MPEG-2 Settings? Making DVD.

[Sham 69]

I found 1080p 5000kbps clips on archive.org and thought it would be cool to compile them into a DVD.

From what I've read, you should set the bitrate between 8500 to 9500kbps because all players should be able to handle that.

If a DVD player "chokes" at a certain rate, then does it matter if the video is encoded with VBR or CBR? Am I right to assume that one should encode with CBR at the highest bitrate possible if space isn't an issue?

Also, there are some settings in MPEG-2 which I don't know what they do. Encoding a video with the default settings looks good to me, but is there anything I should change? I'm trying to retain the quality as much as possible.

Thanks.

[eumagga0x2a]

I found 1080p 5000kbps clips on archive.org and thought it would be cool to compile them into a DVD.

Video DVDs were cool over a decade ago. Nowadays they are just an anachronism. Unless you really must have the clips on a DVD (like when you target a person who doesn't have any means to play anything better), don't choose this obsolete format.

From what I've read, you should set the bitrate between 8500 to 9500kbps because all players should be able to handle that.

Yes, they should by specification. Don't forget that you will need to downscale 1080p either to 720x480 (NTSC) if the frame rate is 30000/1001 (~29.97 fps) or to 720x576 (PAL) if it is 25 fps.

If a DVD player "chokes" at a certain rate, then does it matter if the video is encoded with VBR or CBR? Am I right to assume that one should encode with CBR at the highest bitrate possible if space isn't an issue?

CBR is the worst possible mode and not necessary for DVD video (a constant data rate may be required for broadcasts, which is usually achieved by inserting empty filler packets into the stream). I'd recommend to try constant quality (CRF) mode, the result might be well within the bounds.

Encoding a video with the default settings looks good to me, but is there anything I should change?

If it looks good, then I'd leave the settings as they are. You only must set the aspect ratio to match the display ratio of the source. However, after downscaling 1080p to 576 (p or i), there is not much quality left, I think.

[Sham 69]

What are other formats I should consider? Blu-ray from what I understand is the same as a DVD except it can hold much higher quality footage. I see a positive in owning discs because your storage isn't reliant on a single drive.

Before I checked back here I tried putting some of the videos using DVDStyler and they looked pretty good at 9000kbps CBR using DVDStyler encoder settings. That gives me about an hour's worth of footage. If I drop down to 8000 VBR I get 20 more minutes.

[eumagga0x2a]

I see a positive in owning discs because your storage isn't reliant on a single drive.

A single drive is indeed a bad practice, but two drives, preferably kept at different locations, are a good one. I would not use optical storage unless for distribution purposes. Optical media age too and fail unpredictably.