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Hoven

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 19, 2003
122
0
Columbus, OH (USA)
Hi folks,

I recently got an e-mac w/Superdrive so I could easily convert all my 2 hour 8mm video tapes to DVD (with the help of a Canopus ADVC100 analog to digital converter box). Boy, was I surprised when iDVD told me it could only burn 90 minutes onto a DVD.

So... is there another software package out there (or an iDVD adjustment) that will let me burn 2 hours on a DVD? Will the quality differnce be that much? Should I just chop up my tapes into 90 minute chunks as I convert them? (Clearly the DVD's I rent at Blockbusters has more than 90 minutes of video plus menus, etc on it, but....)

I was going to buy Toast 6, but there wasnt' anything on the box or their website that said what duration I could get on a DVD, nor could anyone at my local Apple retail store.

Thanks for any advice.
 
i believe you would have to make an investment in dvd studio pro to do that.

iJon
 
I'd chop the footage into 60 minute chunks if you want to do it w/iDVD. Anything over 60 (including motion menus etc.,) will get compressed a lot more. Anyway, craming 2hrs of video onto a consumer DVD blank is pushing the limits of quality. The DVDs you rent/buy from the store are dual layered DVD's (basically one optical layer glued on to of another) that have been compressed by professional compressionists using hardware and software that costs more than most cars and it's tweaked down to damn near the second in order to squeeze the best possible image in the least amount of space.


Lethal
 
Hmmmm....

Well, I did burn 1 DVD with about 80 minutes of video plus the iDVD menus/themes/etc and it seemed to be OK. I really don't want to spend a ton more money. The idea was to use what came with my eMac (although for $99, the Final Cut Express was a good additional purchase :)

I'm still curious about Toast 6 (like, what it is that's different/better than iDVD), but I'm inclinded to just cut down my vid's. Silly me, though, I started my testing in the middle of my 20+ reels of 8mm tapes. In order to keep the DVD's group by date I'll need to start at the first reel. What doesn't fit on DVD#1 will be first on DVD#2, etc.

Thanks!
 
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