How does fit to disk work?

The Old Timer · Post by **The Old Timer** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 2:57 am

I imported a MPEG2 file which Windows Explored says is 5.56GB. I opened the file DMF 4 & added chapter markers but no menu's. When I clicked over to burn the disk, it tells me that my blank disk has 4.38 GB avilable but that the file will output at 9.89 GB. I tried the fit to disk feature only to be told that my file size is over the programs limit.

Just how much can DMF4 shrink a file size by? What percentage? How can a file of 5.56 GB increase to 9.89GB just by adding chapter points?

jcc · Post by **jcc** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 3:31 am

I would expect that DMF is confused about the finished size. Will it allow you to burn an ISO file or the VDEO_TS files? It would be interesting to see what size they were. My use of the shrink-to-fit has not resulted in such problems and it reduces it as necessary to fit the 4.7G disk. Another option for fit-to-disk is to use the free program DVDShrink which works very well.

The Old Timer · Post by **The Old Timer** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 5:21 am

I even altered the setting to make an image using the 8.5GB setting & again I got the message that the file size exceded the limits. Had it allowed me to create either an ISO file or a VIDEO_TS file I would have done that.

I agree that DVDShrink does a great job but I can't even produce a file from DVDMF 4 that DVDShrink will accept.

jcc · Post by **jcc** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 2:03 am

The way Ulead's info on fit-to-disk is written, it may be that it is only intended to shrink to fit a single layer disk.

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 8:21 pm

...that the file will output at 9.89 GB.

I suspect that's hard disk space.

Do you have 10Gb of hard disk space avaliable? It generally wants twice as much hard disk space as DVD space.

I dunno any shrink details... I assume that there is some limit (some minimum bitrate) for the fit to disc function. I doubt it's a percentage of the original. I've had one DVD that DVDshrink could not shrink enough. Probably because of the LPCM audio.

Have you tried manually setting the bitrate? A bitrate calculator will make it easier to guess the correct setting.

What is the bitrate of the original file? What's the audio format? How long is the program? (time?)

The required disc space should NOT increase noticably (if at all) from adding chapters.

If you use a bitrate higher than the original, the file size will increase.

If you are converting the audio from a compressed format to LPCM, the file size will increase. But even in the worst case, it should not double!