question about DV to MPEG2

[npereira]

I have used WINdv but the problem is it saves DV to AVI and ends up behing something like 10Gb per hour...

How can I, or what can I use to make the file smaller?

I have 4 tapes of 90 minutes that I need to put on a DVD DL 8.5GB....

How can I acheive this?

Thanks for the help.

[jagabo]

DV is high quality because it's lightly compressed. Hence the files are very large. If this video is important to you, break it down into 4 or 8 GB chuncks and back them up on DVD.

If you just want something to watch, convert to MPEG2 for movie DVD. 360 minutes is a bit much for a single DL DVD unless your video is very clean (low motion, low noise). You'll want a 2-pass variable bitrate encoding at about 4000 kbps. Use an bitrate calculator for a more exact value. Do you have an MPEG2 encoder?

[npereira]

I use Wombled DVD wizard and TMPGenc 4.0 Express

[jagabo]

If you want an all-in-one (not the best quality and on the slow side, but ok) you can try Ulead DVD MovieFactory. It comes with a lot of DVD burners so you might already have it.

[tmh]

DVDflick gets good reviews here and is free. i think it can do the whole job for you from the transfered Dv files to DVD Authoring. You may need IMGBurn to burn, not sure.

[npereira]

thanks all...