When DVDA tells you it is too big just click "Optimize" and then "Fit to disc". It will drop the bitrate down enough for the video to fit. Assuming there isn't a lot of action/motion in the video it will probably come out OK. Or, get dual-layer DVD media and let it be huge. A dual-layer DVD can hold twice as much content -- this is what is used for those long movies you are thinking of.

No offense, but your message is a big vague, which I personally think makes it difficult to help you with much accuracy.

1. What version Vegas+DVDA are you using? Regular or Movie Studio? Is DVDA 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0, and are you using the latest update?

2. The footage you got off the camera (depending on the kind of camera you have -- ?) was most likely saved to your harddrive as an AVI. What steps did you take to get to the video that you're bringing into DVDA? Did you just give it the original AVI file, did you edit that AVI to create a new AVI file, or did you create an MPEG2 file from it? If the latter, what settings and template did you use in Vegas?

3. If you gave DVDA Architect an MPEG2 file, then go to File -> Optimize DVD and tell us what you see. Does your video have two check boxes, a checkbox and an exclamation point, or two exclamation points. If you have two checkboxes, great. If you have a checkbox under video but an exclamation point under audio, you're still doing okay because re-encoding audio is a quick painless process in DVDA (it will do it automatically). If you have two exclamation points, then your MPEG2 file is not DVD compliant, which requires that DVDA re-encode the video. When DVDA re-encodes a file that's already been rendered as MPEG, it tends to use a rather high bitrate.

4. If you gave DVD Architect an AVI file, try going to File -> Optimize DVD and choose Fit to Disc. That will adjust the bitrate DVDA is going to use. If your file is already an MPEG2, don't bother with Fit to Disc -- you won't get any benefit.

What do I do to be able to get the whole of the footage on a DVD?

I would recommend putting your original footage on a Vegas timeline. If you have any edits and effects to add, do those and render this out to an AVI file. Create a new project, add this new AVI, and render the video out to an MPEG2 file. Do not use the default template -- use one of the DVD Architect video stream templates (which one depends on your project...choose NTSC or PAL as needed and widescreen if your footage is true widescreen). Once that's done, render the audio to a file -- AC3 Dolby Digital if you're using Vegas, or Wave if you're using Vegas Movie Studio. Give this file the same name (other than the extension) as your MPEG2 file from above. Bring the MPEG2 file into your DVD Architect project (DVDA will find the audio file automatically), and check File -> Optimize DVD. If all went well, you will see two checkmarks by your movie, which means DVDA can create your DVD without a long render process...and without bloating your MPEG file.

I watch movies that are well over two hours for the most part.

How much can go on a DVD is only about "time" by accident. The real measure of DVD capacity is space...bytes, bits, etc. A DVD doesn't "have two hours" or "three hours" or whatever, despite what the blank DVD manufacturers may put on their labels. A single layer DVD (the most common blank media) has 4.37GB of space. A dual layer DVD (somewhat new to consumers) has 8.5GB of space. What determines how much "time" you can get on a DVD is the bitrate the video is encoded at. Generally speaking, the higher the bitrate, the better quality of the video, but it also means you can put less "time" on a disc. With a lower bitrate, you can get more "time" on a disc, but (also generally), the quality will be less so.

As for "Hollywood" DVDs, keep in mind that a) most of those are double-layer discs, whereas you're probably using single-layer discs; and b) the people who produce those are using very expensive, very advanced equipment operated by very skillful people. They start out with higher quality footage than most of us, and use hardware specifically designed for MPEG2 encoding. They can use a much lower bitrate, if needed, and still get a high quality end result.

Rob
[ Edit: Sorry to repeat some of jrazz and PaulMead's points... I'm a slow typist, and there were no other replies when I started. ;) ]