This simple trick lets me burn Blu-ray-quality video to the cheap DVD discs I already own

Published Nov 8, 2026, 2:00 PM EST Former radio and TV guy (I Heart Radio and PBS). Now a writer, researcher, and musician who writes about the absurdity of our modern world and other offbeat topics. Specializes in weird music, the old web, retro video games and tech, and researching strange, yet interesting things. His work has appeared in Vice, Tedium, Star Trek.com, Today I Found Out, Typebar, SyFy Wire, and How To Geek. Currently working on a variety of music, web, and writing projects. Visit him on the web at https://djbuckfreelance.neocities.org/. DVDs are a phenomenal piece of technology. I remember the very first DVDs I ever bought: Oingo Boingo: Live from the Universal Amphitheatre and Ghostbusters. One of those is pretty rare now. The other has been re-released so many times I lost count. But they were truly astonishing tech at the time. I still watch my DVDs and Blu-rays from time to time. I stream, too, but usually on my own terms. But DVD-Rs still have a place in my life. I have entire archives loaded on them. I’ve been reading about ways to get better quality video, and I stumbled upon something fascinating: there’s a way to get high-quality (Blu-ray quality) video onto a 4.7GB DVD. And I tested it out. I wanted to try something new with my DVD-Rs Even though I’m not much of a movie guy I have a habit of backing up my stuff. I’m (to the surprise of absolutely no one) not a video guy. I only occasionally watch TV shows. And I’m very picky. I can’t remember the last time I watched a full movie that wasn’t something obscure I found on the Internet Archive. (It was Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards, on VHS, in July 2025.) That doesn’t stop me from building media servers for my family, but I’m really more into books and music (listening, making, obsessing about it; you get the idea). There are a few reasons why. For starters, I like physical media. I also have a ton of DVD-Rs lying around (at least two spindles). I do enjoy the quality of Blu-ray and high-definition, but, unfortunately, my Blu-ray player is missing its power adapter (a family member “lost” it). And I only have a few DVD drives on my PCs. So, it’s worth seeing if I can get it to work. It was worth a shot in my book. Compression settings matter Modern DVDs have a low compression ratio I was looking through Reddit, as one does, and I came across a fascinating thread about a way to encode DVDs so they play in Blu-ray quality. It’s basically talking about using the high-quality AVCHD format. Standard DVDs use MPEG-2, or the H.262 video codec. It was originally set up that way so it could be combined with an audio track and be compatible across most DVD or Blu-ray players. It wouldn't make sense for the home video market not to have a universal or standardized way to make discs. Sometimes, the compression on a DVD creates artifacts, like detail issues, or that weird fuzzy/hazy look you get on some video. I had an early DVD copy of The Goonies that suffered from a ton of artifacting. It was distracting. I realized that nowadays, there's a VHS revival, and people are either weirdly nostalgic or pining for that type of video experience. I'm all for a lo-fi aesthetic when it makes sense, but for most of my shows, I want a crisp image with great quality. Making an AVCHD or using the H.264 codec (when burning my own DVDs) is a pretty neat workaround. It typically involves ripping a DVD you own, converting it to a different file format, and finding a program that can handle re-encoding it. The format I like is MKV, but an MP4 will work fine. The best program I've found for something like this is Handbrake. Creating an AVCHD disc A straightforward process in Handbrake The process starts with dropping a 1080p source video into Handbrake. You can tell if your video is in 1080p by opening it in VLC Media Player, playing it, and hitting CTRL + J. The info you need is under Codec Information. It should say “1920 x 1080.” If it doesn’t, your video isn’t in 1080p. For my experiment, I burned a copy of a DVD from my collection and a few upscaled episodes of a cartoon. Once you have your content, open Handbrake. Under Summary, change the format to MP4. Go to Video and change Video Encoder to H.264. That's the standard you'd want for something like it. Use Constant Quality and set the slider to RF22. Under Preset, move the slider right until it says "slow" on the right side. Finally, set the audio track (under the Audio tab) and make sure AAC is selected. Handbrake will encode your DVD as a data disc. You'll need an actual Blu-ray player that can handle data discs to play it back. It's a bit of a workaround, but it's a quick process. I checked out the DVD on my Blu-ray player. And it looked pretty good. I definitely noticed an improvement over the source, but it was not as big of a change as I thought it would be. I think it’s a worthwhile experiment, and if you have the patience, it's something worth exploring. Sometimes software workarounds amaze me Blu-ray quality on DVD isn’t something I expected to work, but I had decent results with this. If I had more video and a bit more time, I could see using this process often. Regardless, Handbrake is a phenomenal piece of software. And using it to enhance the quality of a DVD isn’t something I ever expected to be able to do.