DVD Burning & Compression -- 2 for 1?

October 8, 2008 4:02 AM

I am using Mac the Ripper and Roxio Popcorn successfully to rip, compress, and burn DVDs. I have leftover DVD-R Dual Layer DVDs -- is it possible to fit to movies on a DVD? I tried a few ways and it only shows one movie. Any settings I could change? Any other software? Thanks.
posted by snap_dragon to computers & internet (10 comments total)

You could rip them to divx files and then burn data dvds. Probably get 3 or 4 on a single dvd+r dl with very high quality settings.

Even if you can find a way to easily get two dvd structures onto a single dvd+r dl, you shouldn't. A single DL costs rather notably more than 2 plain dvd+r's. Keep the DLs and use them when you want all the extras or don't want to lose quality to recompression.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:42 AM on October 8, 2008

Will a data DVD play on a regular DVD player?
posted by snap_dragon at 6:46 AM on October 8, 2008

No, a data DVD will not play on a regular DVD player. Some DVD players are now divx compatible, and will play those files natively.
posted by shinynewnick at 7:40 AM on October 8, 2008

SnapDragon (love the name):Some newer cheap DVD players have built in codecs for divx playing. This varies entirely by device.
posted by Goofyy at 7:43 AM on October 8, 2008

DVDshrink claims to allow you to do this. I have used it in the past to shrink by re-authoring (i.e. removing things like foreign language soundtracks) and it works well. It also allows you to shrink by re-encoding the main movie as a lower quality version. I have not tried that, and have no idea of the likely quality if you tried to cram two movies on one disc, but if you want your DVD to play on a regular player this seems worth a try.
posted by Jakey at 7:56 AM on October 8, 2008

Thanks. I think DVDShrink is only for Windows but I heard DVD2OneX might do what I want. Not sure, though.
posted by snap_dragon at 8:27 AM on October 8, 2008

The problem isn't fitting the two movies onto a single DVD. The problem is that the file structure doesn't do what you want. The master VOB file from one of the movies will dominate and that's the only one the player will see, so only that movie will be playable.

To put more than one movie onto the DVD you'd have to remaster the VOB structure.
posted by Class Goat at 10:36 AM on October 8, 2008

And, again, doing so costs more than two 4.7GB discs.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:22 PM on October 8, 2008

DVD2Onex claims to do this though...and I have a ton of dual layer DVDs sitting around. Anybody else ever used such a thing to cram two movies onto one disc (dual layer) that will be able to play in a dvd player?
posted by snap_dragon at 5:28 PM on October 8, 2008

You can buy a DVD player that plays Divx at any PawnAmerica for $20.

Personally, I'd cram the DVD-DL with Divx files and buy the Divx player, because even if DVD2OneX does this [and it does seem to, with its "join" mode], it'll be a time-consuming procedure, more than $20 worth of time, to my thinking.
posted by chazlarson at 6:53 PM on October 9, 2008