How Do I Shrink AVI File to Fit on DVD?

I have an AVI file that I want to burn as a DVD, however it needs to be compressed first - if I simply load it into Toast it says it requires 5.5 GB and of course my disc has only 4.3 GB (or whatever). So, I need to shrink my AVI file, I assume this will mean recompressing it.

I know there are tools out there that will do this for actual DVDs (DVDBackup, DVD2OneX etc.) in terms of ripping, compressing, etc., but how can I take an existing AVI, shrink it, then burn it as a DVD?

I have ffmpegx, but have never used it. Will this do the trick?

I popped it open, however it looks a little complicated. Under the Video option I can choose various different AVI formats - is this what I need? To convert my AVI into a smaller AVI? If so, which format? I can then also select how many minutes on how many CDs, etc. - I assume I just select DVD 4GB? For audio, what should I select? Do I need to worry about anything in the Options menu? And in the Tools menu, can I select "Author as DVD" or should I do that in Toast instead? Lastly, it appears like it wants to save the file as a .avi.ff - can I just delete the .ff afterwards to make it an AVI again? Is this even the right way to be going about things?

Sorry for all the questions, just trying to figure things out! Any help would be appreciated!

Wow, who would have thought that a thread I started 2.5 years ago would get resurrected!

Yes, Mernak is correct, there is a 2-hour limit, but I have had success using ffmpegx for matters such as this. It isn't the most intuitive right off the bat, but is a very powerful, slick tool.

Mernak said:

lol, didn't even realized the original post was that old. Very observant aren't I?

Agreed with the fact that ffmpegX is not intuitive, then I realized I would only need a couple of options and found how to change them

Click to expand...

No worries.

And yeah, it's not that bad once you get the hang of it.