My dvd is 4.7 gigs and when i try to make a dvd with an .avi, .mpg and so on it comes out to be about 5-6 gigs and won't fit on a dvd. I am using Ulead DVD factory. Is there a way to shrink them so it fits on 1 DVD? Im sorry if this question has benn asked before but I am a newbie at this.

ulead DVD factory for menus right? Well you build your menu, you make a test compilation and then write down the filesize of your menus. (might be good to round this up to the closest 0.1GB).

Next you head on over to http://www.dvdrhelp.com and then use their bitrate calculator to get accurate encoding specs and bitrate to use. You then encode your audio with ac3machine (frontend for besweet) and then finally, you encode with a competant encoder, that being CCE.

Then you take your correct sized mpeg2 file that CCE made and then load it into the project ulead made, and hope it doesn't go out of sync, like ulead's efforts normally do. You then compile and burn.

Or you could use TMPenc and its DVD authoring addon (better given that TMPenc is a good encoder too).

But the better option would be to stop fannying around with re-encoding and buy a proper MPEG4 capable device like an Xbox or one of these cheap dvd players. The effort saved let alone the huge quality increase you'll get by not re-encoding makes it more than a high recommendation.

follow a guide, if your going for the more effort + lower quality encoding route:
http://www.dvdrhelp.com
http://www.doom9.org

Actually Im not using it for menus I am just taking the avi i downloaded from the donkey and putting it it ulead. it will convert most of them but when the file is to big it wants to use 2 dvds.this program came free with my video capture card that i use to get video from my Tivo and works great. But the downloads i get from the donkey are to big. I will take a look at that site maybe there is a better program to do this. Im sure most everyone here is doing this (downloading and burning to dvd) there has to be a better and faster way. Thanks for your help spuds your a pal!!

in that case, don't bother, if you don't care about menus, just use TMPGenc for a couple of clicks, and then use nero to burn.

Otherwise if you think your experienced enough and want the little quality increase that comes with it, have a look at CCE



Everyone here is downloading the avis, and you can see this by the fact that hardly anyone posts in the VCD section, and even when they do its a DVDr. 90% of people will just burning them as is (don't touch the files) and playing them back in a decent standalone or on their PC with tv-out

I for one loathe the re-encoding from mpeg4 to a worse codec (that being MPEG2 for DVD). I have a standalone and a decent tv-out system atm

Ok that worked on some of them. I also do what you do but i want to keep them because i am running out of HD space. I have 2 120 gig drives full of horror movies. I am one sick puppie. The funny thing is I am doing this to make room for more. Thanks spud for all your help.

Or you do like I do : when I run out of HD-space I put 6 avi's
on one DATA-DVD. There's plenty of room for that and you
keep the MPEG4-quality.

When I want to watch it again I simply copy it back to my HD and
then watch the movie through my TV-out.

Now I have 2 HD-drives of 40 GB each so I have to do that often.
In a couple of weeks I'm gonna buy a new 200 GB-drive so I can
let the stuff stay a little longer.

I do reencode some movies (or TV-series) but that has to do with the fact that I'm Dutch.
And so I reencode them with the Dutch subs hardcoded in it.Then I use the TMPGenc as Spud said :
just a couple of clicks and off you go.

If you have the whole Pegasys-package (ed2k: TMPGEnc_Studio_1.0_fixed_final.rar  [23.88 Mb] [Stats] ) then you also get the
DVD Source-Creator which has a lot of options of encoding too. And
of course it has the DVD Author in which you can make a DVD out
of the created mpeg's complete with menu.

But just simply make DATA-DVD's and I guess you'll get
what you want then (it's 4.2 GB each time you burn 6 avi's )

Greetz,

Kareltje538

data-dvd is the only way I go in my book; only way to keep some standards of quality... even if you are dutch

hehe

Ultravox, if there's any movies I want to convert to DVD from avi, I use the following route:

Convert avi to MPEG-2 using avi2dvd and CCE, guide here: http://uk.geocities.com/misterbarlow/

(Yeah, I know you don't recommend avi2dvd Spud, shappap. )

Then just author the resulting MPG file with DVD-Lab Pro, which is fairly straightforward. I do this with any movies I want to watch on TV, but to be honest once my xbox is up and running with Xbox Media Centre I'll just burn avi's directly to a DVD and watch them that way.