First some facts.

1. A standard DVD is physically restricted in the max size & quality of the video you can burn to them......unless you burn an AVCHD DVD, which is a normal DVD but burnt in a different format. Although it can only be replayed on a Blu-ray player or computer and will only hold a max of around 20 minutes of HD video.

Put "AVCHD DVD" into google and "DVD resolution" will give you a better explaination.

2. I hope you have a powerful computer if you are trying to edit H.264 video format which is very complicated and the reason it compresses very well with excellent quality. Mpeg 4 is similar but does not compress as well.

3. Cutting you video down so you can burn several small videos is very simple. Just drop the video on the timeline cut the video at the end of the first section then delete the rest. Burn the DVD.

Reload the video onto the timeline cut at the same place but this time delete the part you just burned, then rinse and repeat as you work your way through the 10 hours of video.

If you read the help file and just play with a test video it will all come clear.

My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

Hi there -

Surely it's not all one clip!???

If so, you'll need to:
1. insert it in the timeline
2. split it into about 1 hour sections (for a single layer DVD)
3. save project as "Egypt"
3. remove 2 - 10 and work on the first section (titles etc)
4. save project as Egypt1
5. burn to disc
6. open "Egypt" project
7. repeat steps 3 - 5, working on section 2

... and it goes on...

If you have a collection of clips, just create folders called Egypt1, Egypt2 etc - assign clips to each folder.
1. Open PD - import the folder Egypt1
2. Edit as you wish > then burn.

Sounds like a big job!

Cheers - Tony
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Hi isoseismic184,

You have been given sound advice by Robert and Tony.

It may be additionally helpful, and you may be able to avoid a logistical nightmare, if you explore the use of the "change alias" command when you split up your 10 hour video. Changing the alias is not indexed in the help files, but the command is found by right clicking in the timeline.

PD9 can easily accomodate your long video in one timeline. If you follow Robert and Tony's advice and split the video into 10 one hour segments, you can activate and edit each segment separately without burdening or overloading your computer. After editing, the length of each segment will vary, longer or shorter, making resizing the segments into appropriate sizes from separate folders for burning full and contiguous DVDs, a logistical burden.

Having the entire video on one timeline can render several additional advantages over using separate folders for each segment. For instance, you will have a continual view of over-all video length and length of each segment and you will have no logistical issues.

Separate editing of each segment is easy after you do your splits. Do this by changing the alias (right click on the segment) and name them numerically (Egypt 1, etc.) Then the segments will stay discrete and separately editable, but your future merging and splitting of segments will be easy and seamless, down to the individual frames at each split.

Save the entire 10 hour video into one file until you are through editing. The assigned alias's will remain whenever you reload the project. The saved project is very compressed and will not cause undue delay when saving or reloading into the timeline.

There are many more benefits, such as using the available 100 tracks, which would make this thread too long and complex. However, this one approach could significantly simplify logistics for you.

I just tried it on my laptop and was able to edit with no difficulty at all, having more than 10 hours of video on one timeline, I could individually activate each segment for editing. You can split, remove, insert and overwrite and the entire video will stay cohesive if you have checked "Link all tracks when inserting/removing content in the timeline" checked in the editing section of preferences.

Finally, you can merge, re-split and save save the new segments in separate appropriately sized files when you finish editing, or when you are ready to burn your DVDs.

This is just an additional suggestion, offered because logistics will be important with a video this large. This way, you will have no difficulty splitting your video into contiguous, seamless DVDs after final edit.

Pax Laptop PC, ASUS
Core i7 Q 720
Win 7, 64-bit
RAM 8GB DDR2
Graphics, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M 1GB DDR5

Hi isoseismic184,
Lots of good input here for you to read. However I think you need to give a bit more information.

Please tell us what make and model camera you have - it would help a great deal and influence the suggestions members will make?

Thanks
Dafydd

Thank you all! All your information is very helpful. I will hopefully complete this project by the end of this week, as it seems quite time consuming. My camera is a Canon FS300.

HD camera. The video is likely to be in smaller sections and you should not have any problem editing the format in PD9. The capability of your computer is important. If it isn't powerful enough to deal with HD footage, you'll run into all sorts of hiccups. I suggest you post a diagnostic file of your system, (guide info below) and let members look over it.

Whatever editing technique you decide upon, make your video interesting - think of the viewer. Leave a lot of your uninteresting stuff on the cutting room floor. Set yourself a length target and cut, dump and be ruthless.

Finished file - you've already received suggestions. H264 initially and use SVRT. Finally create a DVD as you wish.

Hope that helps in some way.

Dafydd