Can I use Convert2DVD to make a DVD from a 1 GB avi file w/o reducing this file first to 272mbs? I'm just concerned about losing quality here. There's more than enough room on the DVD....

How can I do this?
Thanks.

Why do you think you might need to reduce the size to 272mb?

Chose "high quality/slow conversion" under "settings -> encoding". As long as your file has enough bitrate, it will fill the size of DVD you have chosen.

That's what Convert2DVd does. It makes no sense.

Did that.

Not true. Convert2DVD makes a 272 MG file from a 1Gb avi source file (exported earlier from Adobe Premiere 6.5).

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Q: How come Video_TS files look great (even at 272MB) when I watch video with DVD Shrink 3.2, but burned DVDs show jerky video? Tried DVD Burn engines: Nero 6 / ImgBurn (latest) / DVD Decryptor / Convert2DVD.

Hello,

Just so that others can benefit from the answer, here is an offical VSO reponse on the matter:

"Hello,
after some tests with this video, it plays just fine and there is no problem in ConvertX in that case.

So why it's so small compared to the source ?

Your Video is from a DV camera, which is raw uncompressed taking HUGE space. Audio is RAW uncompressed PCM taking as well a lot of space. Typically 1 hour can take more than 10 gigs of space.

Now, on DVD you haven't got the choice. video is MPEG2, a very efficient compressed format and the most standard audio is AC3, also a compressed format.

The maximum achievable bitrate on a DVD is 9.800.000 Bits per second. Your video has a bitrate of 30.314.000, so the size of your file must be divided at least by 30.314.000 / 9.800.000 = 3(roughly). In the worst scenario - the encoder always produces max bitrate - your DVD video cannot be bigger than 0.98/3 = 0.32 Gig. Specifically for your video, it has a lot of black portions and most part of the image is static, so the encoder will be very efficient when compressing to mpeg2.

ConvertX encoder is designed to achieve the best quality, given the maximum possible bitrate. But this best quality can sometimes be achieved without reaching this maximum bitrate, that why the result is even a little bit smaller than the theoric 0.32 Gigs.

You want to have a full DVD, use more than 5 minutes of video, and you'll see as it's getting longer on the screen, it'll fill up the DVD. If you have less than 1 hour of video, the DVD will never be 100% full."
--VSO Lead Developer

Thanks Cali Girl for explaining why DVD's must reduce avi files....

Only RAW videodata is reduced.
AVI itself is container, it can contain huge amount fo different codecs.
Different codecs have various packing rates.

Most avis now are containing XviD encoded videos, and they are so efficiently packed that one 700MB avi will use 2-3GB on DVD.