An informational white paper by Robert DeMoulin
Part 1: Dual Layer – The Basics
Part 2: The Recordable DVD Format Debate and Dual Layer
Part 3: Applications For Double Layer Recordable Technology
Applications For Double Layer Recordable Technology
Consumer Applications
With up to four hours of high quality MPEG-2 video on a single-sided disc, consumers can really take their home movies to the next level with dual layer DVD recording. One benefit of the additional space is the ability to increase the bit rate of the video when authoring to get higher quality on the finished disc. Typical DVD authoring software applications use variable bit rate encoding to maximize utilization of the DVD disc space. By forcing the application to always encode at the highest bit rate supported, more space will be used on the disc, however, the quality difference is noticeable and worth it.
Dual layer DVD recording makes it possible for a consumer to create longer home movies and even consolidated many home movie projects onto a single disc. Let’s not forget that up to 8.5GB of uncompressed DVD disc space is also a great place to store data and keep your PC’s valuable data, applications, and settings backed up for when disaster strikes. You can pack up to 12 CDs or 5,902 floppy disks’ worth of information onto a single dual layer DVD disc.
With the additional capacity of a dual layer DVD recordable disc, a consumer can store approximately 2,000 songs in MP3 format or up to 17,000 high quality JPEG images. Talk about a cool place to store all that stuff cluttering up your hard drive!
Business Applications
Those businesses that have already embraced DVD for the distribution of training vids, understand that more space is often needed to deploy all of the material. Just like with the example provided for consumer applications, higher bit rate encoding of the video translates into better quality training video for the viewer. Some of the world’s best companies, from major automobile manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, and others, depend on DVD for their training video needs for one simple reason – it works.
Independent filmmakers and studios alike will appreciate the ability to author a dual layer DVD video disc and try it out without resorting to expensive and time consuming replication. This group of users can now fine tune their works on cost effective dual layer DVD recordable discs before creating the master for replication. Certainly business users will appreciate the increased storage capacity of a dual layer DVD recordable disc when distributing a large amount of data on a single disc is needed, and even for desktop system backup and single server backup with time and cost savings over traditional tape technologies. IT managers can even create their system “images” for configuring client PCs on a single disc for rapid deployment of new computers on corporate networks.
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Dual Layer Implications For DVD Recording Software
Because double layer recordable discs are basically one contiguous stream of block addresses, it’s not very difficult for software makers to make their disc mastering software compatible with dual layer drives and media, as least where recording data is concerned.
DVD Video software has to manage the “break point” of where the video will be split between layers. This “layer jump” is typically not visible when you watch a DVD movie even though there is a very brief interruption to allow the player to focus on the second layer. Managing this break point is difficult, but straightforward once all of the video for a project has been imported into the authoring application where it is separated and allocated for a video DVD.*****