A regular DVD holds just under 2 hours of video. This assumes that the video is of very good (broadcast) quality and that you aren't including many if any menus or other goodies as part of the package (such as extra sound files, outtakes, and the like).

The basic DVD disc holds up to 4.7 Gigabytes of data. The new double-sided/double density DVDs (Blu-Ray and others) can hold twice this amount and therefore twice as long a movie. However, the level of complexity involved in burning anything longer than a one hour movie to a DVD increases dramatically with length, so beware.

Note that not all DVDs are compatible with all DVD players. The most compatible is DVD-R, followed by DVD+R. Note, too, that the longer you take to burn your DVD (the slower the disc spins while burning), the better chances that your DVD will successfully play in DVD players.

Last update: 06:02 PM Friday, December 23, 2005