How to fit 2 hours on 1 DVD
 

I'm trying get 2 hours of content on a single DVD and struggling to find the right Vegas/DVDA settings to accomplish. I'm starting with a 56 gig of intermediate avi files and rendering to mpg2. My finished mpg2 file is about 25% over the 4.7GB DVD limit. When I select the "Fit to Disk" option in DVDA, I get a message that says to make more media assets available for re-compress. Can anyone explain what this means? Do I need to re-render my intermediates chosing a lower quality setting? If so, which setting would most effect the size with least loss of quality?

1.) changing video render quality in Project tab from best to good
2.) lowering bit rate -currently maximum = 9,500,000 and avg = 6,000,000
3.) lowering video quality slider on Video tab from 31 to ??

Thanks for any input

IF using VBR settings 120 minutes need to be rendered (compressed in Vegas) to MAX: 8,000,000, AVG:4,826,000, LOW: 2,000,000. These settinga apply if rendering the audio to AC3 which I prefer as it is a smaller file size which allows a higher bitrate for the video. If using PCM or WAV audio then the average bitrate needs to be set to 3,451,000.

HTHs

Render from the timeline using VBR and this bitrate calculator:

DVD-HQ : Bitrate & GOP calculator

Put in your time and what type of audio you're using and set the minimum, average, and maximum bitrate according to the calculator. Make sure to check Best in Vegas for full screen rendering quality.

http://www.johncline.com/bitcalc110.zip is my long-time favourite bitrate calculator.
Set the Safety Margin to 5% and you'll never go over your limit.

thanks everyone - exactly what I needed!

Art

Haven't tried that one. I've used the one I linked for very long time and squeezed almost 3 hours on a disc and never had any issues.