Fit on DVD disc

tdmalek wrote on 9/18/2004, 2:32 PM

What is the best way to make sure the rendered MPG will fit on a DVD disc? When I chose "Burn to DVD", it created an MPG file of 5.5GB (about 110 minutes). I discovered that I can rerender in DVD Architect but that seems like a waste of time and loss of quality.

Comments

dand9959 wrote on 9/18/2004, 5:39 PM

No matter what software you use, a 5.5Gb disc image will not fit on a 4.7Gb disc (!)...therefore you'll have to compress it, or re-render it with lower bit rates, etc. Many programs will "auto compress" an image for you when you burn it. DVD Shrink is a nice freeware program that handles this. I assume DVDA will do a better job of giving you options.

slick204 wrote on 9/18/2004, 6:03 PM

I have this question too. Is there a way to author the movie and have it render only once in DVDA and have it fit on a DVD or is the only way to render it in MS, author it, then re-render to fit. I'd rather not re-render. Is there an option in MS to adjust the bit rate when rendering?

tdmalek wrote on 9/18/2004, 8:36 PM

Exactly, what is the best method to put a large video on to one DVD disc without rendering twice? If you choose "Save it to your hard drive", there are rendering options available. Since DVDA can accept AVI files, it seems the best way is to save as an uncompressed AVI in VMS and then open the file in DVDA and do the rendering there. Does this make sense or is there a better\easier way?

slick204 wrote on 9/19/2004, 7:50 AM

I remember reading that the estimated rendered file size was not very accurate so I went ahead and rendered my movie last night. MS estimated 5.5 Gb but it actually came out to 3.7 Gb, so I guess it's not a problem with this movie. I would still like to know if there is way not to render twice on a large movie.

IndyGuy wrote on 9/20/2004, 12:54 PM

I agree with the user who suggested DVD Shrink. Go ahead and create the DVD to the hard drive and then use Shrink to reduce it to fit. It only compresses it enough to fit on the DVD. I have found that the resulting quality is remarkably good, even when viewed on a 57 inch TV.