How much video will fit on a dvd?

[Luis Ortega]

I have a lot of quicktime movie files that I want to put on a dvd.
Individually, they total more than 4.7 gigabytes but in terms of total running time they are much less than 120 minutes, which are the size allowances of the blank dvd.
If I make a dvd, am I limited to the total file size of the original material I can put in it or will the dvd compress the material so that it can get up to 120 minutes of movies on one dvd?
In other words, can I only put 4.7 gb of material on the dvd or can I put 120 minutes of video on the dvd?
Thanks for any advice.

 

[GSMiller]

If you were to convert all of the video files to DVD Video then they should fit on the disc. You can store much more than 120 minutes of video on a DVD (by compressing) but only 4.7GB of data.

 

[Luis Ortega]

If you were to convert all of the video files to DVD Video then they should fit on the disc. You can store much more than 120 minutes of video on a DVD (by compressing) but only 4.7GB of data.

Thanks. So by using idvd to create a dvd using my movie files, this process would convert the files from quicktime to something that could fit up to 120 minutes of movies on one disk?

 

[GSMiller]

Thanks. So by using idvd to create a dvd using my movie files, this process would convert the files from quicktime to something that could fit up to 120 minutes of movies on one disk?

Yes, although the quality of the video on the DVD may not be as good as the originals. iDVD is great software for people new to burning DVDs, without it I probably would have never learned how

 

[treehorn]

I have a lot of quicktime movie files that I want to put on a dvd.
Individually, they total more than 4.7 gigabytes but in terms of total running time they are much less than 120 minutes, which are the size allowances of the blank dvd.
If I make a dvd, am I limited to the total file size of the original material I can put in it or will the dvd compress the material so that it can get up to 120 minutes of movies on one dvd?
In other words, can I only put 4.7 gb of material on the dvd or can I put 120 minutes of video on the dvd?
Thanks for any advice.

Just want to throw in a word of caution. It sounds like you are wanting to take already compressed videos and put them on a DVD. If you take, say, something you download from the web, or youtube, etc... and compress it further, you are asking for a world of hurt and quality loss.

If you are looking to simply archive videos that you have lying around your computer, I strongly advise you to not even think of compressing them further. Quality will take a huge hit.

Your best bet is to use the DVDs as a storage media. Burn as many files as you can on one disc and use two (or more) if you need to.

 

[Sdashiki]

This is the difference between burning an AUDIO CD and an MP3CD.

One takes your MP3s (assuming its your source materials) and converts them UP (bad) to .WAV files. Giving you up to 80min.

The other just puts your MP3 files onto a disc in the proper way so that an MP3CD taking audio player (like your car) can play whatever music can fit to 700MB.


DVDs just change the size and format of the files, but the idea is exactly the same.