I am no dvd cutting expert but I do have a serious fetish for quality output.

Always aim for hte top bit rate mentioned by marc, but if you must put more on a disc think carefully first.

If the video has lots of motion and fast cuts it will suffer far more than slow paced still life type video.

In the latter case exerimentaiotn has shown that you can get away with a much lower bit rate without too much 'postage stamping'. As low as half the max.

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Lowering the tone of video since 2004.

www.zaskarfilms.com You tube channel 'zaskarfilms'
JVC DV5001e (big cam), Sony PC6E (tiny cam), Vinten pro5, PAG light, SM58, Sony ECM50, Sony C-76, 0.5x convertors for sony, Rode video mic, Vegas 7.

I've got a quick question.

If I create a DVD using the maximum bit rate will this cause a problem in play back on some DVD players, probably older or cheaper models? If so is it a common problem?

I ask because I made a couple of DVD's for a friends Dad and to keep the image quality up I encoded it at the maximum bit rate. The picture and sound quality were both good but I got the warning message on DVD architect saying that it may not play in some players becuase of the high bit rate. Now he's had a few back but the number doesn't seem to worry him and frustratingly he's a bit vague as to the numbers. I offered to create him a lower bit rate version but he didn't seem to worried so I'm guessing it's not to much of an issue.

Simple answer is yes. Some players will have issues with the high bitrate.

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In my limited expirience most players are ok with 6 mbit.

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Lowering the tone of video since 2004.

www.zaskarfilms.com You tube channel 'zaskarfilms'
JVC DV5001e (big cam), Sony PC6E (tiny cam), Vinten pro5, PAG light, SM58, Sony ECM50, Sony C-76, 0.5x convertors for sony, Rode video mic, Vegas 7.

Thanks gents! I thought as much. Is it a case of old/cheap kit just not as good as it should be, which causes a drag factor on the rest of us? Just like like a couple of years ago you had to produce websites in 800px wide to ensure the flat earthers could view your site.

So in producing a dvd is better to go for a lower 6meg bit rate as Marc says or say sod it and go for the higher rate? I guees the logical answer is to test both on as many players as possible. In fact I'll do that and post the results, if the mods are happy.

Please do.

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Lowering the tone of video since 2004.

www.zaskarfilms.com You tube channel 'zaskarfilms'
JVC DV5001e (big cam), Sony PC6E (tiny cam), Vinten pro5, PAG light, SM58, Sony ECM50, Sony C-76, 0.5x convertors for sony, Rode video mic, Vegas 7.

Ok I've sent out two dvd's each to three people. One dvd is done in a 9.8 meg format and the other 6meg both constant bit rate. We are all testing the dvd's on as many machcines as possible and I'll post the results next week but so far I'd say avoid maximum bit rate!

A bit late in getting the results posted but here iare the general results (I say general as the people testing them never wrote down the exact results but this is what I've inferred from what they've said). The discs were tested on about 20 players and then any pc's we could find. On the players the 9.8 version failed completely on 4 of them, it would play on most pc's but as they were made on a dual layer disc a fair few failed at the layer break. In addition some of the players stalled at the layer break. The 6meg version played fine on all players bar one, which was one of those cheap tv/dvd combis. The ultimate test was playing the six meg version on a friends vast sony tv off a knackered dvd player which they thought didn't play any more ( think they'd just got some menu options wrong) despite the lower bit rate the picture quality was good, so in future I'm sticking with the small loss in quality in favour of reliability.