Originally Posted by lengoldstein

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.

Originally Posted by Sleepless

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.