Problem authoring to hard drive

[spiderico]

My goal is to author a DVD file to my hard drive, knowing that its too large to be burnt to a DVD (3 plus hours). Once authored, I want to use DVD Shrink to compress it, then burn it.

Captured VHS source through ADS a/v link, directly into mpeg2. Edited (simple cuts) in Ulead Video studio 7. Saved edited project as mpeg2 (same settings as capture, 4000kbps, etc.). Then tired to author the mpeg2 directly to hard drive with no burning.

Now for the problem. I've tried ulead video studio 7 and Pinnacle studio 8 and neither is allowing me to do this. With Pinnacle, even though I've unselected "burn to disk" it still is telling me its too big and will not allow me to proceed. I though I was missing something, but when I called support, the guy confirmed that their is no way around this. If the file is bigger than 4.1gb it'll always tell you its too big. (can anyone explain this to me? Isn't this the point of copying to your hard drive vs. burning? why would you design the software to do this).

Then I tried Video Studio 7. Had no issue with the file size, but after a few hours of converting, i get a "Cannot create file" error, with no other explanation. Thats when I punched the wall.

I'm new to this, but learning tons every day from this site and the forums. I'm about to try TMPGEnc DVD author after reading a lot of good things about it.

I'm hoping someone can let me know if:
a) what I trying to do is correct in theory, or if there is a better method
b) the root of my problem is crappy software and TMPGEnc DVD author will help me
c) there are any other tips in general

Thanks in advance.

[rcb]

TDA can do what you want....

And, it can let you cut your big mpg in half to burn 2 discs. While dvdshrink will certainly resize your authored hard drive file, you may not be satisfied with the reduced visual quality.