AVStoDVD settings for D/L folders

[Slowburn]

The program works like a charm, so I don't know if this is a program setting I've missed or whether this is normal.

I'm using AVStoDVD 2.5.1 and import a 7.8G .mkv file to render to a size which I can burn to a D/Layer disk.
The resultant VIDEO_TS folder is only about 5.5G.
Is this a normal reduction size, from 7.8G to 5.5G?
The final result looks and sounds okay, but this seems to be quite a large reduction when it is to be burned to a double layered disk.

Any suggestions?

[davexnet]

You need to consider the bitrate of the resultant file, also the running time (you didn't mention either).

[Slowburn]

It's a black and white movie which runs 1:26:00 If possible, I want to fill about 95% of the double layered disk when I burn. As I recall, the bitrate was set at 4500 for the lowest and 8500 for the largest and the audio at 448.

If setting bitrate higher improves the video, I'd try that, but if you feel a folder size of 5.5G is normal, I'll go with that.

[davexnet]

AVStoDVD uses as much bitrate as it can, using it's "higher avg bitrate" in the preferences/video tab to
maximize the projects bitrate. When you take the addition of
the audio into account, it's pretty close to the DVD spec for max bitrate.

I opened a project myself, a 1hr 25 min movie, and set output to DVD-DL. When the project is loaded,
at the lower right of the window, you'll see something like xxxx/8100 - where xxxx is the size in MB .
for a movie of this length, I got a size of 5360/8100.

So it's normal. With a movie of 1 hour 26 mins, even a DVD-5 will give good results.

EDIT corrected the explanation. The info in the bottom right is the size in MB, not the bitrate!

[Slowburn]

Many thanks. That's exactly what I needed to know.