help in converting mini dv cassettes to dvd

[imager849]

i am fairly new to video conversions and i am trying to take all (8) of my mini dv cassettes and convert them
over to burn out on dvd's. the program i am using is adobe premier pro. i am not that familiar with it yet. i did a
test run with it, and copied 5 minutes of video off a mini dv to my computer. the result was a file that was 1gb in size. so for the 60 minute tape, i assume that would get me a 12gb file. what i'm asking is:

1 - are my setting (i have not changed any) correct in premier?
2 - is this normal file size or do i have to convert after with another program to reduce size to burn on dvd?

thanks in advance for any help.

[Baldrick]

Yep, DV is HUGE, around 13GB / hour. But when you make a DVD-Video you will convert to DVD MPEG2 video with higher compression than DV so you will fit more minutes/DVD, around 60-120 minutes/DVD in high quality.

[imager849]

ok...so am i to understand that when i go to burn out that 13gb file onto dvd with say...nero....that it will compress it down for me??

[AlanHK]

ok...so am i to understand that when i go to burn out that 13gb file onto dvd with say...nero....that it will compress it down for me??

Doesn't premiere author DVDs?

Use Nero ONLY for burning, not converting.

[imager849]

ok, i'm new at video editing. i used nero vision to transcode the video. it looked ok. i didn't know premier would do that. what is the difference? better quality?

[guns1inger]

what is the difference? better quality

Substantially better quality with a lot more control and no intermediate encoding.

13 GB really isn't that big, relatively speaking. Losslessly compressed video or uncompressed video is much larger again, and that's without moving up to HD level footage.

If you are editing the footage in Premiere, then output the mpg video from Premiere directly, author in something like Encore, if you have it, or GUIForDVDAuthor if you need something free. If you must use Nero simply because you have it, use it only for burning (do not use NeroVision for this)

If you are not editing, you will get the job done quicker and easier by using a DVD Recorder and a cable instead.

[imager849]

ok, i do have encore. have never used it. i will read up on. as i stated, i'm new to the video edit stuff....the 2 dvd's i burned using nero turned out ok, but i would like to go a step up in quality. i'll have to experiment...

thank you all for the input..