I'm ignorant-please help?

Question

I have used 3 different DVD burning programs to copy my mini-DV camcorders digital tapes to DVD disks. The most recording time I have been able to put on a 4.7 Gig disk is 20 miinutes before it is full, yet I can copy a production movie from network television and get three plus hours of recording time on the same 4.7 gig disk. What am I doing wrong??? How can I only get 20 minutes of a 60 minute recorded digital tape onto a dvd, but three hours of video recording with good quality from a tv movie??

Answer 1

What computer are you using?

What DVD burning applications are you using?

How are you burning that video?

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Some quick math:

If DV formatted video (that is what comes out of your miniDV camcorder) uses ~13 gig of hard drive space on your computer per hour of video imported... and you are getting 20 minutes... or 1/3 of an hour on the disc... and 1/3 of 13 is about 4... then I think we've discovered your problem.

Don't burn the DV formatted video to DVD. Burn DVD formatted video (typically VOB) to the DVD.

Since you have not told us what computer system, I will provide my work-flow when I do simple stuff:

1) Connect camcorder to computer with firewire.

2) Import video to iMovie. Edit.

3) Export to data file as mp4 for uploading. Export back to camcorder miniDV tape for long-term archive. Clcik on iDVD and launch that application.

4) Make the menuing and backgrounds and add audio in iDVD, video is already set to burn. Click burn. I can fit 2 hours of standard definition video on a single-layer 4.7 gig DVD, but I usually limit it to about 110 minutes because the DVD menuing graphics and audio need some space.

I suspect the process flow is similar in Windows with iMovie or Sony Vegas or whatever video editor - then to WinDVD for DVD menuing and rendering.

Do not reuse miniDV tapes. Store them in a cool, dry place as an archive when you want to re-import, they are there for you.