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Understanding DVD Compression?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the something-doesn't-quite-add-up-here dept.

canyon289 asks: "My friends and I created a full length movie using a regular Sony Camcorder. After importing and editing all of the video and audio in Adobe Premiere, the exported AVI comes out to 19 gigs. The length of the movie is 90 minutes. We tried compressing it with Nero Burning Rom to a 4.7 single layer DVD but when played in a standard DVD player theres pixelation and frame skips aplenty. Does anyone know how to fit the movie into a DVD (preferably 4.7) and still maintain adequate quality?"

4 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. No problem! by Wavicle · · Score: 5, Funny


    Just download your movie off the net. Someone will have shrunk it to fit on a CD-ROM.
    </sarcasm>

    --
    Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
    Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
  2. Use another compression engine? Audio too big? by Sancho · · Score: 5, Informative

    You want a multi-pass, high quality encoder to create your output files. For video and on Windows, I suggest Tsunami Mpeg Encoder (TMPGEnc). It's been a few years since I've messed with any of this, but it was quite good and inexpensive 3-4 years ago. It does 2-pass encoding and can output any number of DVD-compatible formats.

    If you're still having problems, you might try reducing the resolution. DVD supports 704(720) or 352 vertical lines. Obviously quality suffers as you reduce resolution, but if you're having problems squeezing your content onto a DVD at 720 lines, you may just get an overall increase in quality this way.

    Also, you don't talk much about your audio. Is it raw audio (which is really big and uses up lots of room on the disc that could be devoted to video)? You may have good results compressing this, as well.

    I like http://www.doom9.net/ for all things video/dvd/vcd. They have a number of guides which detail the various methods of compression and burning. It's pretty likely that you'll find the tips you need there.

    1. Re:Use another compression engine? Audio too big? by towzzer · · Score: 5, Informative

      Like the other comments i recommend a high quality encoder, my preference is Cinema Craft Encoder. I've tried the nero encoder and anything i put it comes out looking quite horrible. If there is alot of noise you might need a bit of a smoother filter to help the mmpeg-2 compression. Try getting a program called avi2dvd, it does everything for you and you only need to input which encoder you'd like to use (free ones are provided).

  3. Feel free to adapt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ffmpeg -i INPUT.avi -target ntsc-dvd 01.mpg
    mkdir dvd
    dvdauthor -o dvd -t -v 4:3 01.mpg
    dvdauthor -o dvd -T
    growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video dvd
    rm -r dvd 01.mpg