Quote: I am making a movie almost 2 hours long that I want to put on a DVD with chapter menus and a couple of "bonus features" (additional projects). The various tutorials I have seen make it seem easy enough, but I am concerned about file size.

I have been saving the project as a MPEG-2 file, and it is coming out over 14 GB. A single-layer DVD only holds about 4.3 GB, and the duplicating service I use says that the largest the file should be. Is the DVD making function going to figure that out and make my video into the correct size, or is there a setting I should use or something that will ensure this all gets onto one single-layer DVD?

You can select double layer DVD in Create Disk > 2D disk tab. General rule, single layer DVD holds about one hour of video, double layer DVD (8.5 GB) holds about 2 hours of video.

Time is the factor of importance. Size of the files is not the determining factor. Create Disk has a specification that determines the file sizes that fit. DVDs are 720x480 MPEG 2 at about 6 to 8 Mbps. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Thanks, its good to know tat the function will make it fit. But are you saying there is no way to get a 2-hour movie on a single-layer disk? I am rendering it at 1280 x 720. Zorikh

1280x720 mpeg-2 is not dvd rendering. Carl 312 gave the right answer.

Oh, so that's the setting I should pick. I get it now. Thanks. I was really hoping that there would be a way to get this 2-hour video onto a single layer disk for the purpose of duplication.
Zorikh

To be clear, a DVD is technically stuck at standard definition, so PD will create your disc that way, which will reduce the amount of GB in your movie.
As long as your movie is less than 2 hours, and renders out to be less than 8.5 GB, it should fit (unless it is borderline too big). HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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GAH! I am really, reallym trying to get this onto a single-layer DVD for the purpose of dublication (cheaper, faster, and I am on an extremely limited timeframe and budget). I worked my way through the "make a DVD" process, (which is remarkably simple, actually. I love it!) and I noticed the "Smart Fit" setting which appears to have compressed my 7.9 GB, hour-and-50-minute movie into 4699 to fit onto a 4.7 GB disk. Unfortunately it crashed twice, once after 89%, once after 92%.

Aide from simply making the movie shorter (which I am going to do anyway), is there any way to cram or compress it onto that disk? Perhaps to render it at a certain setting? and then burn that? Have fewer separate scenes? Anything? Zorikh

Zorikh,

Smart Fit, reduces the bitrate to make the much too long video fit on to a 4.7 GB single layer DVD. But you get a really bad quality video by doing that.

The correct way is to edit the video to where it will fit in the one hour of video at DVD HQ quality.

You can also split your video into two DVDs. A part 1 and a part 2.

You can make duplicate DVDs of a Double layer DVD. The Movie industry does that all the time. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

So I cut the video down to just under 1:05 (about 4.5GB) and it fit onto the single-layer DVD. But now if I want to make a 2-hour movie on one disk I just have to accept that it will be on a dual-layer disk and pay the extra dollar per disk for duplication? Are commercial DVDs of movies dual layer? Zorikh

Quote: So I cut the video down to just under 1:05 (about 4.5GB) and it fit onto the single-layer DVD. But now if I want to make a 2-hour movie on one disk I just have to accept that it will be on a dual-layer disk and pay the extra dollar per disk for duplication? Are commercial DVDs of movies dual layer?

Most 2 hour or longer commercial movies are double layer if DVD, BluRay (HD) Movies can be on Single layer BluRay because Single layer BluRay Disks are 25 Gigabytes. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

OK, thanks for the info. Zorikh

Probably the wrong thread to pick about my problems but I am having a similar problem in that I am trying to burn a 1.5hr (approx) stage show onto a dual layer 8.5gb DVD. No matter how I try to do it, PD17 still produces files on the DVD of only a total of 3.79gb. I have tried numerous settings, turned off Smartfit (even though when it is turned on the software tells me it will produce a disc of 8.259gb as against 8.009gb when Smartfit is turned off). I have also written directly to the PC hard drive which decreases the file sizes to a total of 3.77. I have read numerous posts about the problems of other users with this reduction in file size from the expected. It looks like I am missing someting fundimental here in the setup but can't find it. I have previously used Pinnacle which gave me problems with windows 10, hence the change. In Pinncle, as I notice from another post, there is a quality setting to gain the maximun quality from the DVD being used, but Powerdirector 17 does not appear to have anything similar that I can find. I am obviously doing something very wrong so any help with set-up/production would be very much appreciated.

