AGHH!! Why can't i get my AVI's onto a Playable DVD??

[THEmodestELITE]

Here's what i want to do:

Burn AVI's of a TV show i downloaded that combined are 1.82gb (8 episodes @ 24 min. a piece) onto a single layered DVD with a menu. I have tried on both Toast 8 and iDVD 8 and both tell me i have too much content to fit on a disc. I don't understand why 1.82gb is too much content for a dvd that holds 4.38gb worth of data? My only guess from what ive read on here is that it has nothing to do with the size of the files but the length of the video. Is this necessarily always true? if so are their (painless) ways around this length limit?

I rip and compress commercial dual layered dvd's to single layered all the time, its fast and painless and thats fitting nearly 8 gigs on one 4.38gb disc. I should't have to compress the AVI files to fit, right? Do i have to convert the videos to another format with something like visualhub before tossing them into iDVD? should i forget about iDVD altogether? I haven't had much luck with Toast either, and frankly i think that program kinda sucks (REALLY bad dvd compression quality) so id rather not use it if i don't have to (especially when iDVD's menus are so much better).

I really hope there is a way to use iDVD's menus and fit as close to 4.38gb worth of video files on a disc as possible....even if those files are collectively more than 2 hours.

Is this a dumb question? am i an idiot, or is it really this hard? i hope i'm just an idiot...


Thanks for taking to time to read a newbie's question,

Ian

 

[CaptainChunk]

The video has to be converted to MPEG-2 by iDVD or Toast in order to make a playable DVD. From what you're describing, the source AVIs are likely compressed with a more compact codec (like DiVX, for example) that uses less space than MPEG-2, which usually hovers between a 6-7 Mbps variable data rate at default settings. Roughly, a single-layer DVD will fit about 2 hours of video at standard quality settings. You have almost 4 hours of video to burn...

If you're dead set on making all of it fit on a single-layer DVD, you could use VisualHub to limit the bitrate of the video prior to converting it to MPEG-2 for DVD. Quality will go down, but that's the price you pay for making things smaller.

 

[THEmodestELITE]

Thanks man, i'm going to try that. I don't really care all that much about quality (the episodes were recorded off tv....in 1992), what i care about is that the menus look professional and all the content is on one disc (its going to be projected on a wall for a party--changing discs would be annoying).


again, thanks! this is the first time i've ever asked a question in a forum--you and macrumurs rule! I'll let you know if i have any troubles.