How do I compress a ripped DVD file for burning?

[neverdiplomatic]

Okay; I successfully ripped a DVD onto my hard drive using MTR. Now, this is my first time EVER attempting to do this, and I now see that in order for me to burn said file onto a DVD-R, I'm going to have to shrink it somehow. Gulp. I feel like a moron, but I have NO idea how to do this!
Anyone feel up to helping the newbie? Thanks for your time!

[tomlee59]

No need to apologize! (Heck, if I apologized for everything I didn't know, I'd never get to say anything else!) The reason these forums exist is so that we can pool our knowledge.

Unfortunately, I know of no free Mac utility for doing what you want (that doesn't mean they don't exist, but I just don't know of one). FfmpegX ($15) has an option to do this, and so does a tool called DVD2One (can't remember the price offhand, but it's equally modest).

If you don't need a DVD that's playable on a standalone machine (i.e., you only want to be able to watch the movie on your computer), then you have several free options. One is to convert the DVD into a DivX/XviD movie, which will shrink a typical movie down to well below a standard DVD5's size with minimal loss. My favorite tool for doing that is the free and wonderful D-Vision3 (no, I'm not related to any of the developers). You can even shrink a movie to the point where it will fit on a CD-R without horrendous loss of quality. I back up all my movies this way (plus, it only requires a CD burner, which are cheap and fast).

[rumplestiltskin]

I see you're running a 1.42GHz G4(?).

Some reasonably inexpensive options are DVD Remaster and Toast (although the quality of Toast's compression isn't quite as good). IIRC, both of these apps will let you set I/O points so, perhaps, you might split the movie into two DVD-Rs.

If you have XP in VPC, you may also use DVDShrink; it's always worked quite well for me.

[neverdiplomatic]

Thank you both VERY much! I installed the trial version of DVD2one and it worked like a dream; the DVD is playing on my 2 players as well as the computer. It was shockingly easy; so much for all my PC-user friends who told me that the process on a Mac is 'so complicated you should just get a PC'.
Thanks again; I feel like I'm actually learning how to fully utilize my MAc and it's GREAT!
MUAH
ND