[onemilehigh]

Hello.

According to Apple specs on the new 733 G4 with Superdrive, you can only burn 1 hour of video on a DVD. Does anyone have information on why there is this one hour limit. Most movie DVD's allow for 2 hours.

-Scott

[Joshua]

I'm pretty sure this limitation is on iDVD and not on the Superdrive itself. So if you buy the DVD pro package, you aren't limited to 1 hour.

Anyone know for sure?

------------------
--
me : www.joshology.com

[kidtexas]

I am not sure if this has any thing to do with it, but there are different types of DVD's out the: 1 sided, single layer (4.7 gigs I think), 2 sided, single layer (around 9 gigs), 1 sided, double layer (around 8.5 gigs) and 2 sided, double layer (17 gigs). These figures aren't exact but close. I assume the dvd-r blanks are single sided (like most available dvd's that I have seen, though I do own a couple 2-sided movies). I am not sure about the double layer thing and whether or not most commercial dvds available are single or double layer, but that is about half the capacity for single layer. I know some movies are double layered, but I am not sure if the unlabeled ones are single or double. Speculation: This burner might only be able to use single layer blanks, limiting capacity to about 5 gigs - I don't know how much time this actually converts to. If most commercially availble movies are on double layered dvds and are less than 2 hours, this might make sense, since movies longer than 2 hours are usually double sided or are on two discs. maybe someone else knows more about this?

Each 4.7GB layer has a 133 minute capacity for video, so the single-side, single-layer recordables have a theoretical 133 minute capacity. I just don't know enough about the process to determine why any shorter limitation exists.

[spicyjeff]

The limit has nothing to do with the hardware, either the DVDs or the SuperDrive. This limit is set in software by Apple so that any serious DVD producers will buy their new DVD StudioPro software instead of using the free iDVD software.

[NeoMac]

The 1 hour limit is also probably a guarantee that no one will use this technology to pirate Holywood movies.

This is meant for home / family DVD. Do you really want to spend more than an hour watching home movies?!

your nuts...

[Ruddigger]

Wouldn't it be more expensive to burn DVD's rather then buying them anyway?

------------------
-Ruddigger
------------------
Have you had your
gigaflop today?

[Cipher13]

Nah, its $10 a disc... dunno how much DVD's are in the US though.
But the main purpose is probly for home movies an stuff... let you make family DVD's, or whatever...

Cipher13

[TrReLo]

Originally posted by spicyjeff:
The limit has nothing to do with the hardware, either the DVDs or the SuperDrive. This limit is set in software by Apple so that any serious DVD producers will buy their new DVD StudioPro software instead of using the free iDVD software.

The limit may not actually be "set" by Apple to force you to upgrade to StudioPro. Note that Apple stated they've "found a way" to allow DVD encoding at twice the length of the video clip as opposed to the normal 25X. No doubt this is in part due to the G4, but I also suspect that the compression ratios in iDVD are lower to allow faster processing which also means any given clip will take up much more space on the disc.

[PurpleGiant]

that would make the most sense I'd think, quicker encoding, not as effecient encoding, more space needed, less time, good thinking!

[Milio]

Essay from EFF member on content dev/protection and the industry: http://cryptome.org/jg-wwwcp.htm

Here's a quote:

What is wrong is when companies who make copy-protecting products don't disclose the restrictions to the consumers. Like Apple's recent happy-happy web pages on their new DVD-writing drive, announced this month (http://www.apple.com/idvd/). It's full of glowing info about how you can write DVDs based on your own DV movie recordings, etc. What it quietly neglects to say is that you can't use it to copy or time-shift or record any audio or video copyrighted by major companies. Even if you have the legal right to do so, the technology will prevent you. They don't say that you can't use it to mix and match video tracks from various artists, the way your CD burner will. It doesn't say that you can't copy-protect your OWN disks that it burns; that's a right the big manufacturers have reserved to themselves. They're not selling you a DVD-Authoring drive, which is for "professional use only". They're selling you a DVD-General drive, which cannot record the key-blocks needed to copy-protect your OWN recordings, nor can a DVD-General disc be used as a master to press your own DVDs in quantity. These distinctions are not even glossed over; they are simply ignored, not mentioned, invisible until after you buy the product.

