dvd too big??

[thatnoobiekid]

hi
im trying to burn a dvd and the file is only 4. 39 gb but it says it does not have enought room. the dvd can hold 4.7 gb though....

any answers???

[ungamunga]

The problem lies in the fact that the kilobyte/megabyte/gigabyte terms can be used to mean either amounts based around 1000 or 1024.

Drive capacities are always written in decimal values (kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, etc --> 10^3, 10^6, 10^9, etc), not binary ones (kibibyte, mebibyte, gibibyte, etc --> 2^10, 2^20, 2^30, etc --- note: these are also called kilobyte, megabyte and gigabyte but the kibi/mebi/gibi terms are slowly gaining popularity as a means of distinguishing the two).

OSes always report drive sizes using the the 2^10 method, which means they always report a smaller drive size than the manufacturer lists -- after all, dividing by 1024 will always get you a smaller result than dividing by 1000... and this effect just exaggerates with each iteration (kilo, mega, giga, tera).

Since a gigabyte can mean 10^9 (i.e. 1,000,000,000 bytes) or 2^30 (i.e. 1,073,741,824 bytes) you will see OSes reporting drive size as around 93.1% of the listed capacity.

4,700,000,000 bytes = 4.38 x 1024^3

So, blame the marketing yoyos who decided a long time ago that drive sizes sounded more impressive if they were listed in "true" decimal values instead of the binary (1kB=1024 bytes) method all OSes use.

Just wait until we hit terabytes.... there is an almost 10% difference between 10^12 and 2^40... so you shiny new terabyte hard drive will read as having around 900 gigs of space (not counting space lost to formating).

[non-linear]

There's been tons of discussion about that. In the marketing world, DVDs hold 4.7GB. In the real world, they hold about 4.39GB. The reason being that the 4.7 number is based on 1MB equaling 1000KB. In the world of computers, 1MB equals 1024KB. That is the difference in the numbering.

Edit: ungamunga beat me to it, and with a much more detailed explanation than me

[Sifaga]

if its too big

use dvdshrink to make it smaller so it will fit on a dvd blank

[waheed]

DVD will only hold 4.38 GB max. Search the forums, there has been numerous discussions on this. Ive mentioned this so many times illustrated with calculations that ive lost count.

Your only a fraction off the max size. I would suggest either compressing it or cutting the few minutes off, for example, the end credits.

[thatnoobiekid]

damm... so close but how would i remove some of the files i do need or want ... for example, the end credits....

[Bodyslide]

Use DVDShrink, in reauthor mode and cut out the end credits.

[ungamunga]

Or replace a few of the larger extras with a still image using DVD Shrink. That usually sheds a few megs.

[thatnoobiekid]

oooh shitt it workss.... amazing.... thanks for the helps everyone!!