Need to burn 24Gb video file to many DVD5's

[alegator]

I have many video files over 20Gb size that I captured from Hi8 and MiniDV sources in MPEG2 format. They are occupying valuable hard disk space, so I want to transfer them to DVD's so to free disk space. Is it ok to split them so to be able to burn them in many DVD5's? What program can I use to split them without losing the original format, i.e., without re-encoding? Is there any other better approach to tackle this issue? Thanks.

CORRECTION: The video files were NOT captured using MPEG2 format, they were captured in DV-AVI format.

[jman98]

Can you do this? Yes. Well, in theory it is possible to split. However, you'll need a video editor of some kind. For more reasonable sized files I'd recommend either MPEGVCR or VideoReDo, but I don't honestly know if either one of them can open a 20+ GB file. If they can open it, they can certainly be used to split it. The splitting is no problem if you find something that can open those files. Both of those programs are "try before you buy", so you lose nothing to try them and see if they work. Neither program will require you to re-encode, but again, the big question here is can they open files that big or not?

[Noahtuck]

I just transferred a 2 hour laserdisc to my pc.
I spread it across 3 dvd's, it ended up being a 12gb file and used VideoReDo to join them all then cut out the 2 transitions between the 3 disc's so it will open at least a 12gb file.

[filmboss80]

It's puzzling to see that your files are in MPEG2 format instead of DV-AVI (bit-for-bit from your MiniDV source). Nevertheless, you can also split up MPEG2 files with the free tool Mpg2Cut2. It will not reencode.

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=mpg2cut2&Submit=Search&convert=&s=&orderby=Name&hits=50

[DB83]

MpegStreamClip should also serve the purpose. It will also not re-encode.

[Noahtuck]

@ filmboss80
Yeah i was also curious about that, that's a pretty large mpg file.

Anywho, VideoReDo should work fine, i just tested it and it opened a 26gb mpg2 file no problem.

[olyteddy]

AVI DeMux can also handle big files. And it can copy the streams so no encoding.

[DB83]

Well, a high-quality Mpeg2 of that size (using fairly standard GOPs) would be over 2 hours in length.

So if the running length is shorter it sounds like mostly i-frames. Surely you would need some pretty heavy hardware to do that and have faultless playback?

[dwisniski]

The better way to go is to buy an external or portable hard drive and just transfer the files to that instead of having to split, burn to DVD, re-rip and rejoin again at some later time. Much less time and trouble, and the files will be in their pristine, original state.

[alegator]

Thanks everyone for their replies. As I found out I captured these large videos long time ago using Adobe Premiere,they were captured in DV-AVI format. So I thought that using Premiere was the best way to trim them and preserve the exact original format. I found an old thread of mine (link below) that explained the procedure and it worked a treat!
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/248533-How-can-I-do-this-in-Premiere?highlight=premiere

It's puzzling to see that your files are in MPEG2 format instead of DV-AVI (bit-for-bit from your MiniDV source).

Sorry filmboss80, my mistake, as I said above I checked the files format and yes, they were captured in DV-AVI format using Adobe Premiere.

[filmboss80]

VirtualDub will also let you split and trim those DV-AVI files. Just make sure you use Direct Stream Copy on both video and audio, so that no re-encoding is performed.

[lordsmurf]

Do VirtualDub, stream copy into pieces. Easy. I do this all the time.