Home video too big for DVD. How do I put it on 2 DVDs?

[Saaski]

My daughter will be going to college in the fall. Several college softball coaches want a video of her playing skills on DVD for possible scholarship. I have the video on my computer, but need to put it on a DVD so that a friend can edit out the stuff we don't want and make one DVD showing her skills to send to college coaches (probably using Windows XP and I have no clue which program). The video is 10.6 GB (53 minutes and 3 seconds) which is too large for my 4.7 GB DVD disks. How do I get the video onto DVD(s) that my friend can open and edit?

I'm not too familiar with burning DVDs other than just putting the files in the program and hitting the "burn" button. I tried using Windows Movie Maker to split the video into the chapters and burning that to DVD, but the DVD only plays the movie when reinserted, no choices as to what to do with the file(s). Can they be edited from there and I just can't figure out how?

I'd appreciate any help/suggestions/hits on the head AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! I need to get these DVDs made and mailed out soon.

Thanks to all.

donna )

[guns1inger]

Even at the highest permissible bitrate, 53 minutes will easily fit on a single DVD5 once it has been properly encoded and authored. I am assuming that the video is currently in it's original DV avi state.

The simplest solution I can suggest at the moment would be FAVC, and to use the included HCEnc encoder. Set the maximum to 8700 kbps on the encoder tab, and the quality to 'Best'.

Without knowing what your computer stats are, it is impossible to say how log it will take. On my quad core, it would be under 30 minutes. On a single core system, 2 - 3 hours for encoding and authoring would be reasonable. FAVC can also produce very simple menus, and can place chapters at regular intervals. It will not create a chapter selection menu however. Personally, I never use the menu option in FAVC.

if you want more than simple authoring then you need to learn more complex tools, which you don't really have time to do at the moment.

[kimco52]

Just a thought....
It sounds like your video is in avi format on your computer. How did you get it there? Did you get it from a tape? Why not just give your friend the tape and let him do it from that??

Otherwise,
you say you split the video into "chapters". Are the chapters smaller than 4GB? If they are, burn three data dvd's with about 3-4 GB each with those chapter files. Then give him those dvd's. They will not play but he can then copy those files to his computer and can then edit them down into one smaller video which he can then burn onto one dvd.

It sounds like once he has the files on his computer, he knows what to do to edit them down into one smaller video.

[Saaski]

guns1linger:

If I download and use the FAVC to encode the video, will she be able to open it on her computer, or will she need a special program, like the one I would have to download, to do it? I know she has edited videos before to make new ones because she has taken video from last year's softball games, edited them into clips for an end-of-year video to show as well as many others. I assume she has program other than Windows Movie Maker to do this.

As for stats of my computer, I do know it has a Core 2 Duo Processor.

Thanx for your help.

donna )

[Saaski]

kimco52,

My friend has edited several different videos into one for special occasions, events, showings many times before. This is what she wants to do as a career.

The video is in AVI format and came from mini-DV tapes. While taping my daughter's games, the camera began having problems and finally died while filming at a game. The camera is not worth the cost of repairing and we have no plans at this time to replace it. My friend does not have a camera that uses these tapes, or we would have simply given her ours along with the still photos to use on CD/DVD. I borrowed a camera from a parent at school to get the video from the tapes.

The chapters, I think, are simply different parts of the tape where the camera was turned off and on (either when daughter wasn't playing, or between games, so they're of varying sizes). I didn't make the chapters and can't determine how to separate them and put them on a DVD where they can be copied onto her computer for editing. When I separated them, using Windows Movie Maker, and saved them to the DVD, they only played as a movie. I put the DVD in and it automatically plays. I had two other tapes, each small enough to put on a DVD, so I was able to just put the file onto one. When I insert those DVDs, the menu pops up with options to view, copy, open, etc.

Thanx for your help.

donna )

[tinker]

Like kimko52 say. Do not try to make DVD out of your files. Burn .avi file to DVD disk as it is(data file). The person who will edit the file will copy .avi to her machine and do the work, once done it will be exported to DVD compliant file ready to burn.
It is better to edit .avi so you do not loose any quality once done.
You are mixing the word "chapters" with camera pause. Real DVD chapters are produced in DVD authoring software, which your friend most likely has.

[kimco52]

tinker is correct.
I thought when you, Saaski, said that you split it up into chapters, that you split the 10.6GB file into several smaller sized files. That would get them down to where they would fit on several DVD's.

If you had an editing program on your computer, and there are some free ones available that you could use, You could load the avi file into it and divide it up into sections yourself. Put the file on the timeline and then set the work area to a section of the video and tell the program to save the work area to a new file name. You would only need to do that three times. Even though a DVD says it will hold 4.7GB, I would limit it to 4GB per file. You have 11 GB so it you couldn't get it on two anyway and a 4GB size will get it all on 3 DVD's. So, you would have two 4GB DVD's and one 3GB DVD. Copy (Burn) each file to a separate DVD as a DATA disk, not a video disk. It would be the same as putting a file on a floppy disk or CD. Give those three DVD's to your friend who would copy the files from those DVD's, not play or import...... but copy.

You could also, delete the sections you don't want and then save that resultant file to a new file (avi). It might all fit on one DVD, then.

Those are not difficult things to do. When you save the new files, you keep them in avi format. It should not take long to do that. There is no conversion or encoding going on.

I am not going to try to convince you to repair your camcorder. However, I would want a working one because for long term storage, tape is better than other mediums and keeping it in the DV domain is better than DVD or hard drives. Those can fail, also. If it is important, store it on tape, not DVD or hard drives.

[tinker]

To split your 10 GB file check this.

http://www.dekabyte.com/filesplitter/download.html

http://www.download.com/File-Splitter/3000-2248_4-10433030.html

It is a free software.
Other way would be to record only short sections from your tape(s) smaller than 4 GB to copy to DVD disk.
Do not worry where they end as the editing person will copy them to editing software and do cut as necessary.
You can always use Backup software to backup all 10 GB into 3 DVD disks, only make sure that the person has the same backup software on the computer to be able to read your disks.

[loster]

If you do want to split the file and get a file that can be USED then use virtualdub or avidemux all are free to split to sections you will need to make sure that you do not reencode the video. Note some people state the virtualdub is bad w/ DV I can not comment on this. However virtualdub is simple as rocks just set the audio and video to direct stream copy and cut. Then anyone who wishes to use the files as one piece will recombine them in an editor. This way no software divided and unusable (out of the "box") files.

[kimco52]

I wasn't sure about Backup. I haven't used it for years. When you backedup using Windows backup onto floppies, it would prompt you to insert disks until it was done. I don't know if it would do the same thing with DVD's and burn them. I know it will with some additional software using it as data disks but not sure about directly with Windows Backup. If Virtualdub would do it, then that would be the easy way to go.

[tinker]

Windows backup is not available in XP and up versions any more. If you have NERO or ROXIO software, you can backup to DVD disk.
I am sure there are other backup softwares to backup to DVD disk these days.

[aedipuss]

if you have winrar, what you can do is to make multiple compressed parts out of the 10gb file that can be written to several dvdrs, given to the other person who can then re-assemble the parts back into one file for editing. it has an option to make self-extracting .exe files if she doesn't have winrar.

[guns1inger]

Does your friend use Windows or a Mac ?