Apparently there is some mechanism built into the drive. The article doesn't go into detail on what it is, but it means that what you can do with your drive has been taken out of your control.

[in the flesh?]

it sure doesn't make me want to buy it. Maybe i would like to back up my dvd library.

[Rincewind]

Yeah, you can't do the things that the big boys can. No copyrighting, 1 hour, etc. But think about it. How much do the drives that the big boys use cost? $5000. How much does the complete G4/733 cost with SuperDrive? $3599. Easy enough to see why you can't do what the big boys can. You get what you pay for.

The 1 hour limit on DVDs burned by the SuperDrive has everything to do with the compression algorithm that Apple is using in the iDVD package. In order to cut the compression time down to 2x (2 hours of compression time for every 1 hour of video) from the standard 25x, iDVD encodes discs with a very high rate data stream. A whole heck of a lot of data is being burned to the disc, which still plays back just fine in "most" consumer DVD players, but which therefore only allows one hour of video to be burned (more data per second = less total time available on disc). Professional authoring packages compress at a much higher rate (and take _much_ longer to compress as a result), so that's why they can fit a lot more data on to the disc. Apple really isn't just shafting consumers to force them to upgrade to the $1K pro product. They're trying to make the time it takes to burn DVDs more reasonable for the average user (and for ad companies who need to rush a rough of a commercial out the door).

Well that sucks! Thanks for the warning, Apple, if I wanted hardware crippled by needless stupid limitations I'd have bought a wintel box.

I videotape weddings for a living, and would have loved to offer weddings on DVD. But the mass alone often runs more then 1 hour, and weddings with extra events can go over three hours total. That would mean 4 DVDs. They could at least have given us the option of using the slower compression when needed. (For low-movement things like a wedding mass, you can cut the data rate to fit 180 minutes on a disk.)

I'm sorry, but no one is going to spend $3500 on a computer just for their home movies! ANYONE who buys this is going to try to make money with it. There is no way I can afford to fork over an additional $2000 (Final Cut Pro + pro DVD) for features I don't need just to record a normal disk. There are only 52 Saturdays in a year and weddings only pay so much.

And Hitatchi has a stand-alone DVD recorder that can do two hours on a disk.

Well that sucks! Thanks for the warning, Apple, if I wanted hardware crippled by needless stupid limitations I'd have bought a wintel box.

I videotape weddings for a living, and would have loved to offer weddings on DVD. But the mass alone often runs more then 1 hour, and weddings with extra events can go over three hours total. That would mean 4 DVDs. They could at least have given us the option of using the slower compression when needed. (For low-movement things like a wedding mass, you can cut the data rate to fit 180 minutes on a disk.)

I'm sorry, but no one is going to spend $3500 on a computer just for their home movies! ANYONE who buys this is going to try to make money with it. There is no way I can afford to fork over an additional $2000 (Final Cut Pro + pro DVD) for features I don't need just to record a normal disk. There are only 52 Saturdays in a year and weddings only pay so much.

And Hitatchi has a stand-alone DVD recorder that can do two hours on a disk.

I think it's still a better deal than you could get on any other system in the near future, which is either none, or a system that can take much longer just to encode that one hour of video at the same compression rate that iDVD offers.

And I'm not sure if Hitachi's stand-alone DVD recorder can offer the editing flexibility of even a consumer package like iDVD.

We're ordering one or two where I work (University of Illinois) to handle the digital video work we're begining to get into. The Windows boxes we've been using for this task just can't cut it.

I suggest that you invest in the new G4 along with the pro DVD authoring package and either Final Cut Pro or Premier, and charge a bit more for a DVD package than you would for a VHS package.

