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  1. Member BroCraig's Avatar
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    I have a movie, an old out of copyright one, that is in two parts. They are both .avi files which are 600+mb each. How can I shrink them down to put on one dvd I can watch on my dvd player?
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    Your question leaves out some info, but here are a couple of choices:

    1) A DVD will easily hold both of those files; no shrinkage is needed. BUT they are not DVD-compliant, so an ordinary standalone player won't work with them. If those avi files are divx-encoded, AND you have a divx/DVD player, then you might already be good to go.

    2) If you need to convert to DVD, then use any number of apps for doing so. Depending on the total duration of the vids, you may or may not wish to squeeze them onto a single DVD, unless quality is not important.

    Let us know a bit more about what you are trying to accomplish, and certainly tell us more about what the source vids are (codec type, total duration, etc.). The less you make us guess, the better the advice will be.
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  3. Member BroCraig's Avatar
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    Ok, I need to figure out which file format would make these .avi files small so i can put them on a dvd. That's all i want to do. I am using ffmpegx, but don't know exactly what to set the settings to change these .avi files to something more manageable. I want to be able to play the movie on a regular dvd player.
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    Still leaving out information, such as what does your DVD player accept? If it is just a plain-Jane DVD player, then you have only one option: Encode your vids into DVD-compliant MPEG2 (see "What is DVD" in the upper left-hand corner of this page). That's it.

    If, as mentioned in my first reply, your DVD player also accepts Divx-encoded movies, AND your AVIs happen to be DivX, then you may not need to do any additional encoding at all.
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  5. Member BroCraig's Avatar
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    My dvd player is a plain Jane one. Ok, So go for the mpeg2? I'll go ahead and try to link the two parts together.
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    You have no choice but to encode to MPEG2, using DVD-compliant parameters.

    Since you also persist in omitting information about the total duration, there's no way to tell if you are going to waste your time trying to cram a 5-hour movie into a DVD5 blank. As a rough guide, if your movie is longer than 2 hours, you'll be taking a significant hit in quality. More serious videophiles would recommend an upper limit closer to one hour, in fact, so if you are fussy about quality, then you now have a rough idea of how to select bitrate (bitrate x duration = filesize).
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  7. Member MysticE's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by tomlee59
    You have no choice but to encode to MPEG2, using DVD-compliant parameters.

    Since you also persist in omitting information about the total duration, there's no way to tell if you are going to waste your time trying to cram a 5-hour movie into a DVD5 blank. As a rough guide, if your movie is longer than 2 hours, you'll be taking a significant hit in quality. More serious videophiles would recommend an upper limit closer to one hour, in fact, so if you are fussy about quality, then you now have a rough idea of how to select bitrate (bitrate x duration = filesize).
    In the context of what the OP provided:
    an old out of copyright one, that is in two parts. They are both .avi files which are 600+mb each.
    It's probably a common Xvid, which would easily maintain it's quality at 2½ hours.
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  8. Member BroCraig's Avatar
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    It's no longer than 2 hours. I don't mean to withhold any info. Forgot to include that part. I converted one of the .avi files and it give me the Audio and Video folders. When i do the other one, do I just then throw all of it into Toast?
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  9. Explorer Case's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by BroCraig
    When i do the other one, do I just then throw all of it into Toast?
    More than one VIDEO_TS folder can't be used directly for one DVD. I would recommend using the DVD mpeg2enc preset and deselect authoring. Feed the resulting .mpg files to Toast (Video>DVD-Video). Set Play all items continuously to make a player continue with part two, at the end of part one.
    Toast 6/7/8 (not sure about 9/10) never liked input from .mpg files by DVD ffmpeg, that's why I suggest DVD mpeg2enc. (This only applies to .mpg files; VIDEO_TS folders are not affected.)
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