My requirements are to produce an HD DVD on an 8.5Gb dual layer DVD with menus. The length of the DVD will be between 1.5 & 2 hours. The original files are in MTS format.

If ignorrance is bliss, at the moment I am in a state of bliss!!!

Quote My requirements are to produce an HD DVD on an 8.5Gb dual layer DVD with menus. The length of the DVD will be between 1.5 & 2 hours. The original files are in MTS format.

If ignorrance is bliss, at the moment I am in a state of bliss!!!

I avoid the problem you have easily. Burn to folder with a 8.5 GB Disc setting. Use imgburn or any 3rd party burning software to burn to a 4.7 GB disc.

You are on the right track as far as a HD DVD is concerned. I and others do it all the time. I can and have put 4 hours of 720p60 video on an avchd disc with chapters and menus.

As mentioned, I have already tried to write to hard drive but PD17 still reduced the expected 8gb file to 3gb (approx) having reported that the file size would be 8gb. Hence my appeal for guidance. My settings must be wrong somewhere but I have no idea where to look, either in PD17 or Windows 10. It looks like PD17 is not accepting the 8.5gb file notification and reducing the file size to that suitable for the smaller dvd. I have no idea why it would do this when told to write the files to hard drive for burning with a different writting software package. I suspect that the answer is simple but hard to find.

For starters, it's probably best to attach a pic of your "Create Disc" > "2D Disc" tab so we can see what you are doing. If no surprises there, then some details (pic) of your timeline to see overall content and perhaps MediaInfo details of the type of video in the timeline.

Jeff

Jeff - Thanks, will post as soon as possible. To be honest I am new to PD17 so got a bit lost in all the setup, file types etc etc. Sorry for my ignorance in all of this.

Jeff - Screenshots attached. Hope that they give you some information

Thanks for the pics, they help form part of a story. Can you right click on one of these timeline video's and post the results of "View Properties" so we know what type of video you are working with.

Any history on these video files in the timeline, they don't appear to be from a camera, did you prerender them in PD or some other utility?

Jeff

Jeff - Many thanks for your on-going help on this. I am really out of my depth with all this especially with all the different settings, file types dvd types etc etc.

The info you ask for is this:
File type is AVCHD
Video type is H.264AVC
The files are designatd as 'filename.MTS'
The files were shot on a Canon XA11 camera and are straight off the memory card with no prerendering by me. What the camera does , I have no idea!!

The time line itself is made up of 4x .MTS files along with .tif title files dropped in along with cross fade transistions.
One point that is probably important is that this is the first time that this particular camera has been used and that I have found out that two other dvds produced, exibit exactly the same file reduction that I have noticed on this project. I did not check the other dvds at the time so at least the problem is consistant. There are also some added sound files on one of the audip tracks.

My other work was produced using Pinnacle (16 I think) using a Sony Camera producing .MPG files. Pinnacle, as mentioned in another thread, had the really good facility to expand/contract the dvd output to fit the size of the disc, which is what I assumed (wrongly) that PD17 would also do.

Hope that this info helps to sort out my problems and also, I note, quite a few other users.

Thanks for suppling some additional info, since it's H.264 video, PD has to convert to MPEG to put on a standard HQ DVD.

The last pic to gain insight would be the "Burn in 2D" interface.

But basically, your understanding for a standard HQ DVD is not valid. The maximum compatible bitrate for a standard DVD to play in most players reliably is about the 9.5Mbps as you see in the "2D Disc" tab. So, for 1.5hr action video to DVD, it would consume about 6.4GB. You can't grow this to fit a 8.5GB DVD as it's at the maximum compatible bitrate. You can shrink to a 4.7GB DVD by using a lower bitrate or for PD, “Smart Fit”. So, your size of ~3.8GB does appear too small for what you have stated you did.

On that "Burn in 2D" pic, make sure the last item "Enable hardware video encoder" is not checked. Additionally, make sure in pref > Hardware Acceleration the GPU decode option is not checked. Try to burn to a folder again. For your settings you show in "2D Disc" tab and a 1.5hr timeline of action video, one would expect the size of the created folder to be about 6.4GB or so.

Jeff