL).

what sort of footage is this? movies? talking heads? it makes a difference...