ok, here's the situation... I try to burn an AVI to make a DVD that is only like 680mb. When I use Roxio DVD Creator, it ends up being like 8.somethin gigs?! Why would it make it so big? Do I need to convert to mpeg or something?

Im assuming you mean to a DVD thats watchable on a set top box (ie regular DVD player for your TV). In the case of it not fitting thats probably because its doing the conversion to DVD-Video for you. I cant advise on how to convert it and make it smaller but honestly I have burned AVIs to DVD-Video before and you would have disliked the outcome, they look like crap if you let NERO or Roxio convert them. Maybe check out

http://www.doom9.org/

This site is the shiz for DVD authoring/burning.

wow... their's a ton of crap to do to get an AVI onto a DVD to view on a regular DVD player... thanks for the link, it really helped out a lot! + rep

well i think its the same for compute type video files to DVD as it was for VCD or SVCD. It goes by time, not necessarily by quality or size of the movie... i forget what the exact amount of time can be put on a VCD or SVCD, but if you have a movie longer then that it gets split into 2 discs or more. Its the same for DVD files i think, you can get more onto a DVD but not much. I have a 23 minute anime i wanted to burn to VCD... i have tons of episodes and thought, well, theyre 150mg's each, i can fit 4 or 5 onto 1 vcd right? WRONG!!! it goes by time, so i was only able to fit 2 episodes onto a disc without going over... just shy of a 3rd episode. When i tried to put them onto a DVD i was only able to fit 5-6 episodes per DVD... you can experiment if you want also... take a high quality AVI or other file that is 30 mins and rip to DVD... it will end up teh same file size as if you take a much smaller file quality, but same LENGTH movie file and turn to DVD... its kinda crappy that its like that but i think what it does is convert it to the standard DVD quality and size, so it doesnt matter what your starting with quality wise.

Or take the easy (albeit expensive) solution and get yourself a dual layer DVD Drive...

I think you can find 'em online for about $65 to $90

Quote: Originally Posted by aaronrkelly they look like crap if you let NERO or Roxio convert them.

I used NeroVision Express 3 and I was able to fit 7 avi files of around 400mb each (11-13 minutes each). Hm, this is actually the first time I noticed the shortness of video length... but the video quality looks pretty good. Also, Nero came with my dvd burner, so hopefully you can find a good program that let's you create a dvd with menus n stuff (if you like em like that).

Quote: Originally Posted by dragontooth Or take the easy (albeit expensive) solution and get yourself a dual layer DVD Drive... I think you can find 'em online for about $65 to $90

I have the Plextor PX-716a... just don't feel like spending $10 on a DL DVD