MPEG2 1080 is one of the largest file sizes besides DV. Reducing the size of the pictures won't do anything but lower the quality. You should look at lowering the bitrate. Commercial 1080 movies are on blu-ray disc. They have much more available space than a standard DVD. I produce 5 minute race videos in HD that are sometimes over 1GB. __________________________________
CORNBLOSSOM

Hi Jacko,
Some basic questions to start with to clarify the situation a bit.
What is the video you're editing and the source?
What and where do you intend to do/show these finished video?
Thanks
Dafydd

Thank you for your response. I appreciate it.
My video consists of still images only plus music. I rendered in 1080I and burned in mpeg2, default profile, HQ. One track of images, 3 tracks of audio. 580 images, 38+ minutes long. The show was displayed on both a DLP projector with 1280 native resolution and an LCD 1080p. Both were fed by an upconverting DVD player via hdmi 1.4. The image appears to be (at the most) 480 lines. It may be less as the images appear quite jagged on the edges and blurry. I could burn it to blu ray but I am distributing copies and not everyone has a blu ray player.

Jaime-esque is incorrect. All commercial DVD movies are 1080I/24. Blue-ray movies are 1080P.

Jaime-esque is incorrect. All commercial DVD movies are 1080I/24. Blue-ray movies are 1080P.

Wrong. Commercial DVDs are not 1080 at all. They are 480i (NTSC). 1080i and 1080p are both part of the Blu-Ray standard. __________________________________
CORNBLOSSOM

Quote:

Jaime-esque is incorrect. All commercial DVD movies are 1080I/24. Blue-ray movies are 1080P.

Wrong. Commercial DVDs are not 1080 at all. They are 480i (NTSC). 1080i and 1080p are both part of the Blu-Ray standard.

I have to side with Jaime-esque on this one.

This link from blu-ray.com backs up what he says. [Half-way down the column at "Video Resolution"]:
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_dvd_comparison

Additionally, for what its worth, I have a clip that is 4 mins 18 secs with just pictures and 2 .m4a music files and it is just under 1 GB in AVCHD format. I am sure it would be over 1 GB in MPEG-2. To oversimplify the issue... x10 [to get to approx 40 minutes] and you have a 10 GB video.

As Jaime-esque also pointed out, MPEG-2 is one of the largest file sizes out there. I can burn 29 minutes of 1920x1080p AVCHD at 4350 MB or the same exact files as 1920x1080 MPEG-2 at 7289 MB. [Note: exact file sizes will depend on bit-rate and other factors.]

Not to muddy the issue, but another consideration--depending on your target audience--is to find out if the people who don't have blu-ray have a program that will play AVCHD. Examples include Cyberlink software, and even Win7 includes the codecs to play AVCHD. If you have a large target audience, then this scenario becomes less likely. This might give you another alternative for getting your product into its intended hands.

sb

Okay you guys are a lot smarter than I regarding formats. All these different formats are enough to gray hair. How is it that commercial DVD's can look so crystal clear using 4.7 gigs? Do they have proprietary secret algorithms that we minions
can not access? What is "High Definition"? Is it everything above 280 lines?
I did find a solution for my 38 min slide show. I rendered in 1080I, 1920 mpeg2 and that yielded a mpg of 3.8 gigs. I then used Ashampoo Burning Suite to burn it to DVD. If you are familiar with that program you know that it will render to fit the loaded media. The rendered file is 4.6 gigs with DVD (sl) in the tray. (took 55 min to render) The quality is excellent with a subtle loss of grays when viewed on my 40". It was a bit of a hassle to insert chapters but I can live with that.
PD9 is a great program. Especially for the price. One should not expect the burning module to be any more than it is I suppose. I have not used any of CL's other related programs but I speculate that their burning suite can do what Ashampoo offers. I would prefer to stay in the PD9 program through the burning process but maybe that is something for the wish list forum (or my deeper understanding of PD9).
As an artist I prefer to spend my time in the right hemisphere of my brain. I gave up on that fantasy with my first digital audio project back in 1983. I use the 80/20 rule. 20% of my time is devoted to creativity, the rest to problem solving...
What other workarounds have you guys been using?