Sorry, you won’t find any hidden code buried in this image that will lead you to fame or fortune, but for those video enthusiasts who grow by the numbers every day, I do hope that you find this blog helpful.

I by no means consider myself an expert when it comes to video, but as we find with most things we do on a regular basis there are better and more effecient ways to do things.

As American families pick up the camcorders, they also find themselves piling up the mini-dv tapes or mini dvd discs by the dozen. I find myself in that same group, but who wants to spend hours going back through years of tapes to find one particular moment in their lives or children’s lives that they would love to see again?

That’s where the beauty of creating DVDs with chapters comes in. Though capturing all those tapes into your computer just to create your own DVD may take a lot of time, believe me it will be well worth it in the long run. You’ll be able to make copies for your family when your done and find that you can now use the chapter menus you have created on your own personal DVD to go straight to that memorable moment without dying of old age by the time you find it.

I myself use Adobe Premiere Pro CS3® as my editing program and Adobe Encore CS3® as my DVD creation program. These may be higher end programs than most people want to invest in, but if your particular DVD writing program allows you to adjust your bitrate for your MPEG-2 compression, it all comes down to the math. Or, as I would like to put it…The DVDinci Code. 

This is where I turn it over to the experts. If you are looking for a great helpful article on producing your own DVDs, MPEG-2 compression tips in general and just how much video you can fit to one disc check out this article by Charles Fulton from VideoMaker Magazine: http://www.videomaker.com/article/12713/ You’ll find there are many various ways to en”coding” your video for both the DVD single and dual layer mediums. Just remember, the quality of your video is only as good as your initial recording. So, you may want to consider a lesser quality compression on home videos with 8mm or VHS quality and save the better quality encoding for the higher end captures.

Happy videomaking everyone!

Article Tags: DVD | movie | Video | Videography

Filed under: Videography