Quote: I am totally new to this program but not computers. This is what is confusing the heck out of me. I accept the fact that a standard blu ray recordable can only hold 23GB and change. For this reason I having been trying to only add videos that total around the amount listed in my subject line. Ok so the value is approximately 7.3GB and change. However when I check (I'm using the option to create .iso) it shows this value notation 27656/24202. Now how in the heck with just the videos and a menu (I understand this can vary due to complexity of the menu applied) can it exceed the capacity of the 23GB limitation?

This brings me to my second question. Do most newer blu ray players (desktop/tv) support playing a say dual layer blu ray disk? Or maybe even the ones all the way up to 100GB?

What you're probably failing to realize is every playback disc media has specifications for proper playback. One can't just go putting any file on them and expect standalone player compatible playback.

So in this case your source MPEG2 file of ~7.4GB consists of some framesize and bitrate. You can use a tool like MediaInfo to get details or simply load the file into PD media library do a right mouse click and "View Properties". This source MPEG2 video will be encoded by PD during the create disc phase to make it compatible to the settings you selected. For instance:

A standard 25GB BD disc with default PD encoding format and quality settings selected by you will:
hold about 8.0 hrs for H.264 SD 720x480/60i and DD audio
hold about 3.2 hrs H.264 HD 1920x1080/60i and DD audio
hold about 2.2 hrs H.264 HD 1920x1080/60i (24Mbps) and DD audio

Less time if one utilizes LPCM audio and/or MPEG2 format. About 2x the time for 50GB disc.

Not all BD burners are bdxl compatible, 100GB and 128GB, it depends on your model.

Jeff

Thanks for the clarification. So what might a better file format be to import since PD is going to encode the files? My blu ray burner supports a the larger size BD but I had reservation if playback would work on a standalone BD player. Since these videos will be gifts the folks receiving might be impossible impacted if their player can't playback the higher capacity disk

Quote: Thanks for the clarification. So what might a better file format be to import since PD is going to encode the files? My blu ray burner supports a the larger size BD but I had reservation if playback would work on a standalone BD player. Since these videos will be gifts the folks receiving might be impossible impacted if their player can't playback the higher capacity disk

Better file format, that really depends what you have and what you plan on doing with it. Most try to keep output format matching input. So if one sets the camera to record H.264, 1920x1080/60i (24Mbps) then select that when creating a BD disc. If one sets their camera to record H.264, 1920x1080 (16Mbps) because they like getting more footage on a SDHC card vs quality, then select H.264, 1920x1080/60i in PD which is the standard 16Mbps quaility.

If you have mixed bitrate source files, I usually create a disc at the highest setting. If your source is HD MPEG2 format, then it's usually wise to maintian MPEG2 during create disc vs H.264 for better visual quality.

Any 25GB BD player is 50GB capable, bdxl a different story.

Jeff

MelRay - PD has always overestimate the size of your video with menus. Don't worry about it. Just select the next larger size disc and you'll be able to continue. That is in creating a folder, an iso, and maybe even burning a 25 GB BD. A good rule of thumb I found is that 3+ hours of avc h.264 1080/60i 16 Mbps with menu totaling 30 chapters with 3 thumbnails per page. Jeff summed it up pretty good.

I was looking at bitrate calculators for Blu-Ray since your Post is about mpeg-2 files. This link here is a good one to use: http://dvd-hq.info/bitrate_calculator.php . Fill in the blanks on the left side. You can get a good idea of how much video can fit a disc.

Ok JL_JL and tomasc I really appreciate you taking the time to help me learn better how all of this fits together. I had not thought of using a large disk size...duh!