I'm only half-anxious to write about this. The primary advantage of dual-layer DVD authoring is that you get to author DVD's with up to 4 hours of video, but in most cases those four hours will be very painful to watch.
My current direction in home moviemaking is to stop the madness of capturing 10-20 minute clips of my kids birthday parties where I perform numerous sins over the maddening duration of a single take. Zooming, walking, sneezing, wobbling and otherwise engaging in conversation while taking video makes for a pretty big video disaster.
I have been getting much better results by taking 10-20 second clips for almost everything. I try and frame the shot before I make it and I avoid zooming in and out once the camera is rolling.
So, filling up a single-layer DVD with 2 hours is something I have yet to accomplish. My record is still under an hour.
Nevertheless, it has come to my attention that dual-layer authoring is pretty cheap. You can learn about dual-layer discs by visiting the DVD FAQ.
You can buy a drive pretty cheap ($79) and but can't vouch for the quality of the device. It's a sony and you can read about it on the Software and Stuff web site. I'm sure that reader is sold elsewhere and there are probably other vendors out there selling these things too.
Verbatim seems to be the first vendor to offer the newer discs.
You can get relatively cheap software from Ulead that now supports dual-layer recording. Their consumer package is called Video Studio ($89) and a patch gives it the capability to burn to dual-layer media.
Enjoy.
Posted by Nick Codignotto at September 28, 2004 10:15 PM | TrackBack