Choose encoding quality smart fit for 16x9 or sp and lp for 4x3 aspect ratio.

Quote: Hi Is there anyway of getting powerdirector to burn a movie either to ISO or folder thats over 2hr 21 min in length?

Yes, but quality will be signficantly degraded.

SmartFit will only reduce bitrate ~50% hence your 2hr 21min constraint for 4.7GB DVD. However you can do the following and maintain 16:9 aspect ratio as well.

1) Create a custom MPEG2 profile in the "Produce" tab based on the default DVD-HQ profile. Use 2000Kbps avg, 2300Kbps max. for video bitrate properties. Many DVD players start to have issues below ~2000Kbps
2) Bring the produced mpeg from step 1 back into PD14 timeline and add chapters and such, do not perform other edits.
3) Go to create disc, select your menu, select DVD and use the DVD-HQ profile. Unselect "Enable hardware video encoder" on the "Burn in 2D" tab if available. Use DD stereo for audio vs LPCM, less space.
4) Burn to disc, folder, or ISO. Behind the scene PD will actually use SVRT (Smart Video Render Technology, i.e, no re-encode) and you will end up with a ~2000 Kbps bitrate 720x480 VOB files for DVD just as your created MPEG2 from step 1 on your disc or folder.

Attached pic shows ~4hr 20min on a single DVD, 4.7GB which is about the max. You don't have that much time, simply adjust bitrate above accordingly to maintian the highest quality. Quality, sure it's been extremely degraded at such low bitrate.

Jeff

Ph, Peter, Jeff and Tom.

This is the very reason why I chose to keep PD8 on my computer alongside PD14, because PD8 CAN burn two hours and 21 minutes successfully to a standard 4.7GB single-layer(DVD-5) disc. I've often said this in previous posts but I'm one who wants to get the most out of a disc. As well as editing my own stuff, I'm often editing content for a friend of mine, and often we might combine our material for a potentially interesting video. Each year, the two of us will travel up to Maitland in NSW for the annual Steamfest, This event, centred on Maitland's historic railway station, brings together steam locomotives and vintage passenger carriages, all lovingly restored and maintained by the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. As well as these(but not exactly steam-powered) are vintage diesel-powered rail motors like the 620/720-class 1961/2-vintage cars that used to run between Newcastle and Maitland from 1962 to the late 1980s, and the even-older CPH "Tin Hare" motors of 1923 vintage. My friend and I will spend nearly all day shooting video of these vintage locos and rail motors, then I'll grab his content(on a flash-drive) and combine it with what I've shot and the resultant video may well run to over two hours, depending on how much we shoot(and how long our camera batteries last, ha-ha). So to accommodate all this, I want to be alble to burn to a disc in a way that will hold it all without "hiccups"! That's where PD14 comes in for editing it all, then PD8 for the final disc authoring stage. PD8 allows me to set the authoring at DVD-SP and the process of "burning" takes about 18 to 25 minutes to complete.

Cheers!

Neil.

Hi
Many Thanks for the replies, Tomasc.. i did try smart fit but the program still refused to carry out the conversion.

Thanks JL_JL , i am currently giving your suggestion a try, just out of curiosity do you know what the Min & Max Bit-rate would be to maintain quality but keep the 2 hr limit? or is just trial and error??

Thanks again

Pete

Quote: Thanks JL_JL , i am currently giving your suggestion a try, just out of curiosity do you know what the Min & Max Bit-rate would be to maintain quality but keep the 2 hr limit? or is just trial and error??

Impossible, bitrate is quaility. The only way to fit ~2hrs of basic DVD video on a 4.7GB DVD with PD14 is reduce the bitrate from nominal setting which yields ~1hr on a 4.7GB DVD. Hence always a reduction in the quality. How far it has degraded is in the eye of the viewer and what equipment it's being viewed on.

