Fitting more onto a DVD

[Woolen Llama]

Ok here is my problem. I will often download a whole series of avi files online and it will show as bieng less than the size of a 4.7 gb disk. For example i have a complete season registering as bieng 4.41 gb in size but still will not burn. Now i am aware that i cannot write the full amount to a disc as some space is needed for formatting etc but it is really beginning to grate on me that i cannot fit the files for the sake of a few MB and will have to use 2 disks, a bit of a waste really. Short of completely re editing the video down for example removing the credits or re compressing the video, which can be quite time consuming to do properly (Also i have a dvd player that is capable of playing these disks and im not sure if compression would affect that)

Does anyone know a way of squezing that extra bit of space out of a blank DVD+R.

[marioval]

You can fit as much as you want on a DVD but quality will suffer..... Keep in mind: The size of the files you are converting to DVD means nothing, whats important is the running time. If the source files are decent quality you can expect to get 2-3 hours with decent results. Once you get past 3 hours its all down hill from there but your results may vary...... You haven't told us what app you are using to convert your files to DVD and you haven't told us what your source files are but i'm assuming you have a bunch of avi files downloaded from some file sharing type of site but I could be wrong. My advice would be to try something like DVDFlick (free) or ConvertXtoDVD (not free) and fill up the disk until your hearts content then play it on your TV and judge for yourself how it looks.

[hech54]

Keep in mind: The size of the files you are converting to DVD means nothing

...because he never said he was converting to DVD.

[louv68]

The actual size of a single layer DVD is 4.37GB

[jman98]

The actual size of a single layer DVD is 4.37GB

Yes. This is what I call the old "What is a gigabyte?" question. Some people do not use the actual value but round it to numbers that are easier for humans to remember, which leads to the same media having different values depending on what a gigabyte means to those who talk about it.

Anyway, I do NOT recommend this, but Nero will let you attempt to overburn. Most likely it will fail. Your best bet is to either burn to DL media if you need more space or just resign yourself to the fact that you can fit 4.41 GB in a disc designed to hold 4.37 and use 2 discs. Or you could always re-encode something to make it smaller so it will fit, but you may suffer quality loss while doing so.

[jagabo]

Ok here is my problem. I will often download a whole series of avi files online and it will show as bieng less than the size of a 4.7 gb disk. For example i have a complete season registering as bieng 4.41 gb in size but still will not burn.

That's because disc manufactures and Windows mean different things by "GB". To a disk manufacturer GB means 1,000,000,000 (1000x1000x1000) bytes. To Windows GB means 1,073,741,824 (1024x1024x1024) bytes. The more modern nomenclature for the latter is GiB.

So your 4.7 GB disc only holds 4.37 GiB by Windows' way of counting.

[yoda313]

I would suggest investing in a dual layer burner. There is an outside chance you may already have the ability - some computers do ship with dual layer burners.

They are really inexpensive these days - 30.00 usd or so new at places like newegg and tigerdirect.

Blanks are a little pricier than single layer but not terribly so. Than you have 8gb to work with without sacrificing quality.

Otherwise you'll have to reencode your video to a lower bitrate to fit it onto the disc.

Or simply accept that you can't fit as many clips as you want on the disc and use more single layer discs.

[hech54]

I think one single-layer DVD and one CD-R is still cheaper than one dual-layer DVD... I've come across the same dilemma several times.

[mh2360]

I would think that snipping the end credits would be less time consuming than recoding the entire collection to fit, not to mention the loss of quality.

It would be a simple enough operation to cut the last two minutes or so off each episode using virtualdub, you might even be able to set up a batch job.

In the past when I have faced this problem, I sometimes recode just one or two of my least favourite episodes to a smaller size so that they all fit.

[AlanHK]

Ok here is my problem. I will often download a whole series of avi files online and it will show as bieng less than the size of a 4.7 gb disk. For example i have a complete season registering as bieng 4.41 gb in size but still will not burn.

The "4.7 GB" DVD is using "decimal gigabytes": i.e. it's 4.7 x 10^9 = 4,700,000,000 bytes.

Whereas the filesize are binary gigabytes: 4.41 x 2^30 = 4.41 x 1073741824 = 4,735,201,443 bytes

Thank the ******** who decided to measure disks (optical and hard) using a different definition than had been standard for computing, just so they could make you think you were getting more.

Anyway, you can't stretch the disc. You have to cut or compress the file.

Use a recent version of VDub or Avidemux to trim AVI files, much faster than re-encoding.

[marioval]

Keep in mind: The size of the files you are converting to DVD means nothing

...because he never said he was converting to DVD.

I just assumed the OP was converting to DVD and not just burning them to DVD, my bad.

[Noahtuck]

I would think that snipping the end credits would be less time consuming than recoding the entire collection to fit, not to mention the loss of quality.

It would be a simple enough operation to cut the last two minutes or so off each episode using virtualdub, you might even be able to set up a batch job.

In the past when I have faced this problem, I sometimes recode just one or two of my least favourite episodes to a smaller size so that they all fit.

I had this same issue a couple of weeks ago but i have done both.

The last one was one of the seasons of The Sopranos, i encoded each episode to 350mb and it ended up being just over the limit for that season to fit onto a single dvdr.

I used Avidemux to trim off the end credits and they ended up fitting on one dvdr.

It took a lot less time then re-encoding them all again.
Maybe 30 seconds per episode to trim off the end.

[jagabo]

I just byte the bullet and use 2 DVDs.

[Noahtuck]

I just byte the bullet and use 2 DVDs.

I usually do also unless it's like at 101% & just over the limit for a single disc in Imgburn.

[Woolen Llama]

Yeah i thought as much, i think i will just have to invest in some dual layer discs or put up with using two.