It takes about two gigabytes to store one hour of average video on a DVD. 4.7 GB is the max which means an average DVD holds 2 hours of high quality video.

The amount of information that can be written is determined by the disc?s recording capacity as well as the physical and logical formats used.  A DVD disc can be single-sided or double-sided. Each side can have one or two layers of data. The amount of video a disc can hold depends on how much audio accompanies it and how heavily the video and audio are compressed. If you lower the bit rate on a normal DVD you can fit more than two hours but it will reduce the quality of the video, and that?s the opposite of being professional.

The more or less you compress the more or less available space you have on the disc. For video files, assuming you are encoding into MPEG-2 format, a good rule of thumb is a 2-hour movie will fit onto a 4.7 GB disc.

Now in comes the dual layer disc.

Dual layer DVD recordable discs are the newest technology breakthrough in optical discs. The advanced, single-sided disc has an amazing 8.5GB of storage capacity, enough for up to four hours of DVD-quality video, 16 hours of VHS-quality video, or over 120 hours of MP3 audio. It is compatible with all current DVD video players and DVD-ROM drives as well as new DVD+R DL drives, the disc is ideal for virtually any business or household application.

There are various ways to recognize dual-layer discs: 1) the gold color, 2) two serial numbers on one side.

Quick solution:

Burn to multiple DVDs Or purchase a dual layer DVD burner.

Last update: 10:52 AM Friday, June 8, 2007