Learn how to compress more than one file or large video file onto a DVD disc in this article.
Part 1 DVD Media Formats and Choosing DVD Disc
Part 2 How to Compress Video Files to Fit on a DVD?
Part 3 How to Split Video Files to Burn Multiple DVD?
When you import your video file into the DVD burning tool, you may notice that the file actually gets larger than the file itself. The reason they get larger in size is because of the file format. Let's take an example to put this in detail. If you have a AVI file which is 1 GB on your hard disk, when you get the video into whatever program you are using, it may get 3 or 4 GB or even larger.
Files in AVI, MP4, WMV or other format are compressed files. Most DVD players only recognize video DVD format that encodes in MPEG-2 codec which is different with your video file. Different video format and video codec has different compression rate. That's why the imported file will get larger in size when imported into DVD burning program for burning. When this happens, basically have three options:
1. Change to DVD-9 from DVD-5. DVD-9 stores more video data which may work for you. If DVD-9 is still not enough, considering making yourself a Blu-ray DVD disc (Blu-ray Creator) if your conditions are allowed.
2. Another option is to use a program to compress/shrink the file to fit a DVD disc. This might affect the quality a bit.
3. One more option for large single file, you can split it up and burn them onto two or more DVD discs.
In case you need this, below is the step-by-step guide on how to compress files to DVD (Options 2) by using DVD Creator. This professional DVD Creating Software is able to compress relatively large and more than one files to fit on a DVD disc.
Step 1 Download DVD Creator
DVD Creator is able to burn AVI, MKV, MP4, MPEG, MOV, M2TS, TS, MTS, TP, AVCHD and many other videos to DVD disc for playback on home DVD player. With DVD Creator, you don't have to worry about video formats compatible problems.
Free Download DVD Creator 31.1MB
Free Download DVD Creator for Mac 40.7MB
Step 2 Import Video Files
So, you have downloaded, installed and launched the program, now click on "Import" button and you may want to add you movies files into the program. You can create multiple titles to burn videos and photo slideshows. When successfully imported, you will see the interface as below:
As you can see from the bottom bar, the imported video has exceeded the DVD's capacity. (The movie is in AVI format with the size of 1.25 GB.)
Step 3 Customize Settings to Fit a DVD
Now you have two options to make the movie to fit a DVD disc:
a. Use a DVD9 disc. Click on the down arrow to choose DVD 9 to replace the current DVD 5. (The default DVD disc is D5.)
Once you've changed to D9, you may see the capacity bar is totally green which indicates the movie's size doesn't exceed the DVD's capacity.
b. If you still want to use DVD 5, you can set the video quality by clicking on the down arrow next to DVD disc.
There are three options available: Fit to disc, Standard, and High Quality. By choosing "Fit to disc" you can compress the movie to fit the DVD-5 disc. After that, please check the capacity:
Step 4 Burn Movies to DVD
For other settings, you can make DVD menu, edit videos, etc. After that, you can click on "Burn" tab, insert your recordable DVD disc into your DVD drive and burn the movies onto DVD disc.
Once the burning is done, put the DVD disc into your DVD player and watch it on your TV. Have fun. If you want to split videos to burn on more than one DVD disc, check out: How to split videos/movies up to burn onto DVD disc?