Hi Derek,

Ahh compression and codecs, AVI, m2ts, mts, H.264, Mpeg4, wmv, mov, etc etc and all with their own different flavours.

You could try "Smart Fit" to burn your disc. Or you could produce your video changing the bit-rate till you get 4.5 gig and burn it with an outside program.

Regarding your 5.5gig file ending up 30gig well there is that tricky compression again. AVI is not very good at compression. The best at the moment is H.264.

Cheers

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

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your reply. is it possible to use 'smart fit' if I want to save the file to the hard drive and not directly to a disc? If so, can you give me a clue as where to look for the function.

Thanks for the info on compression, the camera I have records in H.264 but it appears I have to convert it before I can play it through any of the regular media players! ie Windows media or quicktime etc.

Thanks,
Derek

Hi Derek,

I don't know if you can use "Smart Fit" to burn to the hard drive.

To play H.264 you could do a couple of things.

1. Download and install Splashlite which I think is an excellent video player and has all the codecs built in, plus I think gives a better quality playback than other players.
http://mirillis.com/en/products/splash.html

2. On my system I have installed a codec pack called K-Lite Standard Codec pack, which includes Media Player Classic, which allows me to play virtually any video out there.
http://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

Cheers

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

Hi Robert,

Thanks for the info, I'll give them a try!

Derek

Hi Robert,

Juat another quick question, are there any guides to using PD8 that explain the real basics as I'm not finding ot too user friendly at the moment. I think I need to spend some time playing with it but as I have no previous editing experiance its quite difficult. I have looked at the tutorial videos linked to the website but some assume a basic knowledge already. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Derek

Hi Derek,

If you go to this link and scroll down about halfway down to the PDToots you will find a number of excellent basic tutorials.

http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/7782.page

Cheers

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

Yes, PDtoots is a very good place to start. There's two tutorials on their specifically designed for someone who has never done any editing before.

For video players you will find that spash lite is easier to use than media player classic. MPC has more features, but it is also more complicated. I setup a PC just for watching videos on my HDTV and I use splash for this purpose. Q9300 2.5 GHz
4 GB Ram
Nvidia 9800 GT

Thank you both for the info. I'm still a bit confused about AVI compression. I've got episodes of TV programes that are in AVI format and are realy good quality but a 50 min episode is about 600mb. Ive got a 2 1/2 hour interview and in PD it only seems to be able to save it out at 25+GB from a 5 GB H.264 file. So by my working, somehow I should be able to get a 2 1/2 hour interiew down to about 2GB avi??!!

Robert, you mentioned about changing the bit rate till I get it low enough to fit, but can you point me where to do this in PD?

On the plus side, I made a DVD with chapters and everything and used smart fit to burn it, only to find out i've got no DVD's at home! DOH!

Cheers!
Derek

I don't know why you are contemplating compressing stuff down - that almost always means losing quality of image.
Are you wishing to archive or will you be showing it to others ?

You should always be aiming for best quality - always.

With the cost of recordable DVDs now being a dollar or less, make a double header DVD and edit it using PD to be chapters if the content is relevant .

In other words make a twin DVD to be proud of. If you can't solve the problem - Change the problem

Quote: Thank you both for the info. I'm still a bit confused about AVI compression. I've got episodes of TV programes that are in AVI format and are realy good quality but a 50 min episode is about 600mb. Ive got a 2 1/2 hour interview and in PD it only seems to be able to save it out at 25+GB from a 5 GB H.264 file. So by my working, somehow I should be able to get a 2 1/2 hour interiew down to about 2GB avi??!!

Robert, you mentioned about changing the bit rate till I get it low enough to fit, but can you point me where to do this in PD?

On the plus side, I made a DVD with chapters and everything and used smart fit to burn it, only to find out i've got no DVD's at home! DOH!

Cheers!
Derek

Hi Derek,

Regarding changing the bit rate if you go into the produce window and choose H.264 or MPEG-2 you can set a Custom setting choosing whatever bit rate you want. You can also do the same in WMV but it is a more complicated procedure.

As Videocentricity says though with the cheap price of DVD's it may just be easier to do two DVD's.

To answer one of your other questions as to why professional DVD's appear to have better quality than home made ones. It is all to do with the quality of the algorithm they use to compress the video. The higher the price of the algorithm usually the better the quality. My youtube channel====> http://www.youtube.com/user/relate2?feature=mhsn

re - quality of pro DVD

If you have a rock solid tripod like a Cartoni D603 and a top of the line pro camera by Canon or Sony with good lighting or at least the same lighting conditions, then you will get the same crisp results.

The test is simple. Place your camera on a solid table top like a marble counter and preferrably in bright sunlight so the shutter speed is high and film a subject in sharp focus in 1080 resolution and I guarantee you will get really good video.

Unfortunately, we cannot reproduce these conditions everywhere else compared to a TV or motion picture company. Our equipment (I assume) does not compare with theirs. However if you can justify buying a $3000 tripod and a top of the line camera then you are on an equal footing.
If you can't solve the problem - Change the problem

Hi, thanks for your comments! I basically need to send the videos out for people to see on either a PC or a dvd player and can't guarentee the poeple viewing them will have any other software than the basic so I figure avi or DVD formats are the best way. Also I have to send quite a lot out so fitting it onto 1 DVD is the best and simplest option. The quality of the image is not realy the most important thing, its the infomation in the film. Plus each AVI looks like its 30GB and I have 8 to process so space is an issue too!

Thanks for all you help so far, really apreciate it!

Why can't you send more that one DVD?

MPEG2 will compress the AVI file by about 1/10 the file size. The DVD can hold about 2 hours of HQ video.

What fits on a DVD is depending on the bit rate of the Video. Lower bit rate, lower quality video.

If you have a 6000K bit rate you can fit a little over 2 hours on a DVD. A double Layer DVD can hold nearly twice as much video. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

You're getting good advice here, Derek -

If your intention is to burn to standard DVD anyway, your video will be converted to mpeg-2 in the authoring/burning process. It will be burned at a resolution of 720 x 576 pixels (PAL), or 720 x 480 pixels (NTSC) @ about 9.8MBps.

If you're using the video for other purposes, it's best to retain quality by keeping it in the original format (AVI, in your case).

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!