I have an AVI file that is 768M. Obvisously, it won't fit on one CDR. How can I use VDub to lower the bitrate just enough to where it'll be like 710M, so it'll just fit? I tried using the calc button, but then when it re-encodes, it's saying projected file size will be huge! I mean, like 7800M huge! WTH? What's the proper way to do this? It's such a good quality video, that I'm sure it'll still look pretty decent if I reduce it just enough to fit on one CD. Can someone give me a clue here? It would seem that you just enter the filesize you want, and then encode it, right? But I don't seem to be getting the expected results. Or is it normal to get crazy huge numbers like that? Will it eventually climb back down toward the end? I don't really want to wait that long to find out. Can anyone help me out here?

If you do a search on the subject (keywords of AVI and increase or file size, etc.), users have reported increases of file sizes as much as 5X the AVI format. What you are experiencing is quite normal.

What do you mean? You mean the projected file size is not actually what the final file size is going to be? I did do a search or two, and came up with very little information about reducing file sizes. I believe there were 3 results, and none of them had much to do with what I'm asking.

Let me clarify again what I want to do. I'm trying to make the file come out to a more specific (and slightly smaller) size. Are you saying that I'm doing that correctly, but VDub just shows some weird huge number as the projected file size for awhile? Will the end result be something else? That projected file size is not accurate then?

got this from another site:

Optionally, if you have a slightly oversize file and need to burn it to CD. Convert it to a BIN/CUE or ISO and you can burn it as Mode 2 with a program like Nero. That mode eliminates the error checking and saves quite a bit of CD space.

try that. might work. but VDub should be working for you.

When you re-save it in Vdub you've got to set the compression you want.

So select compression from the video tab & select the codec you want which is what I think you've done.
The again on the video tab select normal recompress and save.

Yeah, it had VBR audio, so I extracted that as WAV and recompressed it to MP3. Then, I set the video codec to xvid and proceeded to encode the avi at a slightly less bitrate with the newly CBR MP3 audio. Now I have it working on another tower I have, and it seems to be projecting a 650M or so file. Not sure why it's any different, since that's exactly what I did on this machine. Isn't there a guide to doing this with VDub? Because when I try what seems would make sense, the indications are that it's not doing what I would expect. Very perplexing....