You cant decide what size you encode files for a DVD, its not a computer that can play anything.
A DVD has a standard.
To conform, meaning play on any set top player, you need to encode the files into:
* Resolution
o 720 × 480, 704 × 480, 352 × 480, 352 × 240 pixel (NTSC)
o 720 × 576, 704 × 576, 352 × 576, 352 × 288 pixel (PAL)
* Aspect ratio
o 4:3
o 16:9
* Frame rate
o 29.97 frame/s (NTSC)
o 25 frame/s (PAL)
only the bold ones truly count.
thats it.
And here is a tidbit no one really knows, WIDESCREEN 16x9 video is still 720x480. It is encoded anamorphically and if you viewed a 16x9 video as 4:3, it would look squashed on the sides. When you tag a video as 16x9 it then "un anamorphsizes" it and you see a widescreen video.
When you create the DVD from those half size MPEG1 files, they get blown up while watching by the dvd player.
The only thing that can be done to make DVD video files smaller is:
shorter duration, length of video
encode at lower bit rate
So to lay it all out:
take your video files. encode them as MPEG1 for the video and Dolby 2.0 for the audio, using compressor (or whatever you use). With MPEG1 u cant mess with the bit rates, its always 1.85mbps.
Then using DVDSP import the files, will be 1 video 1 audio file for each track. Make your DVD.
I made the Justice League Unlimited Season 1, 13 episodes at 22minutes each, on one DVD. Still under 5hrs. And the DVD was maxed out at 4.4GB.
What everyone else in the thread seems to be talking about is burning just a DATA DVD and not a true Digital Video Disc like what you rent at Blockbuster. You can put anything you want onto a DVD, just like a CD. But it wont play in a DVD player, it would just be a disc that shows up on your computer.