It's all linear, so:
8000, 8300 Kbps yields about 60+min which is the default
4000, 4300 Kbps yields about 120+min
2000, 2300 Kbps yields about 240+min

Some additional overhead for complexity of menu, keep the menu very simply like text only, no intro video...so on, one has more space for playback video at a higher bitrate, hence higher quality.

Jeff

Thanks again, can i ask one more question?

when i was making the custom profile, i saw some tick boxes for smoothing & noise removal, what exactly do they do and should i tick them?

Pete

Quote: Thanks again, can i ask one more question?

when i was making the custom profile, i saw some tick boxes for smoothing & noise removal, what exactly do they do and should i tick them?

I think the new forum limit is only 3 "New Topic" posts per day but you can post as much as you want in any established topic.

I have not seen that they do anything, most of these are from the old analog capture days on by today’s standards very extremely slow capture equipment and one had to worry about frame drop, capture quality, speeds and such during capture. From the old docs it had:
• Smoothing: Check to produce a softer video image. Only use this option if it was not used during capture, as it can result in slightly blurred video quality.
• Noise removal: Check to remove video artefacts. Only use this option if it was not used during capture, as it can result in slightly blurred video quality.

Jeff

Thanks as always.

Pete

Hi, again(in my last post I had an attack of Keyboard Gremlins, what was supposed to be "Hi" ended as "Ph")

Just staying on the main subject of burning a file in excess of 2 hours 21 minutes, I've not noted any perceivable loss in image quality by burning at DVD-SP grade, if anything, at DVD-SP the resultant discs are more stable and not subject to stuttering and freezing on a domestic player. I have burned one or two in HQ and noted stutter and freeze, and I've burned one or two in DVD-LP and noted severe pixelation, so DVD-SP is the "happy medium" in this case, 'Tis a pity PD14 does not accomodate this facility, that is why I retain PD8.

Just noting also the question(nicely snuck in under the radar, there, ha-ha) about smoothing and noise removal, I agree with Jeff(JL_JL). The facility is really only of a benefit to you if your capturing old analogue VHS(and VHS-C), Beta, Video-8 and Hi-8 camera tapes. And then should only be applied to the final captured file. I have seen for myself that the process can work wonders with this old analogue stuff. Add CLPV to that mix and you could just-about "con" anyone into believing you shot that material digitally! The only thing that might give the game away is the mono audio(but then there are/were some "el-cheapo" digital cameras marketed by a well-known department store that only had a mono microphone...they were absolute "crap" and not even worth the small price paid for them). There were some excellent VHS-based hi-fi cameras about that gave great stereo audio. Processing their content, you really could fool your friends into thinking the stuff was digitally-shot. Transferring it all to DVD, we come back to the original theme of this thread, cramming it all onto a 4.7GB single-layer(DVD-5) disc, and that's where older versions of Power Director truly come into their own as they provide the facility for DVD-SP authoring.

Cheers!

Neil

Silly thing this is, really!

I get notified by email of a reply to my post, click on it, only to find it WAS my post! As someone famous once said.... Nyaaaahhhh, what's up, Doc(s)? What's a-goin' on here?

Cheers!

Neil.

Quote:

Quote: Hi Is there anyway of getting powerdirector to burn a movie either to ISO or folder thats over 2hr 21 min in length?

Yes, but quality will be signficantly degraded.

SmartFit will only reduce bitrate ~50% hence your 2hr 21min constraint for 4.7GB DVD. However you can do the following and maintain 16:9 aspect ratio as well.

1) Create a custom MPEG2 profile in the "Produce" tab based on the default DVD-HQ profile. Use 2000Kbps avg, 2300Kbps max. for video bitrate properties. Many DVD players start to have issues below ~2000Kbps
2) Bring the produced mpeg from step 1 back into PD14 timeline and add chapters and such, do not perform other edits.
3) Go to create disc, select your menu, select DVD and use the DVD-HQ profile. Unselect "Enable hardware video encoder" on the "Burn in 2D" tab if available. Use DD stereo for audio vs LPCM, less space.
4) Burn to disc, folder, or ISO. Behind the scene PD will actually use SVRT (Smart Video Render Technology, i.e, no re-encode) and you will end up with a ~2000 Kbps bitrate 720x480 VOB files for DVD just as your created MPEG2 from step 1 on your disc or folder.

