Maximum size of movie that Movie Maker 2.1 will burn to a DVD

[Guest]

I am trying to burn a 820 MB movie in Movie Maker to a DVD-R that holds 4.7
GB. Before starting the save process a message pops up warning that movies
cannot be more than 60 minutes. This movies is about 75 minutes. But since
the movie is less than 4.7 GB and the 120 minute rating on the DVD disk,
shouldn't burn to this media?

 

[print_maker]

What software are you burning the movie with?

MovieMaker doesn't make DVDs for watching on a DVD player.

 

[Guest]

I am using the Dell installed Sonic DVD program. They way they integrated
this with Movie Maker in the Dell Media Center it makes it appear to be part
of Movie Maker. But my recent research made me aware that it is actually
another software program. But after reading the Sonic DVD help files I see
that a 4.7 GB DVD disk really only holds 60 minutes of highest quality video.
Still doesn't make sense to me that my file size is so much smaller than
that. And also unclear is if the titles and transitions and still pictures I
have integrated into the movie are part of the 60 minute limit.

 

[print_maker]

OK, That makes sense, MyDVD is doing the DVD burning (and the fitting to
disc)

When your movie is converted to MPEG2 - it will actually fill the DVD at the
bitrate that MyDVD uses. You may check to see if it has other settings
somewhere. They could get more minutes of video on if it were using a lower
bitrate. Tradeoff is quality which is probably why they are doing 60
minutes.