AVI File Size problem

[prcole18]

Hi, ive just transfered some dv footage from my camcorder to my pc as an avi file using Cyberlink powerdirector.

All seems ok, but i have 30 mins of video & it is a massive 6.5 gig!
Is there another way to do it so it is a smaller size?

Also if I now wanted to encode this to MPEG to make a dvd it would be too big.

I dont really want to lose quality, so what is the best thing to do?

Many Thanks in advance

Paul

[minidv2dvd]

DVavi is 13gb/hr. that's the way it is on the cam tape. doesn't make any difference if you are going to encode it to mpeg-2 anyway for dvd. follow the instructions for making a dvd in powerdirector and it will convert it for you. 30 minutes of DVavi is about a third of a dvd.

[prcole18]

Ok, so that is the way it is meant to be? So if I want to put Dv footage on my pc as avi files, Ive just got to accept that they will be big files?

[prcole18]

Could I just ask one other thing. So what do I do if I want to keep loads of DV footage on my Computer, the hard drive would fill up in no time??

[minidv2dvd]

external usb or firewire hard drives are fairly cheap. or do what most folks do and keep the original miniDV tapes. they will last longer than any hard drive anyway. if you buy them when they go on sale for about $2/each it's not bad.

[guns1inger]

Keep the footage as DV while you edit, to preserve quality. Once you are ready to output for DVD you can encode the edited footage as MPEG-2, which will produce smaller file sizes and will fit on your DVD.