sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

I have a half hour MP4 video processed in Davinci Resolve 17. It bcomes a14 GB mp4 after rendering in resolve. Way too big for a 4.7 GB dvd r. Previously I have been able to put a hour and a half video in a normal dvdr. Don't know what I have done differently. I tried lowering the resolution and that only helped a little. Anyone shed some light on this? Would appreciate it for sure.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Putting anything on a DVD reduces the image quality to the standard in place when they invented DVDs. If you are working with Resolve and current video image quality standards, you may want to explore better methods.

That said, the way to "compress" the file size in video is reducing the "bit rate" when you do the output rendering. Lowering the resolution helps, but not nearly as much at lowering the bitrate. Try 5 Mbps.

I don't know if DVD creation is built into Resolve. If not, you could try one of the DVD authoring programs like the (free) ImgBurn or WinDVD. They should be capable of stuffing a high quality MP4 into a lower quality DVD format without too much damage.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

Thanks, I will try that. I did lower the bit rate but not that much. Ii a processing VHS tapes using NCH Golden Videos which produces MP3. I like to add a title to them using Resolve. That is all I do and the size comes out 8 times bigger. Thank you for the prompt and helpful response

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Try Handbrake. It is open-source freeware that can downsample and downsize video for just about any purpose.

https://handbrake.fr is the website from which to download it.

The other issue is that *video* DVDs are in a special format requiring special software to process them.

For mastering DVDs, you need something like Roxio Toast 20 (for Mac) or Roxio MyDVD (DVD Authoring Software for Windows 10 and 11)

All that said, it is 2022, and MOST video is now uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo or a similar video sharing site, so anyone can download it from anywhere, provided they have your granted permission (and possibly a password) to view it.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

Burkphoto..Thanks for the reply, how do they compare to what I am already using. NCH golden video and Davinci Resolve? I am very satisfied for the most part, with how they are working. I

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

DaVinci Resolve is a full-fledged non-linear video editing package similar to Adobe Premiere and Apple Final Cut Pro. I have no idea what NCH golden video is... I've never heard of it.

The Roxio applications are for mastering discs. You create your video files in DaVinci Resolve or another video editor, then create a DVD or Blu-ray Disc using Roxio software. I'm most familiar with Toast, the full-featured disc creator for Macs. I haven't used it in years, but it was excellent.

For the last decade or so, I've uploaded all my video to online services for clients and family to use. YouTube supports 4K, 1080P, and smaller formats. Video DVDs only support old-fashioned, pre-2009 Standard Definition video. Blu-ray Discs support 1080P, but few folks use disc players anymore, due to the prevalence of smart TVs. We get YouTube on two smart TVs and all our Macs, PCs, iPads, and iPhones. So most of our video is there...

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

[quote=burkphoto]DaVinci Resolve is a full-fledged non-linear video editing package similar to Adobe Premiere and Apple Final Cut Pro. I have no idea what NCH golden video is... I've never heard of it.

The Roxio applications are for mastering discs. You create your video files in DaVinci Resolve or another video editor, then create a DVD or Blu-ray Disc using Roxio software. I'm most familiar with Toast, the full-featured disc creator for Macs. I haven't used it in years, but it was excellent.

For the last decade or so, I've uploaded all my video to online services for clients and family to use. YouTube supports 4K, 1080P, and smaller formats. Video DVDs only support old-fashioned, pre-2009 Standard Definition video. Blu-ray Discs support 1080P, but few folks use disc players anymore, due to the prevalence of smart TVs. We get YouTube on two smart TVs and all our Macs, PCs, iPads, and iPhones. So most of our video is there...[/quot

Golden Videos made by NCS company, is a program that allows you to record VHS tapes and place them in a file on your computer. It had good ratings, was not too expensive, and does a great job. Davinci Resolve is a full fledged program. It contains a complete audio editing, fusion, color correcting module, and a deliver section, and, of course the normal editing functions. It is very complete, but intuitive to learn-at least for me. It is 100% free. I like to take my recorded videos into it and add titles, music, and make corrections for brightness and color grading
My only question here was why does that editing increase the file size from 2 to 14?.I realize that DVD technology is out of fashion but many of the people are oldsters, and prefer a nice DVD with a printed picture or logo on it. Surly is is much easer to hand them a Thumb drive or send them via internet. I just like to please and enjoy the heck out of as well

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"My only question here was why does that editing increase the file size from 2 to 14?"

I'm not sure, but I'm going to guess! Your original was the old Standard Definition of 640x480 pixels or about 300,000. And, because of broadcast bandwidth, it was interlaced so that each frame was about half. Resolve is probably trying to turn it into something current like High Definition of 1920x1080 pixels or about 2,073,600 and it is "progressive". That means each frame has all the pixels, not just half.

I haven't looked, but I doubt DaVinci can be set up for SD projects. The demand is the other direction! If there were project settings and output settings to match your source, you might do better at keeping the file size down.

Again, I'm guessing because I've never tried to do what you are doing. When I started video editing a dozen years ago, the standard was HD. Blu-Ray had replaced DVD. And now with 4K, even the Blu-Rays have given way to memory sticks, YouTube and Vimeo. Making it more complicated and harder to figure out was a switch somewhere from analog formats to digital formats.