Attached pic shows ~4hr 20min on a single DVD, 4.7GB which is about the max. You don't have that much time, simply adjust bitrate above accordingly to maintian the highest quality. Quality, sure it's been extremely degraded at such low bitrate.

Jeff

Hi Jeff

I've noticed that now that I've done this the frame rate has changed and the resulting video is quite choppy, how can I set the profile but keep the same frame as the original?



Thanks Pete.

Quote:
I've noticed that now that I've done this the frame rate has changed and the resulting video is quite choppy, how can I set the profile but keep the same frame as the original?

Post a pic or MediaInfo file to show the frame rate change, nothing should have changed the frame rate. One should simply have the basic DVD frame rate of 29.97 for NTSC. Yes the bitrate will change and the quality will deteriorate as I had originally stated.

Jeff

Hi Jeff
Sorry im getting myself confused, you are correct of course.
The problem i have is that the original video is filmed at 23.976 fps and once ive converted it to mpeg2 and then put it back into powerdirector and converted it to a PAL dvd format, the resulting playback is very jerky and choppy, is there anything i can do about this?
Or should i start a new thread?

Thanks

Pete

Quote: Hi Jeff
Sorry im getting myself confused, you are correct of course.
The problem i have is that the original video is filmed at 23.976 fps and once ive converted it to mpeg2 and then put it back into powerdirector and converted it to a PAL dvd format, the resulting playback is very jerky and choppy, is there anything i can do about this?
Or should i start a new thread?

So you have NTSC 23.976 source and want to create a PAL DVD, why? Can you post a small 10 second or so source clip to verify? However, if that's your goal is a PAL DVD in the end, I would try:
1) So your timeline source is a real 23.976 NTSC, progressive? Whatever your source is, make sure PD has your source content identified correctly, right click on media in timeline > "Set Clip Attributes" > "Set TV Format" PD at times misidentifies so verify options with what you know your clips are
2) Create customized PAL 25 fps profile with proper reduced bitrate and "Produce"
3) Bring produced clip form item 2 into timeline, set chapters, no editing
4) Create PAL DVD

Jeff

Hello Peter7769!

Sounds to me like you're trying to transcode the video from NTSC up to PAL, would(I think) be better to convert your clips from NTSC up to PAL individually, before you begin to edit them into a movie. or, convert your finished movie from NTSC up to PAL then save(render) that converted file under a silightly altered title, playing a portion of it to ensure it plays properly, before putting it onto disc. The reason I say "up to PAL" is bacause the PAL colour system was the vastly superior system for broadcasting in colour. Many of the bugs that plagued the NTSC system, and still plagued the woefully-inferior French SECAM system had been well-and-truly ironed out when the PAL system was introduced in around 1967. That's the reason why so many countries held off introducing colour TV. They were waiting for something better than NTSC to arrive.... and it did! SECAM was developed ahead of PAL but proved so gosh-damn awful in its use that the French TV stations had to(likely secretly at the time) kit themselves out with PAL-based equipment, then transcode to SECAM only at the final stage, at the transmitter. The SECAM debacle is why you never see SECAM in digital transcoding. It's always PAL or NTSC. SECAM has gone away into some corner and quietly died, and no-one missed its passing.

Cheers!

Neil.

Hi
sorry for the late reply, just to say that ive tried various options and have also found the my blu ray player will play NTSC discs, i converted to PAL first off but it was very jerky, i then tried again but at 30 fps (NTSC) and this was much better and more smoother.

Pete

Also after playing around with different bit rate settings and not being able to get a decent quality i have found a simple way around it.

i produce a 8.5Gb dvd and then use dvdshrink to shrink it down to a standard 4.7 Gb dvd, this works great and gives me great quality complete with 5.1 sound.

Thanks again

Pete