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Einston
6th February 2008, 10:16
Hallo all..

I'm a bit of a noob but i would like to ask you guys for some help.

I have some lectures on DVD-5. They average about 1 hour 10 min each. There are no encryption or region issues.

I also have some lectures on DVD-5 disks containing about 5 hours (5 lectures) of reasonable quality. Quality is not very important here. The message is much more important. I need to distribute these lectures to people and would like to be able to put 5 of those lectures from individual DVD's onto one DVD-5. It saves money, time and my DVD burner...

Now i have done some reading up and searching on the internet and that's how i found Doom9. I've learned to use DVD Shrink and how to create new IFO's using IFOEdit. Now i've used Power Producer and successfully put 2 lectures on one DVD-5 (Using Long Play Setting) with good quality and a simple still menu with no sound. There is no subtitle either and there is also only a singe AC3 sound channel. There is a button for each lecture. This was quite easy. I also have a copy of Nero Premium and thus can use Nero Recode to put 5 lectures onto one DVD-5. Drawback is there is no menu.

It seems to me Power Producer is more concerned with the playback time than the amount of data you put on the DVD. For example, two compressed lectures takes only about 1.6GB and they play for about 2 hours 20 min together. This almost reaches the 4GB line on the bar after adding the VOBs. (Using LP Long Play setting).

Then i got "clever". :p I used Power Producer and produced a menu with the background and buttons like i want them and used 5 short VOB's as dummies. The plan was to burn the project to my HD and then replace the short VOB's with the actual much longer VOBs. The end result would still be less than about 4.3GB so in theory i can then burn to Disk after the replace.(Note, each lecture is a single VOB file and i took care to rename them in order using the same file name format as the Dummies). Then i learned the hard way that the IFO files control the playing of the VOB files. All worked fine except that only the duration of the Dummy is played on the replaced file. Then i spent time trying to find out how the fix the playback time so the whole VOB is played. I found some threads but they used some greek words like demux and remux and many others that defies understanding. :confused: Later i figured out how to generate new IFO's but how to retain the menu? I then found out you could use the Replace function in VOBblanker [i think]. Will this keep the menu and button functionality? I always remove the chapters when creating the Menu. So they are not an issue.

PS. It was real hard to find out what program performs what function. I ended up downloading just about everything i could find. Now i have a buch of programs and hardly know what they are for or how to use them.. I have noticed that experienced folks here often tell the noobs what to do but hardly ever tell them how to do it.

Many thanks in advance.

Einston.

joseph5
10th February 2008, 04:01
Have you tried "GUI for DVD Author"?

pc_speak
13th February 2008, 04:11
Hi.
Getting anywhere?

The 5 lectures on one DVD is certainly doable. 1500Kbps will give a nice looking output too. :)

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/f517a5ae4e.gif (http://www.freeimagehosting.net/)

How to take the first step to take depends on the current format of the lectures.
How are the original lectures stored? A single file for each lecture? (AVI, MPG, ....)
A compliant DVD for each lecture?
The format - PAL 720x576, NTSC 720x480; 4:3,16:9 ??

You'll find a post here http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1089035#post1089035 that will help you find out.

Steps.
We need to split the video and audio. (Demuxed correctly, the process will be fairly smooth.)
Compress the video, making sure it's DVD compliant.
Make sure the audio is DVD compliant.
Create the menus & put it all back together. This is usually done in a single program. I like DVD Styler. There are several others available.

Adub
13th February 2008, 05:04
The Quality will be really shitty at that bitrate, but if that is totally okay with you then go for it. DVD Styler is one of the best free options, but there are others if you are willing to pay for them.

Ranguvar
13th February 2008, 05:09
If you're willing to pay, Mainconcept MPEG-2 is widely favored for very high quality MPEG-2. That would really help for the low, low bitrates you're talking. Then I would author with TMPGEnc DVD Author.

pc_speak
15th February 2008, 02:02
Einston. I gave you a link to Gspot usage. I have just used MediaInfo. Same procedures. It's nice. You can export the results as a text file for including in a post.

Quality is not very important here.

PAL 720x576 25fps 10 seconds = 305,647KB avi
xvid encoded = 1,140KB avi. Looks OK (audio 128kbps)
MediaInfo calls it as 932Kbps

I'm sure we can do it for your lectures.

It's here. http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/96c14d0fe4_1.11MB :D
Yep. Saw it at the pics. Bought the VHS. Wife gave me the DVD for my birthday.
Me? Spoiled rotten?

Southstorm
15th February 2008, 02:28
But Xvid encoding doesn't help Einston make a DVD with Mpeg2 video. Mpeg2 bitrates with decent quality will be around 3500 - 5000 Kbps.

pc_speak
15th February 2008, 04:09
Allow me to quote Einston, again.
Quality is not very important here.

OK. This is a quickie. I can do better. Have a look. Fully encoded DVD.

http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/981e22dbb8_1.64MB

MediaInfo:-
General #0
Complete name : g.m2v
Format : MPEG-2 Video
Format/Family : MPEG-2
File size : 1.55 MiB
PlayTime : 10s
Bit rate : 1304 Kbps
Writing library : |HCenc 0.22.0.0 - (c) 2004/2007|

Video #0
Codec : MPEG-2 Video
Codec/Family : MPEG-V
Codec profile : Main@Main
Codec settings, Matrix : Standard
PlayTime : 10s
Bit rate mode : CBR
Bit rate : 1245 Kbps
Nominal bit rate : 8000 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Top Field First
Writing library : |HCenc 0.22.0.0 - (c) 2004/2007|

I'm getting off topic here. I'll stop. :rolleyes:

nevragain
15th February 2008, 12:56
use half d1 and HC author with gui for dvdauthor
done :)

the quality will be poor only if the lectures involve large amounts of mostion

Inventive Software
15th February 2008, 13:18
If quality isn't an issue, MPEG-1 at that bitrate would be a better bet than MPEG-2. My DVD recorder uses it and can get 6 hours with average quality. You'd have to use trial and error to get something that plays on a DVD player, but I think it'd work with max bitrate 1150 kbps.

scharfis_brain
15th February 2008, 13:20
I'd suggest to use halfD1
eg. meaning 352x576 or 352x480

pc_speak
18th February 2008, 23:39
@Einston.
After reading your first post again, I found this. It's similar to what you tried with Power Producer. Maybe?
http://forum.videohelp.com/topic292430.html

Einston
21st February 2008, 08:18
Many thanks for the replies. I'll get some more detailed info on the actual format of the lectures. They are in 4:3 but not sure if it is NTSC or PAL. I have a gut feeling it is PAL because most of my other DVDs are.

The lectures consist of the professor on the stage giving lectures. He stands still most of the time and dont make a lot of movements with his hands. He makes use of a projector to illustrate points. The illustrations on the projector was inserted into the recording by whomever did the original recording and editing.

If the quality drops too much i would just have to reduce the number of lectures per dvd. Perhaps 4 lectures per disk would yield a better balance between expense and quality...

I'll look at the advice and check out the links. I would consider buying a program if it would make things easier and if it would allow creating custom menus.

Thanks again...

Einston