Don, the 2nd son Loc: Crowded Florida

When I attempt to give friends a CD of music these days for use in their auro they say "it doesn't have a CD player. Nowadays they need it on a "thumb" drive. Maybe that would solve this problem without downsizing/compressing which may lower quality. Thumb drives are pretty cheap these days.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

Please read my previous post which explains clearly why my clients want DVDs !!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

When an editing program imports video, it can re-scale it to a size that works best for editing. When you render the video from the editor, you usually have a choice of format and size. For instance, Final Cut can write a DVD master, which is generally a lot smaller than full size MOV or MP4 or ProRes.

I'll bet Resolve has a similar feature that allows you to specify the delivery target/rendering intent/end use format.

In simpler terms, it is likely a settings issue.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

Resolve has many settings, Found that the important was Kb/s . The burn program also has a settings that fits it to the DVD. I was naïve, and unaware of them and now everything is working very well. Life is full of unturned stones.. You simply have to either know which to turn or turn 'em all. I was hoping to run into someone who knew. Thanks for your replies.

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

Well, it depends.
The bitrate of both the video and audio are an issue.
I use Gimp. I took a 37gb Avatar movie to 3gb to give my wife a DVD.
If you're not careful, the audio can be twice the size of the video.
A 2,1 output at 160bps is OK to hear, and WAAY less size than a 320bps 7.1!
Check your settings. Going from ALAC to AAC will help. A lot!

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

OK, yes, I just stole this:


Lossy formats.

Lossy audio formats lose data in the transmission. They don’t decompress back to their original file size, so they end up smaller, and some sound waves are lost. Artists and engineers who send audio files back and forth prefer not to use lossy formats, because the files degrade every time they’re exported.



MP3
MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III) is the most popular of the lossy formats. MP3 files work on most devices, and the files can be as small as one-tenth the size of lossless files. MP3 is fine for the consumer, since most of the sound it drops is inaudible, but that’s not the case when it comes to bit depth. “MP3 files can only be up to 16-bit, which is not what you want to be working in,” says producer, mixer, and engineer Gus Berry. “You want to be working in at least 24-bit or higher when recording and mixing.”



AAC
Advanced Audio Coding, or AAC files (also known as MPEG-4 AAC), take up very little space and are good for streaming, especially over mobile devices. Requiring less than 1 MB per minute of music and sounding better than MP3 at the same bitrate, the AAC format is used by iTunes/Apple Music, YouTube, and Android.



Ogg Vorbis
Ogg Vorbis is the free, open-source audio codec that Spotify uses. It’s great for streaming, but the compression results in some data loss. Experts consider it a more efficient format than MP3, with better sound at the same bitrate.


Lossless formats.

These files decompress back to their original size, keeping sound quality intact. Audio professionals want all of the original sound waves, so they prefer lossless. These files can be several times larger than MP3s. Lossless bitrates depend on the volume and density of the music, rather than the quality of the audio.



FLAC
Free Lossless Audio Codec offers lossless compression, and it’s free and open-source.



ALAC
Apple’s Lossless Audio Codec allows for lossless compression, but it works only on Apple devices.


Uncompressed formats.

These files remain the same size from origin to destination.



WAV
WAV (Waveform Audio File) retains all the original data, which makes it the ideal format for sound engineers. “WAV has greater dynamic range and greater bit depth,” creative producer and sound mixer Lo Boutillette says of her preferred format. “It’s the highest quality,” Berry agrees. “It can be 24-bit, 32-bit, all the way up to 192kHz sample rate and even higher these days.” If you’re collaborating and sending files back and forth, WAV holds its time code. This can be especially useful for video projects in which exact synchronization is important.



AIFF
Originally created by Apple, AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) files are like WAV files in that they retain all of the original sound and take up more space than MP3s. They can play on Macs and PCs, but they don’t hold time codes, so they’re not as useful for editing and mixing.



DSD
Direct Stream Digital is an uncompressed, high-resolution audio format. These files encode sound using pulse-density modulation. They are very large, with a sample rate as much as 64 times that of a regular audio CD, so they require top-of-the-line audio systems.



PCM
Pulse-Code Modulation, used for CDs and DVDs, captures analog waveforms and turns them into digital bits. Until DSD, this was thought to be the closest you could get to capturing complete analog audio quality.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

That's a decent, if slightly incomplete explanation of audio formats. But it is sort of unrelated to the OP's question, which was about squashing a video program to fit onto a DVD. He has apparently solved his problem by tweaking the settings in DaVinci Resolve.

That said, there is a very important program to know about: HandBrake, the open source video transcoder.

HandBrake is expressly made for taking a large video program and reducing its size (in the MANY ways you can reduce its size) so it will fit onto a DVD or other medium. You still need a *DVD mastering program* to put the finished video into the file structures needed to play back on standard DVD players, but if you're in need of smaller video program files, Handbrake can help. It runs on Macs, Windows, and Linux PCs, and is developed by the Open Source community, so it is FREE. Here's a link to the French source:

https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php