One thing I have to say for you, enigma--you don't give up easily. OK, at last we have some actual names and numbers to work with. Although Gnutella doesn't permit the mention of copyrighted works, I happened to read your msg last night before it was edited and managed to d/l the same exact 1.37GB DEVISE AVI file of, er, "Zachary Zipper." I then set it up for transcoding on my Nero 7 version of Nero Vision, v. 4.9.7.6. You are using Nero Vision 4, right?

Here's where it gets weird. Although Remoc is right that large AVI files yield large VOBs (after all, Zachary Zipper is close to 3 hours long), my NV4 can easily fit it onto a standard-size DVD. With the Quality setting at Automatic (fit to disc) it selects a bit rate of about 3470 kbit/s, which yields "Average" quality at 4.37GB used out of 4.38GB available. I found no limitation if I wanted to lower the bit rate below 1691 kbit/s. 1691 kbps results in the usage of only 2.31GB, but there's no point in going that low, since the result will really look lousy. You're quite correct BTW in holding the resolution to 720 x 480, since lower-res will also look lousy. As you say, video format is fixed at MPEG-2, and the only other variable is Encoding mode. You might try changing it to Fast Encoding (1-Pass), though that shouldn't change the physical size of the file, but at least you'll find out sooner that it won't fit.

There's only one item left to check--what DVD capacity are you using? There are three DVD size settings on NV4's Select Menu: DVD-9 (double layer, 7.95GB), DVD (the standard DVD-5, 4.38GB), and DVD-1 (8 cm) (teeny little 3" disk, 1.30GB). If by any chance you are set on DVD-1, that would be your problem, as you should be set to DVD.

Sorry, that's all I could come up with. You could always convert the resulting oversize Nero NRG file to an ISO with UltraISO and then shrink that down to DVD-5 size with DVDShrink, as I suggested in an earlier post, but that seems like a lot of trouble to go to. Good luck!

Lenny

While using fit to disc.

If the file will fit using 1-pass (I don't see why it wouldn't), then it will also fit using 2-pass with much better variable encoding, thus keeping fast action sequences at a higher bit rate, while letting slow action sequences slip into lower bit rate.

Which is why I highly recommend using 2-pass encoding.

One thing I really don't get though is why someone would download an AVI for the sole purpose of transcoding to DVD. Just download the DVD and skip the process of encoding.

There's no question that 2-pass yields results superior to 1-pass. However, I wasn't recommending 1-pass to shrink the file size. As I said, "You might try changing it to Fast Encoding (1-Pass), though that shouldn't change the physical size of the file, but at least you'll find out sooner that it won't fit." enigma257 had complained that it took 4-5 hours of encoding before he was informed that the transcoded file was too big, and 1-pass would at least get him the results sooner.

As to why he'd download an AVI instead of the DVD, some videos are too new or old or rare to be out on DVD, and many ISPs charge by the number of GBs downloaded or even slow down accounts that download over a certain amount per month. My own ISP, Comcast, has a 250GB monthly bandwidth limit.