.. I'll speak up on the archiving of LD >> DVD-R, as I did the transfers for Matt. (which took way long but that matter is resolved for the time being)..
Let me give you some of the details/facts on the current state of the effort and what I have to work with.
I use a Dazzle DVC II to do realtime MPEG-2 transfers. Capture rates are up to 10mb/s VBR (remember DVD only is supposed to go video up to 8mb/s). I've got the Pioneer A03 recorder on a 900mhz Intel box.
Currently blank DVD-R are limited to single layer, 4.7gb per disc. Approximate captures for these are...
4mb/s CBR = 2 hours/disc
8mb/s CBR = 1 hour/disc
4mb/s CBR = 3.5 to 4 hours/disc (depending on source material)
8mb/s CBR = 1.6-2 hours/disc (dosm)
One problem I have now is that the software I'm using for an MPEG-2 editor is slighly brain dead and 'thinks' everything is CBR, that means if want to record two hours in 8mb/s VBR, it thinks that it would be a 8gb file and tell me to get stuffed. This will (hopefully) go away in the next version which will be XP compatible. Right now to get around that problem, I have to make 'pseudo' chapters to let the two pieces fit on one disc and play back in order, there is unfortunately a slight pause at the break, but if for some reason there is a fade at each side it's hardly noticable.
Multiple audio tracks - commentary tracks, isolated music, different languages. Not on a single disc. [But DVD supports multiple audio tracks?] Not on the current consumer level DVD mastering software. If you wanted to do things like that, then count on one DVD-R copy PER AUDIO TRACK (ie. Escape from New York with the Carpenter/Russell track) would have to be a complete seperate copy of the disc, completely recorded/mastered from scratch. Even if I could put in multiple audio tracks, I think I would lose what is left of my sanity trying to sync them up.
Chapter stops - except for the 'pseudo chapters' as descriped above, nope.. not gonna be there. Again a case of the consumer mastering software not being up to the task.
CBR vs VBR - I don't think ANY realtime encoder can ever be artifact free, but CBR will definately decrease it. If you wanted to make a LD>DVD-R archive to two discs, there would be little reason to NOT use 8mb/s CBR. I have EXPERIMENTED with capturing at 10mb/s CBR and feeding it to a two pass, software encoder to get it down to 8mb/s VBR, but for a 30 minute program it took 28 HOURS to do (and that's on a 900mhz box).
Time involved - well, for a two hour disc, figure 2 hours for the capture, about 30 minutes to clip/trim the files, 30 minutes or so to layout the disc, roughly 2 hours to build the disc image, another hour or so to burn a check disc on DVD-R/W, if I want to do a THROUGH job on checking it, 2 hours to watch it, is all is well, another hour to burn the final disc (since I had the good sense to save the disc image). Total of 9-10 hours (a good day's work). While it's doing the capture/disc image construction I usually take and scan the LD cover and produce a suitable DVD cover.
The Costs - well (and I know, if you shop a bit you can get better prices, this is retail) The A03 drive is $799, the DVC II is $399. DVD-R Blanks, 'video grade' (TDK,Verbatim, Pioneer, Mitsu) run (now) between $9-15 each (depending on where you buy and when.. prices (it seems) change HOURLY. 'data grade' [ie, good for storing the raw mpeg images or whatever, but may not perform well in set-top players) can be had as low as $6.50 each. Also, even tho it's a hardware encoder, you will need a FAST machine with FAST HD's to keep up with the encoder.. and a LOT of disc space). And, the DVC II is a bit touchy on which MB's/Video cards/IRQ's it will get along with... plan on having a dedicated capture/edit box.
Charge - I really don't know. I've considered starting a service bureau for folks that want their LD converted to DVD-R (and VHS/S-VHS/Beta/SuperBeta as well) but I don't know what would be a reasonable charge. If you too 'minimum wage' and applied it to the 9 hours above, that would be.. what? $50/disc? But then only about 1-2 hours of that 9 are actually 'doing something' the rest is hurry up and wait. Considering the 'cost of materials' is roughly $12 (take the middle road), what would be fair?? (plus shipping). Realize that to do it i would ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO HAVE YOU SEND ME THE DISC/TAPE TO VERIFY OWNERSHIP OF THE TITLE.
So far I've done the following conversions of my discs and I'm quite happy with them, Song of the South, Wizard of Speed/Time, Gumball Rally and Howard the Duck (hush.. it's a classic) [DON'T EVEN ASK, SEE ABOVE] and I could be open to doing some more conversions IN ABOUT A MONTH. I'm about to embark on a pet project of mine to convert the 71 existing episodes of 'The Amos and Andy' TV show to disc and I'm going to have to massage the audio on some of them quite a bit (and that's 71 half hours/35.5 hours of video).
Anything I missed? Oh, yeah.. what comes out is NTSC, Region-Free, Macrovision-Free. Anything else I left out.. just ask...