AVI to DVD, advantage or disadvantage?

[coxanhvn]

I have these avi files (700MB/1 hour video) and the quality look very good. But when I try to convert it to DVD (4 files per disc), the quality looks really bad. So to fit 700MBx4 into a 4GB DVD, why it can't keep the same quality, how the authoring process works and what do we get when convert it to DVD? Isn't the quality supposed to be better?

[jagabo]

MPEG2 encoding is less efficient than MPEG4 encoding. In addition, reencoding with a lossy codec can only lead to further loss of quality.

Take a crumpled piece of aluminum foil. Open it up and count the wrinkles. Now crumple it again. Open it up again. Are there more wrinkles or less?

[manono]

The quality will never get any better. And to hold the quality loss to a minimum you might try with just 2 movies per DVDR. And you didn't explain your conversion method. Some of the programs out there will never give you optimum quality.

[olyteddy]

Target size for such conversions ought to be 2 to 3 hours per DVD tops. I'd suggest either an AVI playing DVD player (and burn a data disk - no conversion) or 1 movie per disk.