Version 5.6 Claims Files Are Too Large But They Aren't?

[chitownguitar]

Hi, I am running DVD MovieFactory 5.6 on my laptop with Vista. The version that I am running is the one that came with my Sony HG10 camcorder.

Anyway, I am running into an issue when burning DVDs. I use the standard 4.7 GB DVDs tha purport to hold 2 hours of footage. Yet, if I have more than, say, an hour and a half of footage (but way less than 2 hours), it still tells me that my project is too large and asks me if I want to try to fit it on the DVD. I say yes, and it usually works. However, right now I have a project that is 3.95 (4.24) GB in size that I am trying to burn to a 4.38 (4.70) GB disc. It is one hour and fify-six minutes in length. It tells me it's too large and aske me if I want to fit it, I say yes. The first time I did this, everything was fine, except the audio for the last few chapters was missing. The second time I tried it, several of the menus were missing (just a blank screen, though I could hear the background music).

Why is it doing this? Is there anything I can do? I should be able to fit 2 hours of footage on these DVDs, right?

Thanks for any assistance!

[heinz-oz]

Hi, I am running DVD MovieFactory 5.6 on my laptop with Vista. The version that I am running is the one that came with my Sony HG10 camcorder.

Anyway, I am running into an issue when burning DVDs. I use the standard 4.7 GB DVDs tha purport to hold 2 hours of footage. Yet, if I have more than, say, an hour and a half of footage (but way less than 2 hours), it still tells me that my project is too large and asks me if I want to try to fit it on the DVD. I say yes, and it usually works. However, right now I have a project that is 3.95 (4.24) GB in size that I am trying to burn to a 4.38 (4.70) GB disc. It is one hour and fify-six minutes in length. It tells me it's too large and aske me if I want to fit it, I say yes. The first time I did this, everything was fine, except the audio for the last few chapters was missing. The second time I tried it, several of the menus were missing (just a blank screen, though I could hear the background music).

Why is it doing this? Is there anything I can do? I should be able to fit 2 hours of footage on these DVDs, right?

Thanks for any assistance!

Well, that depends on the bitrate used for the rendering to DVD compliant mpeg2 format. The higher the bitrate the better the quality and the less minutes you can fit on one DVD.

Your problem could be VISTA related because MF5 is not Vista compatible AFAIK but the video could also be not quite DVD compliant, prompting MF5 to re-render the movie and, thus, making it larger. Did you tick the option "Do not convert compliant mpeg files"?

[DVDDoug]

Here's an online Bitrate Calculator.

Yes, you can fit more than 2 hours of video onto a single-layer DVD. But at some point, the video quality will become unacceptable to you. (The audio format is also a factor... i.e. If you use uncompressed LPCM audio, you will have less space for the video, and you will have to use a lower video-bitrate.)

[GregK]

What I usually do in DMF6 when I have a project that MF tells me will exceed a single-layer disc capacity is to run it off as a dual-layer....then I use DVD Shrink to run that ISO file down to a single-layer ISO, getting a perfect 4.35GB file. Just IMHO, but I think I get better single-layer quality that way than if I allow DMF to handle the compression for me.

[chitownguitar]

Thanks for the responses. I'm still a bit confused.

--I am running Vista, and MovieFactory 5.6 SE, which came with my Canon HG10, seems to work fine. I saw that there is an update to 5.6 SE (sticky post at the top of this forum) but the fixes don't apply to me or to this issue. Is it still incompatible with Vista?

--I am capturing files as AVI and then importing them into MovieFactory 5.6 SE. Do I need to check the Do not convert compliant mpeg files box? Should that box always be checked anyway?

[sjj1805]

Thanks for the responses. I'm still a bit confused.

--I am running Vista, and MovieFactory 5.6 SE, which came with my Canon HG10, seems to work fine. I saw that there is an update to 5.6 SE (sticky post at the top of this forum) but the fixes don't apply to me or to this issue. Is it still incompatible with Vista?

--I am capturing files as AVI and then importing them into MovieFactory 5.6 SE. Do I need to check the Do not convert compliant mpeg files box? Should that box always be checked anyway?

avi = a name for a hundred or more video formats.
Some large and editable such as DV (Digital Video) 13 Gigabytes Per hour.
Others small and non editable such as DivX / Xvid / MPEG4 - 700 Megabytes per hour.

MPEG2 - a lossy format used to create DVD VOB files and you can alter the size of the file by altering its compression. You do so by changing the "Bit rate".

Please view:
what bit rate settings should I use?

Please also view:
Brief Summary of AVI and MPEG2 formats