I have downloaded an AVI file of a movie. The file size is near 775 MB. The movie running time is over two hours. I want to burn the AVI to DVD to play on a DVD player and watch on TV. We have an external DVD burner recently purchased which came with Roxio Creator 8. Using Creator 8 it would not burn saying that the running time is longer than two hours. What are my choices to be able to burn the file to a single DVD? Doing some research I have found that there are freeware AVI splitters out there so that the movie could be burned onto two DVDs, but I really want to burn it on a single DVD. Additional research found that there are higher capacity DVDs available (although I have never seen them in stores, nor have I looked for them yet). Would this work (to be playable on my DVD player for the TV)? What is recommended to burn a movie longer than 2 hours onto a single DVD? Thanks dtb

What you are stating makes no sense to me. A single-layer DVD holds 4.3GB of data. A movie can be 1 hour or 4 hours. As long as it's size is less than the max, then it will fit. I can't see any reason why a 775NB AVI woud be more than that when encoded to DVD format. Even if the AVI had a higher compresion ratio than Mpeg, I doubt it would result in a size that is less than 1/4. Double check to make sure Roxio is set to use DVD format and not CD format. I don't use that program, but I have to tell Nero wether I am working with CDs or DVDs - even if it is using the DVD burner. Michael J

As well, I don't think there are standalone players that support AVI files, so splitting it (even if there was a need) would not be helpful. In order to play the movie on anything but a computer, you'd need to convert it, and it makes no sense at all that it would not fit on a DVD - as suggested, check to see if your settings are for CD burning I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter

Thanks Mike and Jboy. However, as I look at the box of DVD-R's, its says 120 min (SONY DVD+R, 120 min, 4.7 GB). Are there different DVds available? The movie I downloaded does play on Windows Media and when I played it to check it, it did come up with a playing time of longer than 120 min. Also, the section of Creator 8 that I was using was "My DVD" so I don't think I had it on a CD setting and I think it will convert the AVI to a DVD automatically. dtb

Actaully, it makes quite a bit of sense. You can compress the hell out of a AVI using the DivX or Xvid codec and have it expand to much greater then 4.3gig when transcoded to MPEG2 format. The standard for a DVD is 2 hours but as Michael said, you can also use a non-standard compression rate and get up to 4 hours of video on a DVD. You just need to use the four hour mode which will produce a less quality picture.

.. that must be the case - although I've seen some pretty amazing compression ratios for other formats, such as RMVB and MP4 etc, but to view those on a player, conversion is required At any rate, an AVI splitter will be of no use here I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter

Thanks guys. Hopefully my schedule this weekend will allow me to try again. dtb