[P1] dvd burning

[e.mkeene]

> If it takes 6 hours on a 450, it would take 3 hours on a 1 Gig  and 1.5
> hours on a 2 Gig machine....relatively speaking.  And memory is also a
> factor so it might be fun to see what the top end G5 with dual
> processors and eight Gigs of Ram might do...  !


Not necessarily. There are several factors involved in how long it 
takes to burn dvds. The processor, the burner and the software. There 
are 2 pieces of software required. The software that actually creates 
the dvd content, ie, premiere, imovie or final cut pro in the case of 
video content. Then you have to take that video and encode it to dvd 
format in something like iDVD or DVD studio pro. Either of these will 
then be able to burn to dvd. However, if you do not have an internal 
Apple installed DVD burner, iDVD will not work. In that case and for 
external burners, you would have to use DVD Studio Pro to encode 
(compress). If you are simply dealing with video that has been encoded 
and mastered as a disk image, then Toast would burn it to dvd.

The normal time for encoding (compression) used to be 15 to 1 back in 
the days of iDVD v.1.0. iDVD 3.0 can be as fast as 2 to 1 or as slow as 
5 to 1. The difference depends on the processor speed, enough RAM for 
background compression and the type of images that have to be 
compressed.  If you don't have enough RAM for iDVD to start compression 
in the background, it will take a lot longer to burn dvds. G4 
processors and dual processors, with altivec have enough horsepower 
(given enough RAM) that they will start compressing video as it is 
added to iDVD instead of waiting for the whole thing to be assembled. 
The faster the G4, the quicker the DVD is finished.

One thing to remember however, is that it takes a certain amount of 
time to burn DVDs simply because of the large amt of data they hold. As 
a reference, i used my G4 Quicksilver 1 GHz DP to burn a DVD as a data 
backup. 4.4 GB of data burned in about 60 minutes even though it 
required no compression time.

Another factor in compression time required is the length of the video. 
iDVD will hold a max of 90 minutes. However, a 60 min video will 
compress at 8bps and the 90 compresses at 5 bps or almost twice as long 
as 60 min. Additionally, the longer video must compress more and 
consequently will be at risk for more degradation as a result of the 
tighter compression.

VCDs can be done a bit faster, much cheaper and easier if you are using 
an iBook or a G3 processor. Using iMovie, save your project to 
Quicktime (Full quality DV) and then use Toast to burn it as a VCD to a 
CDRW and a CDR. Test it in the DVD player you want to use it with to 
see which format works best in your player.

If the full quality DV is too large for a cd, export it as Quicktime- 
CD-Rom, burn to both media and test in your player. In many players, 
CDRW may give better results than CDR or DVD when using VCD format.