[sparky22]

I have Roxio Creator 2009 and am trying to burn a long .AVI file. It is about 2:00:00 long. I burnt it in “fit to disk” mode, but I did not like the quality. I read that I can span across two disks, but I cannot do it using MyDVD or MyDVD Express. When I select “Standard Play” or “High Quality” and then select “Create Disk” the “Burn” button is grayed out in the “Burn Project” window.

I have read in a couple of places that all I need to do is to go ahead and try to burn even though it will not fit and the software will prompt me for the next disk when the first one is full.

The file is 26.6G long. I followed the instruction in another thread and found that the file was 1:49:32 long (time-wise).

What can I do?

[Brendon]

Sparky,

Some DATA burning software would span discs, prompting you when to insert another blank disc, however this is not possible with a Video-DVD. The Video-DVD standard does not allow it.

What you need to do is to split your video into two parts, and then build yourself two DVDs using half the video for each one. This way, each disc is a stand-alone complete disc complying with the standard.

[sparky22]

What you are saying makes complete sense, but from the lists of “features” I thought that the manual process that you described above happened automatically. It sounded as though it would encode into multiple directory structures (or some such thing) prior to burning. I got this impression from their reference to “projects” in statements like “Span large files and projects across multiple CDs or DVDs” and “Roxio delivers the industry's best and easiest burning tools for storing, archiving and sharing your irreplaceable media files on CDs or DVDs. Span large projects across multiple discs.”

I can see now that they do not actually say that I could do what I am looking for. Oh well.

I would like to hear more about your work around for my problem. How do I split the video using the Creator tools? I have noticed that sometimes the “trim” icon in MyDVD is not active. It seems that I had to futz around with it for a while to get it to highlight. Then, when I did trim some off the end, it did not seem to change anything. The required disk space number remained the same.
I assumed that I could open the .avi file, trim off the last half and burn the rest. Then restart the process and this time trim off the first half and then burn again. This does not sound very efficient. Will the second half of the file be gone when I go back to burn it because I trimmed it off? Or hopefully there is a better way.

Sparky22

[Jim_Hardin]

You are making it say what you want to read…

Only thing I find with “span” on it is referring to Data files not movies!



I know the pic is 2010 but 2009 was the same.

It is a shame it doesn’t do it automatically but then you are getting into either very simple choices for how to handle the menu or complex feature that you see in $300+ Authoring packages (and they don’t even do editing)

The process Brendon outlined is the best, I have been using it since Ver 6 (2003)

[sparky22]

How does one “split” the video?

[sknis]

I think this will give you the idea. Load the video, go to about the middle and cut off the end. Save it under a different name. Something like start of video. Load the original file again (it will not have been changed) and go to the middle and cut off the beginning. Save that as end of video. Go to my DVD and add one of the two saved file and burn it to an Image file (ISO). Do the same with the other section. When you are finished, COPY each of the ISO files to a separate disc.

Note, if you don't use a menu, the disc will start playing when you insert it and will loop to the start. With a menu, you have the ability to get seated comfortably before you press play.

Do you have a burner that does DL and can you cut off some of the video to make it under about 1:45. If so you might be able to fit the movie on a single disc.

[sparky22]

Thanks for the details Sknis. I think my burner will do DL come to think of it. I never really consider this approach as the disks used to be so darn expensive. Maybe that has changed in the last year or so.

Sparky22