Mini-DVD specs/faq/playtime?

[Chetwood]

I've read almost all the FAQs here on Doom but all I've found was this:


miniDVD: Basically a DVD on a CD... can contain bitrates up to 10mbit/s (audio and video combined). Video is MPEG2 of course.. preferrably VBR and audio can be MPEG1 audio layer 2, raw uncompressed PCM or AC3. Video quality can be up to an actual DVD level if you accept the limited playtime of a CD. You can create DVD-like menus as well. The drawback is miniDVDs will only play on pcs and on the Affrey LD 2060 - and even that requires that you "upgrade" that player in order to have full miniDVD capabilities.

So here are my questions:

- how many minutes fit on a mini-DVD (depending on bitrate used)?
- why can't other standalone DVD players play them, I thought they had the same structure as a real DVD with only limited playtime?

I'm planning to rip some TV episodes of 41 mins lenght each for my standalone player and I'm not sure which way to go if I wanna have selectable subtitles: VCD/SVCD/mini-DVD?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[Jestorius]

- how many minutes? - It's up to the bitrate you are using. Use a biterate calculator. vcdhelp.com and doom9.org has a few to download.

If you wanna use selectable subtitles than miniDVD is the solution. VCD doesn't have subtitle. SVCD has but there isn't many standalones which can use it. MiniDVD can have the same options as the original DVD but the number of standalones playing this media is very limited.

If you go for miniDVD than use mpeg1 with 48khz audio. You can get ~1h on a CD-R.

[ultrabrutal]

Or use 2-3 pcs 80min CD-R, the original AC3 5.1 and mpeg2 at 352x480/576. You get about 45 min per CD-R. Go for 90/99 min CD-R for larger movies or to fit movie to 2 CD-R.

miniDVD rocks. Too bad so few players support them. But hell, DVD-R is getting cheap, making miniDVD, SVCD and VCD obsolete soon (atleast for me)