[Milio]

Here's an informative article about the limitations. http://www.digitalpostproduction.com...OnAppleDVD.htm

It seems to confirm that the limitation is in the iDVD software using relatively low compression at a constant bit rate in order to get the good write speeds. I predict that iDVD2 will have user selectable compression settings.

It also mentions that the drive will soon be available separately for about $1000. Way cool!

[This message has been edited by Milio (edited 01-30-2001).]

Alan, if you videotape weddings for a living then I hardly think spending $2000 on software is unreasonable. You don't want to pay for "features you don't need", yet you obviously need the features of DVD studio pro. You could make a wedding into a 2 disc set, put into one of the Slim Amary cases (a la Gladiator) and it would be a pretty slick package!

I think that you're wrong about the price... People will pay $3500 for a home movie editing machine. They need something to justifiy their $2000 digital camcorder purchases!

[Thunderbird]

I don't think you need FCP to use DVD Studio Pro. My understanding is that it will work just fine with videos edited in iMovie. So it wouldn't cost you $2000, but rather $1000. Frankly, I think wedding customers would be very willing to pay extra for a high quality digital video on DVD.

Originally posted by NeoMac:

The 1 hour limit is also probably a guarantee that no one will use this technology to pirate Holywood movies.

This is meant for home / family DVD. Do you really want to spend more than an hour watching home movies?!

your nuts...

------------------------------------------------------------------------
My nuts?
What about my nuts?

[GreenMnM]

Originally posted by Milio:

It also mentions that the drive will soon be available separately for about $1000. Way cool!

You have been able to pre-order one for a while now, there are at least three 3rd party companies packaging their own FireWire Pioneer DVD-R drives. There were two displaying at Macworld in San Francisco in January. Check out:
http://www.all4DVD.com/

A bargain at $990!

-Doug

[This message has been edited by GreenMnM (edited 04-13-2001).]

[opallaser]

The one hour limit has nothing to do with the superdrive. It is a limitation of iDVD. i DVD has fixed bit rate encoding which is set to the highest level. At this bit rate you only get around 1 hour's worth of video for your 4.7gig. Now DVD Studio Pro has variable bit rate encoding meaning that it can give fantastic quality but keep the file sizes much smaller. You can easliy fit around 2 hours worth of video onto a 4.7 gig DVD using the MPEG compression with DVD studio Pro and from what i have seen the quality is amazing. It's a fantastic product that is receiving alot of praise.

The superdrive does burn discs that are playable in home DVD players, just not all of them. Most new DVD players will be fine however some older models will not.



------------------
Anarchy is an ethic

I noticed that when i bought Toast 5 Titanium. Roxio brags about how they don't have the 1 hour limit.

Simple solution, but Toast 5 Titanium.

[NickKohn]

Well, the nice thing about iDVD is the ease of use and customizability. Is it possible to make a 2-hour DVD in iDVD and then export it someway to have Toast Titanium burn the DVD?

[AirSluf]

Toast doesn't have a limit because it can only burn things that are already encoded. They only do copies, not creation. iDVD does the encoding. Huge difference.

axisboy is correct in his post.

Alan buy DVD Studio pro, you are a professional. Or you can buy a Compac that doesn't have the two hour limit. Only problem with the Compac is if anything moves the picture sucks and you get major jaggies according to both the Wash Post and NY Times.

[Todd Madson]

One of the things you might consider two is that one of the major issues with the Compaq system also discusses something that Stereo Review sound and video called "Edge Feathering", where if the camera was panned to the left to right (such as panning from the bridesmaids to the bride and groom in a wedding video), the edges of the picture would rapidly brighten and darken for no apparent reason.

I suspect that iDVD will be modified at some point to do a lower bitrate
copy, I still want this capability someday.

One of the things I do is play guitar and I do little MPEG movies for
online guitar instructions. It would be cool to have a little DVD of
the examples (playing a part slow, then fast) and selectable on the
disc itself for various examples.

-t