movie file compression?

Question

I have downloaded some movies, some of them are quite long, I know how to convert & burn them ( I use movie dvd maker) the only trouble i have is that if the movie is longer than a blank dvd (120 mins) it wont convert the downloaded files, So I use easy splitter to split the downloaded files into smaller files. Thats ok but it takes a lot of disks.. Is there any way to compress the downloaded movie file (Avi, DivX, MPeg or whatever file type) and then convert to dvd & burn. I have tried to use shrink dvd but it just keeps saying it cant find the file even though I know its in the specified folder,so it obviously wont recognise the file types, So the whole proccess from download to dvd takes nearly all day and I end up with a film on two or three dvd's. Surely there must be a simpler way to do this ?????

Answer 1

You could try ratDVD but there may be playback issues
- http://www.filehippo.com/download_ratdvd/

Update: if you aren't a propellerhead techie, have a look at Ashampoo Movie Shrink & Burn which a mate just recommended to me.
- http://www.ashampoo.com/frontend/products/php/product.php?session_langid=2&idstring=0037

Answer 2

Hi.

Let's see; I have a bit of explaining to do:

1. Even though the default length of 4.35gb dvd blanks is 120min, with the right software, you can actually fit up to 6 hours on each disk. So far, you've burned "SP" (Standard Play) mode, but there's "LP" (Long Play, 4 hours) and "SLP" (Super Long Play, 6 hours). One app I know for sure that can do this is "Nero Vision", which is part of Nero Burning Rom Suite 6-7 (dvd burning was not available to Nero until vers 6). Wherever you're downloading movies, Nero Burning Rom can also be downloaded.

2. Don't worry about DVDShrink; Nero Vision can do all of the encoding/compression and besides, DVDShrink doesn't *touch* neither avi's, mpeg or divx anyway. It can only do physical dvds, loose dvd files on a hardrive or .iso disk images.

3. I wrote a tutorial (as "corypolo") describing a simple process to burn avi files to dvd with Nero Vision here: http://forums.torrentportal.com/ftopic7565.html . Therefore...

4. You won't have to split a single movie to 2 or more disks anymore; in fact, you could actually do the reverse and put a few movies on *one* disk if you really felt like it (and the total length doesn't exceed 360 mins). And...

5. No.. no conversion should be necessary: Nero Vision accepts over 2 dozen different formats. But finally...

6. If you really want to stick with your existing application, well, since it seems to be working only in SP mode (from what I gather from their site), you may consider chopping off less crucial opening/closing credits where applicable. That way, if certain videos are just a hair or so above the 120min mark, they may work to one disk after all.

Apparently (for movie dvd maker), file size is less an issue than *video length*, so a "compression" would just degrade video quality without the benefit of making a movie too long "smaller" for the application you're using.

Answer 3

Download DVD Shrink

Answer 4

Try using a software that compresses at this Free Website:

http://www.freewarefiles.com

its a cool website

or try this:

http://www.download.com

Bye

Answer 5

Have you tried burning to a dual-layer disc?