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  1. I want to make my AVI files smaller so I can fit more onto a DVD. Right now my AVI's are (720 x 576, I believe) about 245,000 kb a piece. When I go to put them on a DVD using Roxio CD/DVD creator I put the Compression on high (lowest quality) and move them onto the DVD I can only get 3 to 4 files on there. I'm hopping to get close to ten if that's possible. Any and all tips will be greatly appreciated.
    Opie
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  2. If u burn raw AVI's to a DVD it's not DVD compliant. You wont be able to play it on a standalnoe. You'll have to convert to an MPEG2. That being said, if your wanting to burn straight files to a DVD as data just lower the bitrate on the AVIs, that will reduce file size.
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  3. Member mats.hogberg's Avatar
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    Making your AVIs smaller wont affect matters. What you have to do, is to encode to DVD mpg using some less blunt instrument than Roxio CD/DVD Creator. Try reading some of the AVI to DVD guides found under Convert left. I'd recommend TMPGEnc for encoding, and a bit rate calc for determining what bit rate to use to arrive at a certain file size.
    Then author with DVDAuthorGUI or TMPGEnc DVD Author. What matters when arriving at how many clips you can fit on a DVD is not the file size of the source AVIs, but their length measured in time.

    /Mats
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  4. If I read that right he might be wanting to do like I also would like to do, just store the raw files on a disk and get them off the drive.

    Not sure if that's it.

    I myself have many files I would like to store in the original raw captured format so that I have them to use again latter. Like if I find a way to improve the quality with a new program, if I want clips for a new project ect.. so I would not want to author or convert these files, just store them as they are for future use. Of course being so large they have to be stored on DVD though I don't want to watch them.

    Maybe that's what he's wanting too, but not to actually be able to watch them on a settop player. Like I would not care about that in my case.
    Any good ways to do this with various video formats like Avi, Mpeg2, ect.. without losing any quality but fitting more to a disk, like zipping them?

    In my case I sometimes burn the raw captured files in what ever format I captured them in even if it takes a whole disk for one file. BUT it's a problem when I have say a 6 gig file and I don't want to split to 2 disks.

    Ya, DL might be good for this latter, BUT then I will have the same problem of not being able to store those 11 gig files
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  5. Member thecoalman's Avatar
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    opjones,

    follow mats.hopbergs advice if your trying to compress the files and loss of quality is not an issue. Using mpg at a high quality setting will result in a much smaller file and little loss of quality.

    overload,

    You can zip them but there's not enough space savings to justify it. I did a test using Stuffit a few months back and I think it compressed a AVI to 90% on the highest compression level it would go which really isn't that much. Other apps may do better but I didn't try any. I think the best method is just split them if you wish to retain the original quality.
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  6. Member mats.hogberg's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by opjones
    about 245,000 kb a piece <snip> I can only get 3 to 4 files on there. I'm hopping to get close to ten if that's possible.
    I wouldn't think there could be any problem putting 10 AVIs of 245 MB each on a 4.37 GB DVD, but then I might be wrong...

    /Mats
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  7. mats.hogberg


    I believe with the Roxio it converts everything for you so it will be readable by a DVD playa'. I've made DVD's with AVI's before with this program and they have worked just fine. Just about a 750,000 kb file (AVI) will fit onto a 4.7 gig DVD, depending on how you set the compression ratio (low, medium or high). But I'm going to give it a shoot with the suggestions given, thanks a lot.
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  8. Member mats.hogberg's Avatar
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    Again: AVI file size is 100% irrelevant when you're creating a DVD Video with the AVI as source material. Only running length (and the bit rate used when encoding the AVI to mpeg) matters.

    /Mats
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  9. VH Veteran jimmalenko's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by mats.hogberg
    Originally Posted by opjones
    about 245,000 kb a piece <snip> I can only get 3 to 4 files on there. I'm hopping to get close to ten if that's possible.
    I wouldn't think there could be any problem putting 10 AVIs of 245 MB each on a 4.37 GB DVD, but then I might be wrong...
    I was thinking the same thing ...

    Roxio is obviously re-encoding to MPEG-2.

    I think you are going to have to encode these babies manually and most likely using a smaller frame size (352 X 576 or 352 X 288) because of the big bitrate hit you are going to impose on your source. The guide here may provide some assistance.

    You need to work out the total running time per DVD in hours:minuteseconds and then plug this into the VideoHelp.com bitrate calculator. Provided you set your audio to the correct bitrate, this will tell you what bitrate to make your video. As a general rule, I normally subtract 50-100 off whatever the calculator tells me, to allow for menus and things like that. If your bitrate is < 2000kbps I would use 352 X 288 and CBR. If your bitrate is > 2000kbps I would use 352 X 576 and 2-Pass VBR with settings min 2000, ave whatever you worked it out to be and max 5000. Once you have all these settings worked out, use TMPGEnc Plus to re-encode.
    If in doubt, Google it.
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    Mats is right; the size of an avi is no indication of it's length and therefore expected size of the encoded mpeg. A 245 meg xvid avi could be more than an hour long. If it were a Huffyuv avi it might only be a couple of minutes. If it were encoded with picvideo, a different length.
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  11. jimmalenko


    Yeah I think you hit it on the head, Roxio must be converting them for me. I'm fairly new at this so the file size is the only thing I could relate to when i was burning them to DVD, now I know it's more than that. So I'm going to manually bring down the frame size and bitrate. Are these still going to look desent on TV once i bring them down?
    Opie
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  12. VH Veteran jimmalenko's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by opjones
    Are these still going to look desent on TV once i bring them down?
    Absolutely. We need to lower the bitrate siginficantly to allow more time on the DVD. Because we lower the bitrate so much, we need to lower the frame size to retain the same quality level. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
    If in doubt, Google it.
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