I have several AVIs averaging 24 minutes a piece (16:9 640x360) that Im trying to turn into a set of DVDs. Im using TMPGenc Plus and DVD Author for the job. My first DVD went pretty well but I severly misjudged the size of the resulting m2v files, and thus the whole DVD itself. I guess Im a little confused about how I got very different results in data size compared to the value the bit rate calculator gave me. I had it calculate for 96 min (4 avis), resulting in an average bitrate of 6157 and max of 9603. Using this I encoded each AVI to 16:9 720x480 VBR 2 pass. Because the preview was too stretched vertically I resized with Video Arrange Method (center: custom) to 720x360. Here's my problem. Using the recommended bitrate for the 4 files (96 min of video) it ended up only being 2.7gb of total data, leaving a lot of room on the disc. Is this because I resized with Video Arrange Method to a 720x360 resolution? Or something else? As for the DVD itself it plays back flawlessly and Im pretty happy with the quality. My only problem is its a bit stretched past the edges on the sides, about a centimeter or so. Should I have used 704 width instead? Appreciate any help and advice, thanks.
Hi, Actually the Proper Resizeing would have been to set the "Center Custon Size" setting to "704+400" which would resize the Original without any stretching or Squishing.... To Calculate what Bitrate you should use you should use a "Bitrate Calculator" which will tell you what the Average Bitrate should be so a Certain Lengthed Movie will Fit on a DVD...A Good One is Called "PowerBit" and it is Freeware and easy to Find.... 96 Minutes of Video would use an average Video Bitrate of 6150kbs for the Video and 192kbs for the audio (Mpeg-1 Layer-2 audio or Dolby AC3) which should give you a total File size that is about 4.3gb..... Cheers
Hi thanks for the reply. I understand that but thats not my issue. As I said I did use a bitrate calculator (this on here http://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm) which gave me roughly 6150kbs for 96min. But when I used this bitrate with the settings I illustrated above it didnt come to 4.3gb at all. It only came to 2.7gb! Basically I have a 96 minute DVD right now encoded with a 6150 ave bitrate and somehow its only 2.7gb of data. Im trying to figure out how this happened. Was it because I resized with "Custom Center Size" to a 720x360 resolution?
No the Resolution will Not have anything to do with it... Well the Only thing I can think of Doing is First Checking the encoded Mpeg file to see if it is all there and then Get a Bitrate viewer to see what the Bitrate really is in the Mpeg file because it definately isn"t 6000kbs even though the Header might say that.... Something like "Mpeg Inspector" will tell you the Real Average Bitrate.... I"m thinking maybe something got screwed up in the settings?? Sorry I can"t help cuz it shouldn"t act that way, when you set an average Bitrate that is what the Average Bitrate should Be , That is the Part of the Reason why there are 2 Passes as the First Pass Allocates Bitrate and the second encodes baced on the First Pass... Good Luck
Thanks for trying to help, I appreciate it. Obviously Im missing something here. Unfortunately Ive since deleted the m2v files. Is there a way to analyze the bitrate on the DVD itself?
Unfortunately, this is also happening to me with quite a few files (probably 30%) and it's driving me crazy. I also use a Bitrate Calculator and encode with Mainconcept, but the resulting mpg is nowhere near Dvd size (between 2.5 - 3.5 G).The file records and plays fine and, interestingly, raising Bitrate lowers file size with no loss of the file itself. Raising Bitrate by 1000's of kbs changes things by only a few MB as does using the Crop and Scale option. Weird
Well the encoder I use Most often doesn"t have this Problem , well not when doing Multi-Pass encodeing... I use "CinemaCraft Encoder SP 2.70" which has support for up to 9 Pass VBR encodeing and it allways geeps the Bitrate Close to the Average Bitrate you set, But it also has another Mode Called a One Pass VBR Mode were it Basicly uses the Least ammount of Bitrate that it has to to encode which is the Mode I usually use because it Creates very High Quality encodes useing a very low Bitrate, I can encode to Mpeg-2 DVD useing an average Bitrate of about 3000kbs which allows me to get up to 3.5 hours of Video on a DVD with very Good Quality but the File sizes are hard to predict.... Well good luck
OK Minion I tried another encode and analyzed it with the tool you recommended. My 24 minute m2v file is exactly 604 mb. MPEG Inspector trial version is limited to analyzing only the first 360 frames so thats all I have data for. But the average bitrate says 6.898 and nominal bitrate 9200 for those first 360 frames. I checked out the whole m2v in PowerDVD and it played back flawlessly. Not sure what to make of this, whaddaya think?
Well I have No Idea what is up with that because a 24 minute Clip that is 600mb should have an average Bitrate of about 3400kbs which is what it works out to mathamaticly... I"m stumped...
Turns out that first program may be wrong. I tried out another Bitrate Viewer program that analyzed the first 18 minutes or so. That came up with an average of 4276, which makes a hell of a lot more sense. So I guess TMPGenc isn't assinging the Bitrate average properly? Sure wish I knew what could be causing that.
