How long of a movie can iDVD hold? I have an 80 minute home video that I want to make a DVD of but when I transfer it from imovie to idvd it tells me its too big. Does idvd base it soley on megabyte size? Since I know normal dvds that you rent hold more than 3 hours of video I'm wondering why idvd can't. Or can it?
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iDVD capacity
- Thread starter Hackcomic.com
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iDVD = 60 minutesHackcomic.com said:
iDVD 3 = 90 minutes
iDVD 4 = 120 minutes
The megabyte size of the project is not relevant to iDVD´s capacity.
DVDs that can be rent are commercially produced DVDs, not burned. They have 2 layers with about 120 minutes each. Dual layer DVD burners are currently coming up, but iDVD does not support this... yet.
What version of iDVD are you using. Starting with iDVD 4, you can burn "up to" 2 hours onto a DVD. With iDVD 3, you're limited to 1.5 hours.Hackcomic.com said:
NOTE - if you add lots of menus and themes and stuff, that will eat into your time allotment. Also, the amount of material depends on how "complex" your video is and if it can be compressed a lot or not much at all.
Also, the reason that commercial DVDs can have longer play times is that they use better compression techniques. And most commercial DVDs are Dual-Layer, meaning that they have twice the capacity of a regular DVD-R disc.
I'm using idvd 4- I see in the preferences that I can change the quality to best performance which allows for 2 hours. Hopefully I dont lose too much quality.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Choose Best Quality setting for 80 minute video
iDVD has two video settings to choose from: Best Quality (120 min.) and Best Performance (60 min.). Best Performance video can be encoded in the background before the burning process and the rendered video can be saved for later; Best Quality can only be rendered once the burning process begins and cannot be saved for later. Best Performance video takes less time to render; Best Quality video takes a long time to render and in my case (on a dual 800MHz G4 PowerMac) it makes sense to leave the computer on over-night while it does this. You can select between the two settings by selecting Preferences from the iDVD menu.
iDVD has two video settings to choose from: Best Quality (120 min.) and Best Performance (60 min.). Best Performance video can be encoded in the background before the burning process and the rendered video can be saved for later; Best Quality can only be rendered once the burning process begins and cannot be saved for later. Best Performance video takes less time to render; Best Quality video takes a long time to render and in my case (on a dual 800MHz G4 PowerMac) it makes sense to leave the computer on over-night while it does this. You can select between the two settings by selecting Preferences from the iDVD menu.
It's worth mentioning that "Best Quality" and "Best Performance" have nothing to do with how the final product will look or perform. It's just related to encoding. The reason they say to use one or the other depending on the size of your movie is because different codecs are used depending on the size of the movie. For 80 minutes (or anything over 60) use Best Quality and it'll render after you hit 'burn." It won't hurt to use Best Quality for things under 60 minutes though.
EDIT: I thought about this again and if you use Best Performance on a 60 min + movie it might not look as good as if you used Best Quality--so forget what I said about it making no difference. In this instance it matters.
EDIT: I thought about this again and if you use Best Performance on a 60 min + movie it might not look as good as if you used Best Quality--so forget what I said about it making no difference. In this instance it matters.
I'm on a G5 1.8 single. After I hit burn it is stuck on stage 3 "asset encoding." How long could this take for a 80 min movie? Its been a few hours now. And the bar isn't turning blue to show progress - it jsut keeps having the blue stripes moving. Is it still burning? OR could something be wrong?
Not any significant difference in quality
This is a big exaduration. On paper the Best Performance setting looks better but in reality there is hardly any difference. In most cases the source video is encoded in DV and this means that even the best encoding technique will only look so good.
I suspect that the reason Best Quality video takes so long to render is that iDVD does something called 'two-pass encoding'. This method of encoding video involves rendering once to locate all the challenging bits of video and then re-rendering with the challenging segments in mind. I hope that made sense. The end result is that Best Quality video looks as good as Best Performance video, but the trade off is that it takes far longer to encode.
Horrortaxi said:
This is a big exaduration. On paper the Best Performance setting looks better but in reality there is hardly any difference. In most cases the source video is encoded in DV and this means that even the best encoding technique will only look so good.
I suspect that the reason Best Quality video takes so long to render is that iDVD does something called 'two-pass encoding'. This method of encoding video involves rendering once to locate all the challenging bits of video and then re-rendering with the challenging segments in mind. I hope that made sense. The end result is that Best Quality video looks as good as Best Performance video, but the trade off is that it takes far longer to encode.
If you don't mind spending the extra $2 on a DVD-R, try both and see which you prefer. That way, you don't wonder every time. If your home videos look just as good to you with "Best Performance", then you won't feel like you need to waste the time on "Best Quality". Otherwise, you'll know to spend the extra time. It's your call, based on your visual preferences.
Several hours. My projects usually take about 4 hours--give or take. Most of that is "asset encoding." Once you hit "multiplexing and burning" you're almost done. But remember that a watched pot never boils.Hackcomic.com said: