Burning DVD to CD-R?

[daddyelmis]

Dumb question, but can you burn a dvd to cd-r?

 

I'm making home movies from my digi-cam, and have created the DVD's on my computer, stored on the hard drive. I have DVD-RW, but each DVD is only about 100M or less, and I'd rather not waste a DVD with 10x that capacity.

 

Can I burn the DVD to a CD instead? Are the disks themselves so different or are they just storage media and the format of what goes on them the key? I've search the web but there does not seem to be a simple, clear explanation for this.

 

I using up 4 gig of storage media for 60M worth of data.

[AudioMaverick]

http://www.dvdshrink.org/

 

It remakes the Video_TS & Audio_TS directories. But, it allows you to downsize the video quality to fit the medium of choice.

[theblue1]

I don't know how long your vids are or what quality level you've encoded them at, but if they're already low rez (as one might expect from such small vid sizes) you might be able to get away with the VCD format. It never caught on in the US or Europe, but VCD has been hugely popular in Asia, where VCR's were always relatively expensive. The picture quality was once claimed to be "VCR quality" but I've never heard anyone suggest that that level of quality was ever achieved. In the mid-90's I bought a couple movies on the PC equivalent of VCD and they were watchable, at best.

 

I've been experimenting with video from my digi cam (a still cam that also shoots 640x480, 30 FPS video [with lo-fi audio]) and the one thing that I always knew intellectually but that really slams home is just how much freakin' storage video consumes... but, dang, I sure like the 'full motion' vid afforded by 30 fps. It really makes me want to go to an Imax movie (I think they're shot at 60 fps, aren't they?)

[TBush]

Hey "Blue"-

 

I've been saving all our digi home movies the same way- yes, a LOT of disc space for avi files! Have you heard of any video converter software that does a good job of converting these huge files into MP2 of Divx? Just curious. I've also been transferring some old excellent Warner Bros stuff I had recorded on VHS (I use a "Dazzle" bridge and connect with firewire)- and without an extra conversion process I can get eleven 7-minute avi cartoons on a DVD. I know I should be able to shrink them down quite a bit more, but...

[daddyelmis]

most of my raw footage is not that long, and will be shorter once it's edited (I wouldn't put anyone through 45 minutes of raw footage of my daughter's birthday party).

 

The DVD I did today was just a short piece that started with some WMV footage, to which I added bells and whistles (including backing audio) using the DVD Writer software that came with the writer (Sonic MyDVD).

 

The end product was 300M or so. Burned onto a DVD just fine and plays well on the TV through our DVD player.

 

I just hate using up an entire DVD disk for that bit of media. Although I've yet to read or hear the clear answer, it seems that a CD and DVD are different hard media, regardless of what's stored on them, so that even though a CD would easily hold a 300M DVD file, it won't read in a DVD player. Therefore, a DVD player "knows" when the disk put in it is a CD or a DVD, without looking at the program material that was written on it, yes?

 

You'd think there would be a clear summary of this somewhere -- I'm not computer illiterate (not by a long shot) but I am fairly new to the DVD creating/writing process.

 

I read things on VCD, but apparently that's is pretty rare here in the US so that, even though my software will create a VCD, it won't play on anything.

 

My goal is to make short DVDs of family stuff to send to family members that they can play on tv or computer as they wish, without requiring the receipient to know too much about any of this.

 

It's stuff like this that makes me think (sometimes) that Microsoft should run everything -- at least there would be a standard.

[theblue1]

Originally posted by TBush:

Hey "Blue"-

 

I've been saving all our digi home movies the same way- yes, a LOT of disc space for avi files! Have you heard of any video converter software that does a good job of converting these huge files into MP2 of Divx? Just curious. I've also been transferring some old excellent Warner Bros stuff I had recorded on VHS (I use a "Dazzle" bridge and connect with firewire)- and without an extra conversion process I can get eleven 7-minute avi cartoons on a DVD. I know I should be able to shrink them down quite a bit more, but...

Nah... I'm a complete neophyte in this arena. I'm not accustomed to being completely out of my element on a computer and knowing so much less than anyone else (or at least being in a position where I have to admit it) but the desktop movie thing is completely new to me (although I've had various cheap digital still cams since 1998).

 

The software I've been using (and barely started, at that) is Ulead VideoStudio 8 which came with a (still uninstalled) video capture card I bought at newegg for $55 bucks or so (someone said the software would be worth that by itself and when I not long later found myself with this little hybrid digi cam it sure did, since my cam shoots into QuickTime .MOV format and the Windows Movie Maker don't do QT, far as I can tell.)

 

Anyhow, without kids, myself, I'm forced to revive my long, long dormant avocation of failed filmaker.

 

Of course, with a $150 snapshot cam, I'm not expecting miracles (particularly not in the sound dept, with its built in mic and 8 bit recording [but I can always haul y MD recorder with me, eh?]) but the picture quality is fine for my purposes. I'm not going to be shooting any cinema epics, here, just some ultra-modest zero-budget human interest mini-docs to go on a website.

[theblue1]

Originally posted by daddyelmis:

...

I just hate using up an entire DVD disk for that bit of media. Although I've yet to read or hear the clear answer, it seems that a CD and DVD are different hard media, regardless of what's stored on them, so that even though a CD would easily hold a 300M DVD file, it won't read in a DVD player. Therefore, a DVD player "knows" when the disk put in it is a CD or a DVD, without looking at the program material that was written on it, yes?

 

...

Right. (And I know that my now-ancient DVD player does not play DVD-RW's... I haven't checked a DVD-R, yet. I've had it for a long time, though, so I could probably pry the cost of a new one out of my own hands. But it will [supposedly] play VCD's according to the manual.)

 

I suspect the VCD format is not for you, though, since you're probably shooting on a DV cam and that's a much higher rez format than the lowly VCD which, to a lot of folks minds, is barely watchable.

[AudioMaverick]

Hey, daddyelmis... I didn't get why you wanted to go from DVDs to CDs. As you have probably already been informed, the CD is not geared for DVD-quality playback. There are some physical factors involved. But, to play video on a CD, you do need to use the VCD format.

 

VCD it is a notably lower resolution than you may be wanting. I recovered some 2-hour VHS tapes that were degrading, last year. And, the VCD looked worse than the tapes. I used Pinnacle's "Video Studio 8", which came with an ATI "All-In-Wonder" card. (Some lite reading on the topic -- Deciding on a Capture Resolution -- DigitalFAQ.com )

 

The bottom line... Find some cheap-o DVD media you can live with, and don't worry about the unused area. In 10 years, you will be more interested in the videos than the waste space.

[offramp]

My local MicroCenter usually has a stack of 25 decent-quality DVD blanks for something like $9.99 on a fairly regular basis. I've used them for lots of projects, including test burns and even some that got sent to Japan.

At that price, you'll need to get over the wasted space willies.

[Angelo Clematide]

yes, you can burn a VIDEO_TS folder to CD-R, just ignore the messages of the burning program. The following playback devices will play the CD-R with a VIDEO_TS folder on it:

 

a) CD-ROM with a software player i.e. WinDVD

b) DVD-ROM with a software player i.e. WinDVD

 

the restriction are:

c) the CD-R with the VIDEO_TS folder does not play on a DVD standalone player

[daddyelmis]

Thanks gang. DVD's it is.

[Bill Heins]

Look into TMPGEnc..it allows you to create VCD and SVCD compliant files from a variety of sources. You can also use Nero to create VCD and SVCD. VCD on the whole generally support up to an hour of video while SVCD will allow 45 min. but at a higher quality. The only problem is that not all DVD players will play VCD and fewer will play SVCD, though there are a lot out there that do play both.

 

I've got a Phillips DVP642 that will play SVCD, VCD, DVD(NTSC or PAL format), mpeg-2, mpeg-3, Divx....it was only 69.00 at Walmarts

 

Darkon the Incandescent

[DWBass]

I routinely use Nero to make VCD's!! Depending on the quality of the video itself [the way it looks on your computer] is the way it'll look on your tv. If your DVD player won't play them, it's an old model. All the newer models will play VCD's and MP3's as well as standard DVD's. They also sell mini DVD's and you can look into that as well.